Oh HOW my arm was twisted, let me tell you.
As the article says, this has never not been an album I adore, and getting the chance out to the blue to talk about Hysteria at some length for its 25th anniversary via the fine folks at the Quietus was a kick and a half.
A little bonus discussion given the album cover up there — the art is such a strange but somehow well done mishmash. The most immediately dated thing to my mind is the album title font, very ‘edgy’ as the mainstream saw that quality in the mid to late eighties. The band’s own logo is of course impeccable, and I mention the Tron-like background graphics in the article.
I’m pretty convinced that Tron or at least the arcade game was pretty much the founding point for those blocky structures, which were then replicated on the staging for the tour as well as for various laser-traced displays above the band. Given the movie itself was five years old the art wasn’t trying to be in the moment but in a way it also beat out the slow burning cult buildup of it over the years.
Also, for the longest time I only saw the one face looking straight on, not the other one as well. I think that’s because I had the cassette version for the longest time and I want to say the band logo ended up blocking that out a bit, but who knows…
