A Recent Example: Amadou & Mariam's Welcome to Mali

It has been a while, I know. I am still not very sure that these promotional album stickers are indeed a passionate subject to have a blog about. I am afraid that the number of blog views reinforces this doubt, actually nobody is taking a look at this blog.

Anyaway, I take the latest album by Malian star blind couple Amadou & Mariam as a example. Here, you can see a sticker that is put on without much love, it is not at all put on straight, it is covering part of the art work of the album, and the typography, although stylish, turns out to be less fortunate: the visibility of the names of the featured artists (Damon Albarn, Tiken Jah Fakoly, Keziah Jones, K'Naan, M, and Juan Rozoff) is far from optimal.

The purpose of this sticker:

• It is indicating that it is a new album
  
• It mentions featured artists that are well-known
  
• It mentions two songs that are put forward, i.e. Sabali and Masiteladi
  
• It shows the logo of radio station France Inter (in some way involved in the promotion of this album)

But what a beauty when opening the gatefold CD, the inlay opens up as a mini-poster, it is too big for my A4 scanner...

A Few Examples...

On Habib Koité's «Afriki» album, a large horizontal sticker in French announces two concerts in Paris, whereas the American label Cumbacha had already put a sticker with a New York Times review.

This a true beauty, the design of the album cover and the typography and the colour of the sticker...





On Tabu Ley's compilation, the sticker seems an integral part of the cover artwork...

A new blog about a marginal topic

As I often buy CDs in France, mostly through the internet, I was struck by the frequent use of promo stickers glued on the shrink wrap, announcing tour data, or reproducing snippets of (positive) comments by reviewing newspapers or specialised music magazines. Sometimes, there are even two or three stickers on the same album, mostly one large horizontal one, completed by one or two smaller ones, rectangular or square. One or two years ago, I decided not to throw them away after unwrapping, with only a vague idea what to do with the stickers. Today, this vague idea was transformed in this new blog. It remains to be seen whether there will be many readers but a few search engine sessions didn't show me any web site nor blog covering this subject.

This blog will address the following topics, as far as I can see now:

• Show some examples of CD stickers
• Discern various types of stickers (shape, meaning of information)
• Discuss the usefulness of the stickers (marketingwise)
• Discuss the future of these stickers given decreasing album sales and digitalisation of the music industry
• Any other subjet that might come up via reader's comments

I don't know what the scope of this blog will be on the longer run, nor what its future will be, but I just start...