You know the kind of thing - where holding the cover (or booklet) gives you a least as much pleasure as actually listening to the music. My own choice would be (in no particular order):
1. The Beatles - Sgt Pepper 2. Buffalo Springfield Again 3. It's a Beautiful Day 4. Pink Floyd - A Saucerful of Secrets 5. Gentle Giant - The Power and the Glory 6. Genesis - A Trick of the Tail
i was rushed and had to post fast. 2 more came to mind after looking: i feel like i'm fixin' to die who's next and along with Axis Bold as Love: Blonde on Blonde. both are double- gate fold out LP covers that gave us visuals while we were tripping!
Neil young "On the beach" Half a buried cadillac, the colours (the strange yellow objects on that pale background) and that font! I love the record! I actually love the smell of the cover just as much one thing you dont get with an mp3 eh!!
Love "Forver Changes" Probably don't need to say much about this one here but what a painting and that photo with the broken vase just kinda sumed up the vibe of the record
An odd one is "moussolou" by Oumou Sangare I bought a weird german issue of it in the ninties The music is beautiful west african stuff one of my favourites but i just bought it because of the cover
The Doors "Strange days" The record's a classic (my favourite doors album) but that photo on the cover with the whole gate fold is just so dope Sort of like a lynch movie in a single image
The specials "the specials" Just because they look so damn cool, I think my obsession with trilby hats probably originates from this cover (I've actually got this record framed one my wall)
You know all this brings me back to those days where the album covers were just like art and reflected things in the culture. At times I miss them. The enjoyment of music in that way got lost a little bit now that cds and mp3's are around. I enjoyed getting those albums, looking at them and if it had them, reading the liner notes. Some covers just stayed in your head. Anybody remember that one with Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass?????..whipped cream and "somebody else" all over the cover..(not sure if it got released in the UK!)....heh heh never heard the songs though!..any of you have the Beatles famous "butcher" sleeve????. I remember getting a Steeleye Span album which was "All Around My Hat" and the cover was made in such a way that you had to look at it in a certain way to see all the images which were the group's faces. They said it was made using some kind of "projection".
'Strange Days' nearly made it into my top six as well - the picture to me is like a portal into 1967.
The 'butchers and dolls' original cover for The Beatles' 'Yesterday and Today' that Rocker mentioned, is featured in an edition of Mojo Classic from earlier this year entitled simply 'The Greatest Album Covers'. There is a four page spread which includes all the outtake photos as well as an indepth interview with the photographer who took them - Robert Whitaker. I remember at the time reading in the Daily Mail about the outrage that the cover had caused in America - I did wonder why the album hadn't been released in the UK. Much later of course I discovered that 'Yesterday and Today' had been simply a compilation of singles....and tracks that had been left off the US versions of the 'Rubber Soul' and 'Revolver'albums - and that the very concept of the butcher had been a comment on how Capitol Records were messing about with The Beatles' original recordings. Although Whitaker says that it was also a comment on Vietnam.
Havin' trouble tryin ta decide but this is what i came up with so far,its a good topic &there are some great covers out there i really hope album art does not disappear because of downloading.
ah Abbey Road..that's such an idyllic pix now....the fellow who took the pictures was on a ladder which was right in the middle of the road... arguably if you did now what the photographer did then I'd think the area around there would come to a standstill...there's so much traffic there now.....;-)...
Bleeker & McDougal--Fred Neil...MOJO called it one of the most beautiful covers ever! It can't be fully appreciated unless seen on it's original, full size LP cover. I have the guitar player MONO Electra label
Sgt. Peppers Let it Bleed After Bathing at Baxter's Morrison Hotel
The WHITE ALBUM....could any cover have had more impact in it's simplicity?! (man, did that generate excitement for those of us who walked into the record store in the late 60's and saw that cover for the first time. I still have my original LP)
Your Six Favourite Album Covers - Ever!
Posted - 28/09/2007 : 20:42:43
