Top-11: Album Covers in my Collection.

Here is the first post that does not dissect love or its varied desperations, because, being myself, a huge fan of Cover Designing, I couldn’t go any further without making a Top-11 of my favourite album covers.

#11: Jagged Little Pill — Alanis Morissette

 It made the top-11 because I imagine how many pills she took before she came out with that cover. It shows clearly how messy a break-up can be in your life: with a big blank space and a lot of quite indistinguishable sad images where you manage to put something.

#10: B’Day [Deluxe Edition] — Beyoncé

I still remember my ‘WTF’ face when I first saw the cover for the original version of B’Day (priceless) and how delighted I felt with the Deluxe Edition. Not only for the album itself coming with 18 great songs (seriously, a cut version of the first song to close the album was awful) and a 12-videos DVD, but she could bring a cover that clearly showed how greatly glamorous she looks with some great Photoshop brushes to fill the rest of the cover.

#09: Laundry Service — Shakira

You’d think I wouldn’t have much to say with a naked blond girl on the cover, but that’s what makes that cover so great: it has so many fantastic (and separate) points that you can take a little while to notice she is naked. Starting with her eyes, black instead of the American cliché of green or blue carrying a huge sexiness that you feel they’re holding your stare, going to the Photoshop tattooed album name on her arm, passing through her lips and then you realize she’s naked on the cover: fascinating work.

#08: Doll Domination — The Pussycat Dolls

Yes, the red-haired girl is Jessica, not Carmit, who was the first to leave that group formation. For a flopped album, it comes with a very greatly detailed cover: with Rome and Arabia on the back and Mumbai, London, LA, Cairo and many others on the floor, these gorgeous girls come on an old-fashioned motorbike to show they’re coming to rule this thing. (Un)fortunately, they didn’t.

#07: Brave — Jennifer Lopez

Another flop. But the fact that an album that screamed ‘POP!’ right from its cover was sent to be sold on the American hip-hop market isn’t the topic of this post. ‘Brave’ brings Jennifer Lopez facing herself on a pink album filled with water effects and, I think we all agree that there can be no higher bravery than facing yourself. It’s simple, but it delivers the message.

#06: One Heart — Celine Dion

What’s so great about it? Not the picture you see, but the cover you touch. It comes on a special thick and sort of rough paper with a brilliant flatting on the top of the name. The entire booklet follows the style with brilliant-flatted-stripe-hearts on the pages. This is one more point I have against digital music: you can’t feel that on your computer screen.

#05: I’m Going to Tell You a Secret — Madonna

It’s not the simplicity of her name (using the same font back from ‘Bedtime Stories’) that calls my attention or the Photoshop used on her picture. The most appealing point in this cover is to see Madonna looking at the ‘sky’ sort of waiting for something heavenly. For all Madonna fans it’s already explained, but for those who aren’t this is the reason: Madonna doesn’t sit and wait from heaven, she puts her face into it and makes it really happen. It’s paradoxical.

#04: Sex and the City 2 — Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

New York on Carrie’s glasses is the charm addition to this fantastic image. Different from the excessive usage of pink from the first movie, the choice for gold and silver makes this movie advertisement much more glamorous. But no matter the complete charm and perfect match of the desert, the sky, Carrie’s outfit (and NY!), it’s brilliant to see the fast-moving and neurotic Carrie Bradshaw alone in the desert looking absolutely calm (not that on the series soundtrack, she looked worried, on movie #1’s cover she was anxiously trying to relax and now, finally, she looks calm).

#03: Circus — Britney Spears

Doesn’t she look good here? Alcazar and Matamoros are very circus-like fonts, which were a great choice. The cover is very colourful and, this is the good part, detailed (most covers nowadays are just a picture and the album’s name). The deluxe edition changes the edge colours, which doesn’t look as good as this one. Another good point is how peaceful she looks, which contradicts the idea of ‘daring’ you can get from a Circus. Interesting to see also she didn’t use Photoshop to fix that folded armpit.

