It was an experimental time for Pink Floyd, when founding guitarist and singer Syd Barrett was pretty much out of the band, and guitarist and singer David Gilmour was working his way in: Gilmour’s debut, 1968’s “A Saucerful of Secrets,” was Hipgnosis’s first commissioned album cover. “I’ve known them since I was 15,” said Powell, 76, during a recent phone interview from New York, where he was helping to promote a new documentary by acclaimed Dutch photographer and director Anton Corbijn called “Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis),” currently playing at the Carlton Cinema in Toronto. Hipgnosis was born from Pink Floyd’s numerous counterculture hangs with Thorgerson and Powell during their art school years. The illustrated magnum opus that is 10cc’s “The Original Soundtrack”? You guessed it. Paul McCartney and Wings’ brilliant “Band on the Run” artwork? Hipgnosis. The cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1973 classic “Houses of the Holy”? Hipgnosis. From its begins as a G-Unit mixtape seller to one of the internet’s most controversial outlets, this is a brief history of WorldStarHipHop.British progressive rock legends Pink Floyd may be known for such masterpieces as “Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall,” but they were also responsible for launching the most distinctive, popular and influential creators of album artwork in the mid to late 20th century: Hipgnosis.īetween 19 - at a time when vinyl was king and 12-by-12-inch artwork was a key part of the packaging - the British art design group co-founded by visual artists Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey “Po” Powell created more than 250 album covers for rock superstars ranging from Led Zeppelin and Paul McCartney to 10cc and the Alan Parsons Project. Either way, he created a cultural phenomenon, and we’ll always remember him for that. According to some, Worldstar championed urban culture others questioned whether that image of urban culture was worth selling in the first place, especially if it confirmed black people’s worst stereotypes to some. The remote control is in your hand.” With Q’s logic, WorldStarHipHop is only giving us what we want. “Why click on it? It’s like, why watch porno on HBO at midnight? You have the choice to watch what you want. “People want to watch an ugly side of someone then blame us for showing it, but what about the people actually doing it?” Q said in 2014. The famed videos often featured a victim, but the fact their popularity perhaps says more about society than the site’s creator. WorldStar capitalized on those innovations and dished out viral content at an expeditious rate. In 2008, cellphone footage was becoming the primary medium, and social media was on its way to becoming the standard way of connecting. Though it’s past its prime in 2018, WorldStar was more ubiquitous than your favorite blogs during the height of its popularity. But what’s objectively true is that the website gave the people what they wanted: Notably, music exclusives, viral bits of comedy, violent fight videos, and sex acts. Whether you truly believe WorldStar is simply Chuck D as a millennial with a cellphone camera is on you. Many of the profiles about the late WorldStarHipHop founder Lee “Q” O’Denat include two of his most common defenses: That the site features the “the good, the bad, and the ugly” of urban culture, and how it’s the “CNN of the ghetto.”
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