Good CD, Shame About the Cover

I’m feeling as grumpy as Andy Rooney, the cantankerous TV commentator.

If you could see me sitting at my desk, looking rumpled and annoyed, you’d see an array of Latin music CDs in front of me. Then I’d say sarcastically, “Have you ever wondered why the packages on so many Latin CDs--especially compilations--look so cheap and cheesy? Some of them have plain photos slapped on the cover and almost no information inside. I’ll bet I could do a better graphics job on my home computer. Well, maybe not me. I still use this old typewriter here. But I bet my son could.”

Then I’d pick up a sample to show you what I mean. This one’s a two-CD compilation by Pimpinela, the terrific brother-sister duo from Argentina known for its 1980s pop songs done as dramatic dialogues between a quarreling couple. They were one of my favorite acts at the time. They always seemed to hit a realistic note about the trouble with romantic relationships.

So here they are on the cover, like a mug shot inside a pale gold circle. The album of 32 hits is from a series called “32 Gold.” That’s imaginative, no? But now look at the sleeve inside. It’s just a single, flimsy sheet, with that mug shot on the front and the song titles on the back. It’s the exact same list of song titles and times that appears on the back of the box itself. I hate when they do that. You expect to find something more inside, not just a duplication of the back cover.

They do give you the composer credits inside, though. See them down here in tiny type? But look closely. (Camera zooms in.) Some words have vowels missing, as if the letters dropped out during printing. So the sibling songwriters appear as Joagu n and Luc a Gal n. You have to fill in the blanks to know that’s actually Joaquin and Lucia Galan, who are Pimpinela. It must have been those pesky accent marks that fouled up the typesetters.

I don’t mean to pick on this one album, released by Universal Latino, one of those multinationals that have gobbled up the record business. But you would think a company with so much money could do better than this sad package.

Universal is not the only offender, by far. And I’m not the only disgruntled consumer.

“It’s shameless what they do, making cheap product,” says Robert Leaver, who’s in charge of the well-stocked world music section at the new Amoeba Music store in Hollywood. “Sony Discos and Universal and the others, they’re equally shameless. They look like pirated CDs; they don’t look real.”

Then Leaver, who buys Latin product for the retailer, hit on the heart of the matter: “It’s actually disrespectful to the artist and disrespectful to the audience. It’s like keeping the artist in the ghetto.”

I might agree, if that were not an insult to ghetto art.

Latin-label executives give all kinds of excuses for this long-standing problem, primarily tight budgets and heavy sales pressures. These compilations are rushed out to make monthly sales quotas, one executive said. BMG Latin, for example, has a similar series called “Lo Mejor de lo Mejor,” or “the best of the best.” The multinational mines a treasure trove of classic releases from RCA Victor’s golden era, featuring 40 songs by revered stars such as Mexico’s Agustin Lara and Cuba’s Beny More. Again, cookie-cutter covers on the outside, no liner notes on the inside.

At least BMG includes the year the songs were released. On the Pimpinela package, which includes several live performances, buyers are not even told where the live recordings took place.

“For $10.98, we don’t tell people too many things,” jokes Jesus Naranjo, an executive with Universal Latino’s distribution arm who notes that this is a mid-priced series. “Ink costs money.”

Maybe that’s it. Maybe nice packages are too expensive for niche markets.

Think again, compadre.

I was shocked to learn that attractive booklets cost only pennies per CD to make. Consider “Caravana Cubana,” the excellent 1999 release produced independently by Alan Geik, host of the KXLU-FM radio show “Alma del Barrio.”

The cost for printing 5,000 copies of the album’s full-color, four page booklet was--are you ready for this?--38 cents each. And that includes a specialty run with matte paper, rather than cheaper, glossy stock, according to a bid Geik got from Vision Disc International, a broker in Studio City.

Of course, that doesn’t include paying a graphic artist and a writer.

But the total manufacturing cost was just $1.46 per unit, including pressing the CDs (49 cents apiece) and printing outer card sleeves (an extra 22 cents).

What are these labels doing with the rest of our money?

The payoff for “Caravana Cubana”: a Grammy nomination for best album packaging.

Geik worries that good music may get passed over by consumers who get subliminal messages from unimaginative or bland packaging. But it’s getting better, he stresses. I agree. Releases of new music often feature attractive packages nowadays, including CDs by Juanes (Universal), Carlos Vives (EMI Latin), Alejandro Fernandez (Sony) and Jaguares (BMG). Even Mexican regional music, famous for lousy covers, is getting more artful treatment.

It’s the compilations that seem to get short shrift. Where’s the Beny More boxed set? Or the retrospective on Jose Alfredo Jimenez, with his fabulous history and old photographs? Or how about an informative, illustrated series on the history of the mariachi?

The carelessness of the Pimpinela package made me so upset that I abandoned plans to write about the album for our From the Vaults column, which spotlights worthy reissues. I could not recommend such a sloppy package to readers.

At Amoeba, Leaver also balks at buying schlocky goods.

“It makes me reluctant to stock the product,” he says.

Latin labels, wake up. Your policies are penny wise and pound foolish.

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Agustin Gurza is a Times staff writer.