#02: Ray of Light — Madonna

This is one with only a picture and the album’s name, so why is it second place in this list? Because it’s an ‘intelligent’ picture to follow the album’s name, you can really believe that picture was taken ‘quicker than a ray of light’, almost a candid photo while she was turning round, which suits perfectly. Also the symbol referring to quick light separating her name from the album's name.

#01: Oral Fixation volume 2 — Shakira

Eve with the forbidden fruit on her hand — this connects perfectly to the name of the album, expressing that humans, just like fish, die from their mouth. Just like Eve, she is totally naked and this is the difference (and improvement) from ‘Laundry Service’: she also doesn’t wear make-up and still looks very sexy. Also very appealing is the apple on her hand, making us almost understandable towards Eve. And, for an album that starts with a song asking how God is doing, the baby-serpent could never go unnoticed, resembling Devil itself, looking appealing, or do you want to say you don’t want to hold that baby?

Love and pizzas

There is this very wise saying ‘the smart learns from mistakes of his own whilst the wise learns from mistakes of another’s’. So I ask myself: do I reach the half-and-half level by learning from mistakes of everybody’s? Okay, maybe not everybody, but a bunch of people make this mistake almost on a daily basis and I have to say I have made it several times myself.

There is something about becoming part of somebody’s life that most people misunderstand: when a person chooses you to become part of his/her life, you start with a very small piece, like the green paprika on a complete pizza and, yes, most people are indeed aware of this. The mistake comes, however, on how they try to become the most of the pizza.

See, not so many people enjoy paprika and they tend to remove it from the pizza (at least I do and almost all my friends as well), but something’s undeniable: paprika makes a whole lot of difference on the taste and, when properly disguised, can become a very pleasant sensation after the first bite.

It works the same on a relationship: when you get a piece in someone’s life you can’t worry that much about conquering space, don’t forget the person had a life before you (easier said than done, though) and you are now a part of it. And, if both of you wish to, you can get a bigger part. Anxiety and despair will do nothing to help, but they’ll destroy, though.

So this is the lesson I had learnt, forgotten and reminded myself of: take it easy. When love is involved, and I mean that breath-taking, stop-beating love that drives all of your concentration to the object of your affection, we some times want to rush everything and get married at the first church. (Un)fortunately forever lasts longer and it’s the couple’s job to ‘work on the sparkle’ (PARKER, Sarah Jessica. — Sex and the City 2, New Line Cinema, 2010.) otherwise the passion’s fire will consume everything and darkness will take over the moment the fire’s gone.

This is another common mistake which I can happily say I never made: people mix passion with love and each one of them has its very good and very bad side. ‘Oh, what’s bad about love?’ you can say, but think this way: passion is like fire on a rainforest; it consumes every inch of you, but it gets tamed in a while. Love, however, burns slowly. You can feel yourself all the time, just warmer. Yes, I’m a ‘love’ kind of person. It pulls you through, making you feel safe, warm, and, most of all, backed up.

That’s what makes having one to call ‘my love’ (note possessive pronoun) so special: you can be aware there is at least one more person thinking of you, making plans with you (even though he/she might not say exactly which plans). You can be aware that somebody’s making you a bigger part of his/her pizza. So, just relax, be yourself (that self that conquered you a pizza) and enjoy whichever flavor you two become!

Anxiety

One of the most desperate things I have ever seen is anxiety, surpassing all the craziness of live it can drive people to say or do things they might not even remember, or worse, regret for a lifetime. But how do you control anxiety?

Scientists say anxiety is a matter of distraction, for keeping your mind busy helps drive anxiety away. You can bet those scientists aren’t anxious. Not that keeping yourself busy doesn’t help, but when we talk about the levels of anxiety that call doctors’ attention, one mind can’t be busy that long.

I have a theory, though: instead of avoiding distraction, use it. Think something else whenever a bad thought threats to haunt your sweet moments of piece. Don’t let a bad dream become the fear of a reality, or worse, don’t let it become a bad reality itself. How does it work?

