Persuasive & Commanding
How Command Records circularly and spatially visualized sound
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In 1959, music pioneer and band leader Enoch Light founded the record label Command. Their first release, Persuasive Percussion, was a “phenomenally successful record” and made “dramatic use of the possibilities of the separation of sound on two channels,” according to The New York Times. The liner notes of the album read:
This is the most unusual tape you have ever put on your machine.
It is a unique mixture of entertainment, excitement, beauty and practicality.
It will show off all the marvelous potentials of your stereo equipment— potentials that you may not even have realized were there before— and at the same time it will enable you to adjust your equipment so that you will get the best possible performance from it…
As a result, the recording that you hold in your hand is as close to perfection as today’s best engineering skills can make it.
Listening to the record, string and percussive instruments vibrate off one another. The sound is infectious, almost like the bounce of a ping pong ball (Enrique Iglesias, anyone?). The artwork displays dozens of small black circles arranged in rows, while others playfully jump in the air, reminiscent of the percussive beat heard on the record. The cover was designed by Josef Albers, an American artist and educator who taught at the Bauhaus school and later at Black Mountain College after fleeing Germany, where he was born, from Nazi occupation. He is most famously known for his Square series, which explores the relationship between color and spatial theory. For Command, Albers leaves color and the harsh corners of the squares behind to see how space and circles can visually imbue percussion.
Charles E. Murphy, a former student of Albers at the Yale School of Art and Architecture, went on to become the art director of Command in 1959. He continued to illustrate sound in Albers’ circular footsteps, adding accent colors here and there (see Provocative Percussion Vol. 4, below, and The Persuasive Trombone of Urbie Green, Vol. 1 & 2). Label founder Enoch Light was astute in hiring Murphy to steer the visual legacy of Command into a conversation with Albers’ early work.
With a tag line like, “the greatest advance in sound… since high fidelity was invented,” Persuasive Percussion went on to become a series, followed by a secondary series called Provocative Percussion. As with any popular achievement, many labels followed suit, attempting to mimic Command’s volumes with their own alliterative releases. Koko Records released Popular Percussion, while Crown Records released Predominant Percussion in 1960.
In 1998, New York alternative rock group Nada Surf released their second album, Proximity Effect. The cover features a time-lapse photograph of two yellow and blue balls bouncing up and down, creating the effect of numerous circles flying through the air in arcs. Thirty years later, British experimental duo Jockstrap released their single “50/50,” featuring a split black and white cover. Like domino blocks, circles fill the space, forming a 5, 3, 2, and 4. Next to the Persuasive Percussion covers, the minimalist modernist influence is undeniable for both.
Find more of the series cover art from Command below:
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I picked up a copy of Provocative Percussion Volume 2 mostly on the strength of it's cover. It's part of a display on my wall.
I actually lucked into a couple of Command Records original LPs at the local lotto and cigarettes store in my old town in great condition. Bongos, Bongos, Bongos. We used to call them corner stores or magazine stores but they're rarely on corners and magazines are a largely thing of the past. The covers are amazing as is the music contained. Nada Surf was/is? a great band but really just a guy with a few tunes. Saw him in Willie bK and was unimpressed and I was so so excited to finally see them/him. Sleepy like a lot of newish bands. They've been around for over 30 years so almost an Oldies act at this point. The hit Popular is of its time and broke some ground. I just expected more live. Ranting old man here but I liked a lot of music from back then Bush, Local H, even Cake (say it ain't so) but it just doesn't hold up. Even Ben Folds is meh? Why? Is it our times that suck or the bands? GnR is still so Popular because in the end real rock never dies. Here's my put up or shut up proof positive. soundcloud.com/stevegabe