In 2002, Madonna released a single ‘Die Another Day’, the theme to the James Bond movie, and when I unexpectedly saw the cover in a record store, I thought it was largely inspired from the cover of Elliott Smith’s ‘Figure 8’: same red and black swirl thing in the back, black and white picture in the front. Madonna’s picture is just much bigger than Elliott’s, well, she is Madonna!
Since ‘Figure 8’ was released in 2000, I could not help myself to think it was a little more than a simple coincidence.
Madonna was the award presenter when Elliott was nominated for an Oscar for Miss Misery in 1997. As she opened the envelope to announce that Céline Dion was the winner, she laughed saying: ‘What a shocker!’.
May be she followed his career after this, and this could explain this copycat.