Anxiety is an exaggerated expectation of a close event (the definition of ‘close’ in this case varies according to the importance of the event itself) that is about to come. Panic creates the sensation time is slowing down and anxiety creates panic. So, just to make things worse, the more you expect something, the longer it seems for it to arrive.

That’s where enters the distraction. We all know that distracting ourselves makes time seem to fly past us, so why not use it in order to help control the terrible and unwelcome anxiety? The more distracted you get (think of whatever makes you lose track of time, especially something also important, but that isn’t getting its deserved focus due to anxiety).

Believe it can help, for it really does. Write an article on a blog or go shopping or read a good book for the millionth time, these will keep you busy as scientists expect you to be, but after the book is done and the mall is closed, let your mind wander about and don’t try to guide it anywhere. Before you realize it time will have passed and whatever you wanted so desperately to happen will be knocking on your front door.

Let's Talk about Love...

I heard Love (capital L) is something desperate when it gets shown in music, the same person showed me how simple Love is in real life. Interesting enough is that I’ve been classifying things for a while now, but as I have to customize things I do, you’ll see lots of new familiar things!!!

So… let’s get started?

TOP-11 ‘HOW DESPERATE LOVE CAN BE’ SONGS

There are lots of songs that even romantic people have to acknowledge how desperate they sound. For the first post I’ll mention only songs I like, but you can expect future posts with ‘new’ songs.

#11: Celine Dion – There Comes a Time

 Any song that says ‘let me be your soldier’ or ‘I’ll die for you’ deserves the title of desperate. If it comes with both of them CLOSING the song, it makes the Top-11!

#10: Jennifer Lopez – Como Ama Una Mujer

 Recognize you gave your best seeing heaven on the loved one and use metaphors of wounds, wind and physical space and you’ll sound desperate.

#09: Alanis Morissette – So Unsexy

 Isn’t it a jealous, attention-freak and desperate woman?

#08: Beyoncé – Listen

‘If you dooooooon’t… if you wooooooooooon’… liiiiiiiiiiisteeeeeeeeeen’ – Nothing left to say.

#07: Britney Spears – Born to Make You Happy

The good thing about these songs is that they are self-explanatory. As sweet and romantic as it can be, saying you were born for the sake of somebody else’s happiness is a bit too much.

#06: Jennifer Lopez – Pieces

‘And then you crashed through that door to my soul, put back all the pieces and made me whole (…) I’m gonna give you my heart until it beats no more.’ – Need I elaborate? This new song from Jennifer Lopez is as desperate as could be. I’d release that leaked album to the Pop Diva market and earn obscene amounts if I were her ;)

#05: Toni Braxton – Breathe Again

‘I’ll die for you’, ‘until it beats no more’, ‘born to make you happy’, then why should I ever breathe again if your love ends?

#04: Leona Lewis – Bleeding Love

This is something interesting. Even though all desperate love songs say there can be no life without love, this one is the TOP of the ‘wound’ metaphor. It’s amazing how she tries to heal herself, but his Love cuts everything and she starts bleeding again. As romantic as possible, I’m sorry but I can’t help remembering a horror movie.

#03: Shakira – The One

I don’t know if it’s the cliché scene on the rain where she is the ONLY one who wants to get wet or the head shake, or the constant usage of ‘the one’. But she deserves a good spot.

#02: Beyoncé – Broken-Hearted Girl

Is it me or ANY situation where a person states that he/she simply can’t live without the one they know broke their heart sounds simply desperate enough to deserve the second place?

#01: Celine Dion – It’s All Coming Back to Me Now

Even the title is huge. The song I won’t even mention. How could a song of a woman trying to forget a lost love that keeps finding its way back to her memories not earn the first place?

So... this is it for the first post. I have plenty more inspiration left to write, not only about 'desperate', not only about 'love'.

Stay tuned!