Whole Lotta Red's cover is a 1977 punk zine
- File
- 0013
- Year
- 1977 → 2020
- Category
- Music / Design
- Filed in
- Music
The hook
Christmas Day 2020: Playboi Carti finally drops Whole Lotta Red. The cover looks like a photocopied zine, a stark black-and-white portrait with the title dripping in red. It is a near-direct quote of the first issue of Slash, a punk magazine from 1977.
The Original
Slash was founded in 1977 by Steve Samiof. He and Melanie Nissen built the first cover around her photo of Dave Vanian, singer of The Damned. The magazine ran 29 issues before folding in 1980, then lived on as a record label.
Slash, Volume One, Number One.
What was happening
Punk had a vampire
Vanian was punk's resident vampire: slicked black hair, white face, black clothes, while goth was still taking shape. Carti's Whole Lotta Red era borrowed the same palette and rebuilt it for rage beats.
The detail people forgot
Nobody got a credit
The cover was designed by Art Dealer (Jung Chung). Punknews pointed out that neither Samiof nor Nissen is named anywhere on the release, and nobody involved commented on the reference.
Why it matters now
Whole Lotta Red split critics on release, then went on to define rage, the sound a wave of rappers copied. Most fans wearing the cover on a tee have never seen a copy of Slash. Now you have.
Every new aesthetic is an old one, reprinted.
Words: LEDGERA Editorial.
