Naked Music Recordings

Nude Kid in Town

Naked Music NYC was the nom de plume for producer Jay Denes’ 1998 release on San Francisco’s Om Records. Om’s label manager at the time, Bruno Ybarra had asked Stuart Patterson (principal, Colorola) to submit an idea for the cover. The image, a graphic illustration of a ‘sexy, racially-vague, young nubile, in a seductive pose’ was deemed too literal, and instead, OM’s in-house devised a more ‘cerebral’ interpretation of ‘Naked’, with a stark image of a femur.

Meanwhile, Patterson, living la vida loca in Barcelona was contacted by Jay himself, who’d arranged with Francois Kevorkian to release a new single, Sweeter Love, on Francois’ label, Wave. Jay had liked Stuart’s work for the Naked project, and thought it might be appropriate for his new single.

The single was a big hit for Wave– and the cover, featuring another illustration, this time an unequivocally nude black woman, created a sensation in its own right. Inadvertently, the Naked Music brand was born, and in 1999 Bruno and Jay teamed up with NY musician, Dave Boonshoft to create their own dance label, Naked Music. Stuart was brought on board as art director, and his first fiat was to resurrect the original illustration, that which had been previously rejected at Om, and designate it as the brand ID for the label.

The fact of the matter is, Stuart was secretly dubious about the image, as the old ‘too literal’ indictment from Om still stung.  An avid devotee of semiotics, and a huge fan of things abstract, Stuart was loath to jump head-first into naked truth (though it certainly sounded fun). So, with the encouragement of the Naked partners, he created an auxiliary logo, which was designated as the label’s Corporate ID, and was used both as a complement to the ‘Nude’ logo, and as a backup, in case the original proved inappropriate (alas, it never did).