They Got The Beat
Time for another slice of delicious 80s goodness!
The Off The Record Project rolls on this week with another beloved album. This time around, it is the GoGo’s double-platinum debut album from 1981: Beauty and the Beat. I had several requests from people to pose for this album cover, but these gals got their request in first!
The Story
These five friends travel to Mexico every year so we wanted to work in the Mexico angle somehow. We finally settled on The Amigo-Go’s! For the album title, the obvious substitution was to change “Beat” to “Beach”. Everything really came together for the concept on this one!
The GoGo’s “Beauty and the Beat” 1981
As I started studying the album cover, the first thing I noticed was how it has a very low-res feel to it. It almost looks like someone ran a cheap effects filter on it or something. Since the album came out almost 10 years before Photoshop, I’ve got no idea how they actually came up with the image. Even though I was trying to duplicate the look of the original, I wasn’t crazy about turning out something that looked so blocked up and pixellated. I decided to compromise and give the final image a painted look, but still keep a little more photorealistic quality.
The ladies were real troopers, dealing with the weird makeup and precariously affixed towels. The potential for wardrobe malfunction was very high on this one- but they got it done!
“Beauty and the Beach” 2014
The New Cover
The final image really came together well. It took a couple of hours in Photoshop to get the exact look I wanted, but it was worth it. I think this image makes a fantastic addition to the project- a slightly modern twist on a cover that anyone who grew up in the 80s will recognize. What do YOU think? Leave a comment and let me know.
The Next Project
So which album will be next? If you have one you would like to try, let me know! There are SO MANY albums still to be done…
