Here is a brief list I've compiled of "Artists" whose works have been used by bands for album cover art. Their works were never created specifically for any certain album and therefore should be deleted. Most of them are long since dead.

Eugène Delacroix: http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/E ... oix/154992
Gustave Doré: http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/G ... %A9/134113
Adolphe-William Bouguereau: http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/A ... eau/145040
Albert Bierstadt: http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/A ... adt/173425
John Martin: http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/J ... tin/321920
Caspar David Friedrich http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/C ... ich/355695
Hieronymus Bosch: http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/H ... sch/322200

The following are ones I am unsure about:
William Blake: http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/W ... ake/353401
- He is also listed for “poetry” on that Ulver album, which may warrant his inclusion.

H.R. Giger: http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/H._R._Giger/14231
- He's still alive obviously; many bands have used his stuff, but I'm not sure he ever created anything for a specific album. Someone could doublecheck this.

Zdzislaw Beksinski: http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Z ... ski/136482
- Dead, but may have painted something for an album, I'm not sure. Could someone confirm?

All of this is of course under the discretion of the admins and mods. Issues such as whether a band asked an artist's permission to use their work is something that may need to be discussed.

Feel free to add to the list if you can find any. Thanks!

Personally, I fail to see how these men qualify for deletion, especially since some of them (such as Doré and Friedrich) have had their works used by a multitude of artists across the metal spectrim.

William Blake should be deleted for sure. Long-dead poets, painters, writers, actors, etc. whose works were used by bands due to their works being public domain should never be added.

HR Giger I'm not sure, because if the bands paid the copyright for the use of his artwork, it should be OK.

Other examples that should be deleted are actors whose lines were sampled from their movies (I think I saw Vincent Prince at some point... ). On the other hand, Orson Welles and Christopher Lee can stay, since they actually participated in recording voice/narration for metal albums (Manowar and Rhapsody, respectively).

I really need to amend the rules to reflect this...

So? Should we add every Picasso and Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci because some band likely used their work at some point? Cover artists such as Derek Riggs are obviously relevant to metal, but otherwise, it barely qualifies as trivia. I mean, where does it stop? A random band used a voice clip from Marilyn Monroe or a Hitler speech, so we add "Hitler - Voice sample"? Let's be sensible here.

I'm sure that Celtic Frost, Atrocity and Carcass legally used Giger's work. I dunno about the other bands.

I've deleted everyone except for Giger and Beksinski, though I think that the latter should also be deleted.

I'm in favor of a policy that suggests that, with the exception of copyrighted permission, an artist should only be added if they purposefully sought to contribute to the album or project in question. I'm not sure if people should be added otherwise if they were sampled or if their works were used without their knowledge or permission.

Any band that uses a Giger piece legitimately definitely had the artist's permission, and in some cases the artwork was either created or reworked for the album. For example, the sculpture on Heartwork was a 1993 update to H.R. Giger's sculpture "Life Support" from the 1960s, the music video being a real-life interpretation of that sculpture.

Celtic Frost didn't pay to use the album art (Satan I) for To Mega Therion or the inside art (Victory III). Giger let the band (then still Hellhammer) use his art for free on the condition that they don't make merchandise with the artwork on it (such as t-shirts). Despite efforts from a merchandiser to break this agreement and screw over H.R. Giger the band never did so. When merchandise with H.R. Giger was created it was with his permission, and perhaps as a reward for the unbroken agreement from 1984.

http://www.hrgiger.com/music/celtic1.htm
http://fischerisdead.blogspot.com/2006/ ... rence.html

I did research on H.R. Giger a little over a year ago, but it sure was fun to read those articles again. Besides, "To Mega Therion" wouldn't BE "To Mega Therion" if it didn't have that image of Satan using Jesus as a slingshot.


On a somewhat related note, I've been adding lineups for bands without lineups but with a V1 lineup, yet in most cases the artists only have a single name and any attempt at finding any further information was fruitless. Is it alright to add single names for a new artist? I've already done so for two bands from Italy but before I go fullspeed ahead I want to know if what I'm doing is okay.

Oh man, please, please, please tell me you made sure to keep their mention in the additional notes. Many users are prone to removing the artist's credit from the album's notes if an artist can be moved to the actual line-ups tab...

EDIT: ... you didn't. *sighs* Great. BRB while I collect a list of albums to recheck...

Yeah, it's fine if no more info is available.

Should we also add the artist from the other V1 line-up in the past members as "Unknown"...? We've had a few people point out that one artist is actually another under a certain alias like that.

Or what about intentionally anonymous artists? Abyssmal Sorrow and Ea are two examples of bands whose members wish to remain anonymous.

Example?

Goatfangs: If you don't have any information about the lineup, you obviously cannot add anything.

http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/T ... sen/381875

Should be obvious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Kittelsen

Also might want to tell http://www.metal-archives.com/users/celtiberic about this thread.

Apparently Theodor Kittelsen was born of April of no year (which is displayed as 2000) and he's 2011 years old...

WTF, you aren't supposed to be able to enter a month without a year...

