America, Fuck Yeah! – My immediate gut reaction when I saw the poster campaign for Peter Berg’s newest tearjearker Patriots Day. The previous films of this small-town Michael Bay haven’t exactly been known for their extraordinary thoughtfulness or depth. And I guess this one makes no difference, regardless of its (especially in this day and age) sensitive background story. I was even more surprised to see Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross attached to this film. Without judging Berg or his body of work, it seemed like an odd collaboration to me. But as stated in a recent interview, breaking new grounds was exactly their reason for taking this job.
I initially only created one custom cover (#2) for this score. The official For Your Consideration album had such an uninspired sleeve that I just couldn’t help it but share my alternative with the filesharers community. But then Lakeshore Records released the official artwork (#1) and it basically looked just like my earlier version – or almost…
The designer behind it openly showed an obvious non-effort by cropping away the upper third of the official poster and calling it a day. How lazy is that? To spoil an otherwise good design in such a cheap way. I know no-one cares really and it’s just a small thing, but it’s those small things that sometimes bother me the most.
So I made a few more custom covers to give this entry a little more meat and also to see what can be achieved for a project like this. The end result is a mix of thoughtful symbolism and an exaggerated level of patriotism. Hopefully more the former than the latter.
HQCovers 