R.I.P Mory Kanté

In 2012, Mory Kanté released his last album, and it's one of his best albums. The album is dedicated to women of the world,living between tradition and modernity.

On 22 May 2020, Mory Kanté passed away in a hospital in Conakry, Guinea, because he couldn't get the proper medical treatment abroad, due to travel restrictions during this Corona-crisis. He was 70 years old.

African Pearls Collection

Syllart's African Pearls Collection comes with a uniform sticker to attract the attention of the potential buyer to the importance of the songs featured on these compilation CDs.

The Congo 70 volume comes with the text:

• African Pearls Collection - Congo 70 - Rumba Rock
• L'invention du son africain moderne...
• Double CD

thus stating the 70-s Rumba Rock is the invention of modern African sound...

***

The Mali 70 volume featuring some essential tracks that have never been released on CD (and even the LPs are hard to find), which is highlighted by the following text:

• African Pearls Collection -Mali 70 - Electric Mali
• Une folle décennie de création débridée

Quality Labels : FIP

In France, one of the quality labels given to CD albums, are the Sélection FIP. FIP, one of the radio frequencies of Radio France, gives this label to six albums per two weeks in any of the musical genres, be they Jazz, Blues, French chansons, Anglo-saxon Pop-Rock or World Music.

http://www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/fip/selection/index.php

The label aims to help choose the public among the numerous releases. The albums are promoted on the radio station during one month.

New 2009 examples...

I just received a new order with two outstanding albums from Mali, i.e. Oumou Sangaré's « Seya », and the latest album of Kasse Mady Diabaté.

I will start with the first one. On Oumou Sangaré's album, there are two stickers. The first is a small sticker with a very positive press comment by Howard Male (The World). On the bottom of the album, there is again a large sticker with various logo's, such as Arte TV, Mondomix, Inrockuptibles, Muziq, Le Monde, Vibrations and Séléction FIP. These organisations all recommend the album.

The album « Manden Djeli Kan » by one of my favorite singer Kassemady Diabaté comes with a simple artwork with few colours and nearly low-res graphics. Sticker-wise, there is just the Sélection FIP recommendation. But the music is great!

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...