Okay, well - most recent example I can think of is some guy who goes by the rather delicate alias of Brutal. Now, his V1 line-up connected him with Xulub Mitnal, but there's no clear indication as to which member he might be. Rather then leave a vague comment in some bio section somewhere about his presumed involvement, I opt instead to add them as a past member with a role of "Unknown". That's the most efficient way I can think of to resolve unclarified artist connections (unless it's something like this band where it looks really senseless to add more than the known number of members).

================================================================

EDIT: BTW, I was thinking ... would there be a way of pre-emptively blocking users from adding certain artists? Just so n00bs don't come along and add classical artists again. A big red warning could tell them not to add an artist - it'd function similar to the blacklist. Wouldn't be too hard to compile a list of the most famous historic artists and then add to it if need be.

Just that, yeah... kinda concerned after what happened with Evenfiel's deletion of some of metal's most commonly-referenced artists. Most of the albums had no mention of "Gustave Doré" left in the additional notes after a user deleted it (probably thinking it redundant now that Doré was in the line-up tab).

That seems ok.

Since this is going to be a thing, I'd like to nominate Dr. Kevorkian. The cover art was not specifically designed for Acid Bath, which would qualify him for deletion.

Deleted.

Just deleted a cardboard robot and a make-believe session member from this band's line-up.

No matter how much you dress them up, people, a drum computer is still a drum computer.

More artists who need to be nuked:
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/P ... rov/406801
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/A ... ski/406799
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Ivan_Vazov/413706
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Elin_Pelin/413709
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/V ... rov/413710
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/K ... mov/413775
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/D ... lev/413708

A mod should probably send Phsphs (the guy who added them) a warning.

Info transferred to the albums' additional notes, artists deleted and message sent.

I removed Comecon's drum machine aliases from their lineups and added it to the additional notes. I'm sure there are many more of these...

They keep coming back.


Check again.

On a side note, I've also come across quite a few orphaned artist pages, that is to say artists that have no links whatsoever to anything else on the archives. Obviously, those should be deleted as well, and let me tell you, they're quite hard to find. Probably the only way to get to them is to scan through a user's modification history.

I think I might have the solution though, but I'm afraid that you won't like it. Treat artists like bands and make an artist approval queue, or something.

Those also often belong to rejected submissions or deleted bands. As far as I know they'll eventually get purged automatically.


No. Just no. That's pure overkill.

Cool then.


Hehe, maybe it is.

By the way, John Martin (the painter) is still on the archives.

Not anymore.

Just toasted a bunch of French gentlemen:
• François Villon
• Paul Verlaine
• Christine de Pisan
• Charles Baudelaire

Yes, their lyrical contributions were noted in the additional notes, and I took a moment to mention they were "classical poets" so users unfamiliar with their names know not to add them to the line-up. I suggest other mods do that too when removing artists so we don't get the same shit happening.

Several of these have been re-added, perhaps it should be added to the moderation notes of prominent albums to not add the dead guys? I also can't seem to find it in the rules/help/FAQ so it should probably be added there too.

http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/C ... ich/465263
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/G ... %A9/466831
http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/D ... ian/373274

This user has been adding a bunch of them: http://www.metal-archives.com/users/Vermyapre

I've cleaned up those and sent notices. Dunno about adding mod warnings... An entry in the rules is definitely needed, though. Noted.

Also back on the Archives: painter John Martin.

http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/J ... tin/460932

Nuked.

(Didn't think I could delete artist profiles from my phone... Sweet. )

Another profile for painter John Martin?

http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/J ... tin/449511

Deleted. Culprit: attilaslaytanic666

Just finished deleting a drum computer with a life story.

Hmmm, what about this guy? Did he paint the artwork specifically for that album?

Because it got re-used here: http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/De ... tia/362112

Are both instances sanctioned by the artist? No mention about it having been created for either of the two bands: http://www.pavel-lyakhov.ru/rus/eakvarel3.html (4th from the bottom) It's from 2006, whereas the albums are from 2010 and 2012, respectively. One/both band(s) using it with his kind permission? He should still be moved to the notes if it wasn't created for the cover art, but only used later.

To be honest, I don't really know. Feel free to move it to the additional notes (I can't because I'm still on mobile...)

Someone asked about it on Decay of Reality's Vkontakte page, and band members answered that they just saw cool pic and decided to use it on their demo, so in this case it was used without permission for sure. Not sure about Coprobaptized Cunthunter, but I see the band is in Pavel Lyakhov's top friends on Myspace, so probably he's aware of the cover:
http://www.myspace.com/pavel-lyakhov

EDIT: Well, now I see that Decay of Reality is mentioned here:
http://www.pavel-lyakhov.ru/rus/cdcovers.html
and Pavel Lyakhov is also subscribed to Decay of Reality's page in Vkontakte:
http://vk.com/id3947928
So he's aware of it and seems to have nothing against it even if originally it was used without permission.

Alright, thanks. Still, it wasn't originally created for either album, so I'll move it to the additional notes.

Should be deleted:
Alexander Blok (1880-1921): http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/A ... lok/302267
Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900): http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/I ... sky/302263
Isaak Levitan (1860-1900): http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/I ... tan/302266

Gone.