Like many great artists with a fierce signature style, Bubbles did not work exclusively in that style. Before striking on an approach that defines New Wave as assuredly as Cyndi Lauper's hair does, Barney Bubbles assembled cool mod images in the early sixties, art-nouveau-informed psychedelics for groups like Hawkwind and Cressida in the early seventies, and retro kitsch for pub rockers like Pete Thomas's pre-Attractions group Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers. He had an amazing ability to not only move along with the times but also steer them. Those who only know Bubbles from his new wave work will be surprised to see how far reaching and eclectic his art was, and had he not died at the age of 42 in 1983, he surely could have done some fabulous work in the college rock, hip-hop, and grunge eras and beyond. And only the snootiest insufferabloso would not acknowledge that Bubbles' commercial work is fine art. He himself believed that genre to be "the highest art form," and his work collected in Paul Gorman's 2008 book Reasons to Be Cheerful: The Life and Work of Barney Bubbles supports such a radical assertion.
Re-designed and updated with some new text and sixteen pages of recently unearthed artworks, the out-of-print Reasons to Be Cheerful is now simply The Wild World of Barney Bubbles. The additional art includes some fascinating stuff, such as a 1974 ad for a Hawkwind tour that exemplifies his mastery of simple color schemes and complex combinations of symbols, a neat stained glass style cornucopia he created for a cookbook cover, and a proposed cover for Big Star's cult-fave third album.
