Sunday, April 19, 2020

Baseball Card Cover Songs Part #1

I have spent a lot of time during my "work day" listening to music lately.  My wife and I are still fortunate enough to have jobs, but we are also teaching a third grader and pre-schooler while we are working.  The house is busy, and the music helps me drown out all the background noise while I am doing whatever it is that I have to do for the day.

My two sources of music are the music I have burned off of CDs into my ITunes account, as well as all of the songs and albums that I have purchased over the years from the ITunes store.  I also have found some really good playlists on YouTube.

One of the surprising finds along the way is a set of covers by Radiohead performing songs that you probably wouldn't put in their genre of music.  Glenn Campbell?  Not half bad.  Carly Simon? They pull that off too.  Probably my favorite are their covers of The Smiths.




The unfortunate part of listening to music on YouTube is that the second you pick out one song, they start recommending all sorts of different things they think you should be listening to while you are visiting their website.  Since I listened to all of those cover songs by Radiohead, I get all sorts of other cover songs in my feed.  

Like this one, don't listen for long.  




I don't actually mind Weezer, Pinkerton is really under appreciated, but this is not even close to as good as the original.  This is one of my favorite 1980s songs, but this is just something that I cannot listen to from start to finish.  

Which brings me to some baseball cards.  If you could go back and redo the way an old baseball card looks, what would you do?  Topps has been doing something along these lines with their Project 2020, which is taking 20 different rookie cards and having artists remake them in their vision.  Sort of like musicians redoing other musicians music.

Unfortunately, the cards are a direct buy from Topps.  

We all know I don't usually buy from them after they mangled my Aledmys Diaz rookie card a few years back, and they figuratively shrugged their shoulders.  It's been a few years, but I have not forgotten.  




So, the Project 2020 cards come in a case.  How bad can they mess them up?  I rolled the dice.  



They even used bubble wrap this time, along with a protective cardboard box.  The shipping department at Topps is stepping up their game.  



The packaging is actually really nice.  

I have ended up with two of these cards.  I am going to share one card in this post, and the other in a second post.  I am likely stopping there.  The first card I bought is a recreation of the 1959 Topps Bob Gibson rookie card.  It is one iconic Cardinals card that has alluded me over the years.  Here's what the original looks like.....




Obviously not mine.  Thanks internet.  

Here is the "cover" version.  




Obviously I like this card, or I would not have spent money on buying it.  Good 1950s vibe to it, and I like that the artist kept the pink coloring around the picture of Gibson.  I wish the picture of Gibson were slightly larger, but the design makes up for that minor detail.  

The back of the card.....




A quick description of the Project 2020 cards, and an artist bio.  The artist's name is Grotesk.  I am speechless.  I like the old fashioned Cardinals logo down in the bottom right hand corner.  Another Project 2020 card later in the week.  


6 comments:

  1. My biggest problem with listening to music on YT is all of the ads, they've gone absolutely bonkers with those things. My personal favorites are the 40+ minute videos of song collections where ads will start playing in the middle of songs. Oh, and seeing how Weezer is one of my least favorite bands of all-time, I can't say that I'm surprised to hear that they made a terrible cover.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The ads do get annoying on YouTube, but I have learned to live with them. I really liked Weezer in high school, and like their first few albums. I know they have put out a few things in recent years that have been mediocre, but I still like their old stuff.

      Delete
  2. Great post. I love listening to covers of my favorite songs. It started about 10 years ago when students started telling me about their singing. It led me to following some really talented performers. As for the Project 2020 cards... some are cool... but most aren't my thing. I was excited when I heard about the Rickey Henderson, but that one turned out to be my least favorite so far.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Henderson looked like it had just been outlined in Sharpie. Someone had a picture of the original art work the other day, and it looked much better than the mass produced reprint. I guess the artist who did that card does a lot with texture, and had some of those elements on their original art work of the Henderson that really made it pop. Unfortunately, that did not come out in the printing.

      Delete
  3. I was expecting the Project 2020 card to be awful, grotesque even. That one is not that bad.

    ReplyDelete

Random Ray - 2023 Panini Flawless

It turns out that Ray Lankford had two autographs in Panini Flawless. I added one a few weeks back and won the other in an auction on Ebay l...