Review: Squaring The Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)

Recently, Squaring The Circle has been added to Netflix in the US and I decided to give it a watch and share my opinions. Previously I reviewed Us & Them: The Authorised Story of Hipgnosis by Mark Blake and Through The Prism by Aubrey Powell. So when I saw a poster of this film at the cinema, it piqued my interest because I love the art of Hipgnosis and I’m a big classic rock fan. But I didn’t have a chance to make it to a screening. So what are my thoughts? Read more to find out!

Review

With Hipgnosis being arty kind of people, it’s fair that the opening shot is a black and white shot of Aubrey Powell walking through a graveyard and into a house with a big portfolio reading ‘Hipgnosis’ strapped to his back. Fittingly, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” starts to play as he sits down, opens up the portfolio and takes out some old Hipgnosis album art done for Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, and 10cc, these appearing selectively in colour to make them stand out and this style choice stays throughout the documentary. Makes sense that there’s this artistic feel because the director is music video director Anton Corbijn, who has directed music videos for Depeche Mode, U2, Bryan Adams, Nirvana, and Coldplay. He also directed the Ian Curtis biopic, Control.

Aubrey Powell talks about the meaning of Hipgnosis: hip, meaning cool and groovy and gnostic, meaning wise. The name has multiple origin stories, as explored in the documentary: Aubrey Powell said it came from Syd Barrett, Roger Dean said it was Dave Henderson who came up with the idea, but his friend Jenny from Cambridge said it was Adrian Haggard. Regardless, Hipgnosis was written on their door and Storm fell in love with the name and kept it until he gave it to Merck Mercuriadis.

Some of their most famous works appear on the screen and we are then transported to the origins of Hipgnosis: Cambridge in 1964. A 16 year old Aubrey Powell meets Storm Thorgerson for the first time. It was a bohemian time with young people growing their hair long, listening to jazz and rock and roll, and smoking pot. From there, he met Pink Floyd. Po and Storm’s friendship became stronger after the police banged on the door during a party and Po stayed put in Storm’s house while everyone fled the scene with their drugs. Storm was bemused, why would Po stay when the cops busted in? Po said he didn’t believe in dumping a sinking ship and he believed in sticking it out until the end. So they became joined at the hip almost, for years there, working together alongside classic rock A-listers. But first, they had to move to London, where everything was going on, and so they moved into that Egerton Court flat. Storm started attending the Royal College of Art and since it was the 60s and anything goes, he told Po to enrol as a student and use the resources there to learn photography, even if he was an absolute beginner. Storm gave Po a mantra: “Point, shoot, reload, repeat” and Po found his calling as soon as he went into the darkroom and saw his first photograph of a car appear before his eyes. And when I say anything goes, I really mean anything goes! Po described 1960s London as lawless. Po had a bunch of grifts and got away with a lot of shady things.

Through their friendship with Pink Floyd, they began to make a name for themselves as album cover visionaries, first starting with the psychedelic montage of A Saucerful of Secrets and when they loved that, they designed some concert posters from them, same montage style. In those days, the main music format was vinyl and that meant the album cover was crucial, make it or break it, it said a lot about the band and the person carrying the record. It had an impact, it sold the album. In this streaming age, album art is just a few pixels on a screen and compressed, images are fleeting, social media is just a blip and that’s it, onto the next thing. Noel Gallagher said in the documentary that he heard once that vinyl is the poor man’s art collection and I have to say that’s pretty accurate. Accessible art for the proletariat.

The complementary duo of Storm & Po took the classic rock world by storm and they started a business together by accident. They had famous clients early on like Marc Bolan, The Nice, ELP, The Pretty Things, Argent, ELO, Wishbone Ash, and Rory Gallagher. Like true artists they took chances and created covers that didn’t need words on it, like Atom Heart Mother, the cow just made a statement. The record label executives didn’t get it. But the band loved it and the fans loved it. Art isn’t supposed to be safe and complacent. You want daring? Wish You Were Here delivers! That man in the suit on the album cover was actually set on fire. The symbolism and meaning behind it came from how the music industry burns people. Don’t try this at home, folks! Stuntmen Ronnie Rondell and Danny Rogers were the cover models.

Interestingly enough, it wasn’t Dark Side of the Moon that resulted in them getting press coverage, but actually an earlier album cover design for The Nice’s album Elegy. They went to the Sahara desert with 60 deflated footballs, inflated them all with a bicycle pump and then lined them up and photographed them in the sand. It was simple looking, but striking and extravagant because of the exotic location.

1973 was the year of Hipgnosis and it makes sense that this documentary came out in 2023, 50 years later. Not only was it the year that Dark Side of the Moon came out, but also Band on the Run and Houses of the Holy. Designing album covers for Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, and Led Zeppelin? That’s living the dream! You’re working with certified rock gods and in a way you became rock stars. That’s what happened to Hipgnosis. The Dark Side of the Moon album cover changed music history completely, but it also changed the relationships of Roger Waters and David Gilmour and Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell. Creative differences began to creep in and Storm became even more difficult to work with and he had a reputation for being a jerk, to put it bluntly. And in typical Behind The Music fashion, money brought out the worst in people and they fought over money. Still, they had repeat customers in Paul McCartney and Led Zeppelin, and new repeat customers: art rockers 10cc and former Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel. The punk era’s simplicity and the 80s MTV generation led to the demise and split of Hipgnosis. Appropriately, the documentary ends with “Wish You Were Here” and Po walking outside, looking sad, with the Hipgnosis portfolio strapped to his back. 10cc’s “Art For Art’s Sake” plays in the credits.

Overall, a beautifully done documentary with stories of how their most iconic album covers were made. Definitely worth the watch on Netflix, finally some good content on there! Honestly, this could have been a whole Netflix series because they made so many great album covers and I think this is just a tiny little sample of their work. If you liked the books I mentioned above, then you’ll like this documentary, even though you’ll probably know most or all of the stories. Even if you haven’t read those books, if you like classic rock, you’ll like this film. Soundtrack’s great, as you can expect. You’re gonna see interviews with musicians they worked with like David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Paul McCartney, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and Peter Gabriel, fellow album cover artists Roger Dean and Peter Saville, friends of Po and Storm’s from Cambridge, and photographers and artists who worked with Hipgnosis. There’s great archive footage and photos from the 60s of live performances of Syd Barrett era Floyd, the creation of the Pink Floyd album covers, some of Storm’s student films, behind the scenes videos of Wings and the creation of the Band on the Run and Venus and Mars album covers, and other pictures from the time period of Hipgnosis cover promos. The story of Hipgnosis has so many twists and turns and crazy things that happen that you could make a movie about it. Hipgnosis revolutionised album covers and made them magic. We need that magic again. Keep physical media alive and maybe we can have an album cover renaissance. Do your homework and get inspired!

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