Disgusting might be the first word that comes to mind when you glance at this cover of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s fourth album (out April 16), but take a closer look — it’s actually quite exquisite. “From a design perspective, it’s executed beautifully,” says Erin Schiffman. “The detail is amazing. Look at the baby’s hair. That is crazy. The lighting is beautiful coming from behind the mosquito. Even the logo with the slime stuff is beautifully done.”
The cover stands out from the previous covers of the New York band’s varied back catalog of album art, and Carney says the 3-D rendering might be a bolder choice than the gross factor itself. “People want to hate 3-D animation,” he says. “People want that so badly to not be connected to rock and roll or cool. That’s a technique for making things that feels foreign to a rock record cover. It’s a ballsy thing to be referencing something that’s undeniably part of modern culture right now and something you’re used to seeing, but not in this format.”
So far, the cover — which was designed by and Beomsik Shimbe Shim and references Garbage Pail Kids trading cards from the ’80s — has elicited visceral reactions among fans and critics, which Storey says just might be the whole point. “Think of the name of the record, Mosquito,” she says. “There’s nothing more awful and disgusting and annoying and creepy and despised as a mosquito.”
(Interscope Records)