U2 have been all over the news for this week – airing their new single, playing for Obama – but it was the release of artwork for their forthcoming album that created a minor controversy.
The cover of U2's No Line on the Horizonuses Boden Sea, an image by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. In 2006, for a Sugimoto retrospective, electronica musicians Richard Chartier and Taylor Deupree were commissioned to create the album specification. fifteen. They too used the Boden Sea image on their cover.
After the U2 sleeve was unveiled on Monday, Deupree posted an angry comment on his blog, castigating the U2 team for a lack of originality. Though there is no question of plagiarism, he was soon quoted by several websites, including NME.
Speaking to The Ticket later in the week, Deupree said he was taken aback by the furore and seemed to have softened his stance.
“I shouldn’t be surprised, considering how big U2 are and how viral the internet is. [Our] music was created as a direct response to [Sugimoto’s] Seascapes photographs,” he said. “Both of us had permission to use the photo; it is minorly irksome that they chose to use the exact same one.”
Chartier pointed out that the back cover of Finnish artist Brothomstates's album Clarois also similar to the U2 sleeve, though it is not a Sugimoto photograph.
U2 – whose No Line On the Horizonalbum is released on February 27th – declined to comment.
