Overpowered – The thinking behind Róisín Murphy’s ‘avant-fashion meets greasy spoon’ cover imagery for her 2007 album campaign
I remember seeing Róisín on TV – performing with Moloko at a festival – I remember her throwing herself headfirst under a Hammond organ, her legs sticking out from beneath it. It reminded me of The Wizard of Oz: the wicked witch crushed by Dorothy’s house. I thought she was great.
I don’t really know how I came to be asked to do the campaign for Overpowered, except that is was through Marco Santucci and Elaine Constantine. I did have a very slight history with Róisín – she’d appeared on the cover of Sleazenation when I was art directing it. She was the star of a fashion story that Elaine had shot for the magazine.
With some musicians, it is a relief that they do not want to appear on their record covers – with others it is essential that they do. Róisín is very much the latter – so when I was asked to come up with some concepts for Overpowered, all of my ideas revolved around Róisín as the cover star.
I met with her many times. She’d often bring along art and photography books as references – the things she liked, the things we might consider. But what really struck me most about her was – how can I say this? – how ‘earthy’ she is. She looks incredible – amazing clothes onstage and off – but she is tough - and to me this was the key. The contrast in the way she looks – the persona – the image – with the way she is in ‘real life’, was exciting.
After a few meetings, an idea emerged – in many ways it was nothing more than me presenting Róisín back to herself… only rather than her being onstage ‘in character’ we would shoot her in the most ordinary surroundings. To condense the thought, I came up with a line that would become our brief: ‘the girl who fell to Wimpy burger’.
Album cover test that would later become Overpowered 12” single cover.
We looked at Bowie – in particular the great DJ video. One sequence has Bowie walking through Brixton, filmed in a documentary style: handheld footage of Bowie amongst ‘the people’ – Bowie as deity in SW9, Bowie being mobbed. It was this context that we were looking for… the alien amongst the ordinary.
Róisín knows her own style – she knows how she wants to come across, and she worked with the stylist Jane How to devise this look. My only thought was that the whole thing should be shot as if a fashion story – that is, the clothes should be contemporary and outlandish – the more outlandish the better – the more improbable and impractical, the greater they would jar with the drab surroundings.
It was a formula in some respects – up Róisín’s fashion into the outlandish, down her environment into the banal: have Róisín present herself as the girl who fell to Wimpy burger – Scott King
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