Julian Casablancas of the Strokes revealed today what he claims is the cover art for the New York band's next album, scheduled for release in March. The image he unveiled on Twitter is gathering amused comments as well it might.
A basketball player and a clown disport themselves on carriages on the toy town express; the clown is lying on his tummy like Boucher's Miss O'Murphy (but clothed ... in clown clothes) while the sportsman dangles his bare legs out of the orange truck and holds a purple basketball. Behind them, a goat perches atop a sapphire waterfall and a rainbow arcs across a blue bay.
An art critic asked to respond to this picture might leap to the conclusion that the Strokes have paid the great Jeff Koons to create an image of inconceivable kitsch and ineffable comic strangeness to grace their new album. The Strokes have a history of bad taste: their famous 2001 album Is This It was decorated with a black and white photo of a gloved hand on a woman's bottom.
But a closer look raises some fairly obvious questions about the picture. Album covers are usually square, and this is rectangular and cropped. Three-dimensional objects stand clear of the painting – a light fitting and, at the bottom right corner, part of a potted plant. The painting has a time-dulled, dust-flattened look, like a mural in a public building.
That is almost certainly what it is. Casablancas has probably spotted this majestically odd mural in a hospital children's ward, nursery or similar place. It's hilarious for him to publish this as purportedly the cover for the new album ... and his Twitter followers have taken it with good humour. They probably know his ways. Some suggest that it should definitely be the album's cover art. And perhaps it will be ... the guy obviously has a sense of humour.
