Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered. We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.
Tonight let’s talk about album covers!
(What do they call those now that most music isn’t sold as a physical object with a picture on the front?)
Best ones, worst ones?
Album covers and albums that remind you of college or high school or that old girlfriend? That job you loved? That job you hated?
Share your favorites, and even your stories of what they remind you of.
Update: Link to your favorite album covers if you can!
In case you are new to Medium Cool, these are not open threads.
Czar Chasm
The original cover to Electric Ladyland:
Here it is.
Craig
Any of the Reid Miles/Francis Wolff Blue Note covers is great.
Craig
@Czar Chasm: I have that. Apparently Hendrix hated it.
Spanky
For boys of a certain age, Herb Alpert’s Whipped Cream and Other Delights caught our attention.
Mel
I will always love the Joan Jett “Bad Reputation” cover. To my 13 year old self, her sound, her look, her attitude were the coolest ever. And still are.
Mr. Prosser
Janis Joplin’s Cheap Thrills done by R. Crumb.
Craig
Black Flag’s My War is nice and minimalist.
Spanky
Two of Santana’s first albums, the eponymous first one with the nested imagery, and Abraxas, a re-imagining of The Anunciation.
karen gail
Pink Flyrod’s “Dark Side of the Moon.
Also loved the music.
RandyG
Any Moody Blues album cover. Here’s Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.
Omnes Omnibus
The Clash, London Calling. That’s it. No other cover comes close.
karen gail
Gary Wright’s “Dream Weaver” loved the music, hated the cover.
CliosFanboy
@Spanky:
that was my first thought.
I always loved cover from when I was first really getting into music in college.
Eagles, Hotel California
Steve Winwood, Arc of a Diver (heard it in its entirety the first time the same evening my girlfriend of the time spent the night with me. Very romantic nite)
Pink Floyd, Animals
ELO, Eldorado and Out of the Blue
Almost Retired
I’ve always loved the cover of Little Feat’s “Down on the Farm,” with the Veronica Lake-like sexy duck lounging poolside with an inexplicable tiger in the background.
The artist Neon Park did most of Little Feat’s album covers, including creating the joyfully slutty-looking tomato in a hammock on “Waiting for Columbus.”
Fun and visually arresting and proof that the band didn’t take themselves too seriously.
Baud
Supertramp, Breakfast in America
artem1s
Joni Mitchell’s painting on all her covers. Especially Court and Spark.
Chris
Anal Bum Cover?
Gin & Tonic
@Czar Chasm: I have that album.
Spanky
I see a couple of folks have mentioned Pink Floyd albums. Storm Thorgerson was their cover artist for most if not all their albums.
Nukular Biskits
In the early 80s, I was a big fan of the band Asia and loved their first three album covers.
Wasn’t until several years later that I found out the artist for those also did album covers for Yes.
Spanky
@Chris: Thank you, Sean Connery.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
That’s a good one.
Another Scott
Great topic!
In the Court of the Crimson King certainly gets one’s attention!
They still make album covers, but they also do things like make high-quality ~ 10s looping videos (a “visualizer”). The first one of those i saw was for Beyonce’s “Texas Hold ’em” (3:57).
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
Stanley Turrentine, Sugar,
Mothers, Weasels Ripped my Flesh.
Craig
Big Black’s Atomizer is pretty awesome.
Matt McIrvin
Talking Heads’ album art was always great because they were a bunch of art nerds, but I think the best one of all was “Fear of Music”, with a black-on-black cover styled like nonslip metal floor plating, and the band name and album title in fluorescent green OCR-like letters. Everything subtly spiky and alienating, like the music.
Nukular Biskits
@Another Scott:
I admit I like the album cover for “Cowboy Carter” (as well as the videos) but for reasons I will NOT share with Ms. Biskits.
karen gail
@RandyG:
Moody Blues covers were great, felt the same way about their music.
I remember buying a new album and bring it home to rip off the wrap and hear it for the first time; could always tell when neighbor liked it. He would yell “crank it up!”
Strange fact; he wrote “afternoon delight.”
Omnes Omnibus
Now, for second place, the Stones’ Sticky Fingers and Velvet Underground and Nico are pretty good.
BellaPea
@Nukular Biskits: When I was going to college in Memphis, my roommate was studying art. She did an entire mural on one of the walls of our apartment duplicating the cover of one of the Yes albums. It was the one that had the little boy looking out at the fantasy landscape (too old to remember the name of the album). It looked terrific but cost us $100 bucks in deposit fees.
Craig
Physical Graffiti is great.
Scout211
Favorite album cover art? I have to go with the Beatles. They had many outstanding ones but my favorite is also my favorite Beatles album: The Beatles–Revolver
The album brings back all the feels and all the memories of my sister. We shared the album and played it over and over and over, stealing it from each other’s bedroom where we both had little LP turntables. We memorized most of the lyrics and just had a fantastic time with it, which was unusual because we mostly bickered like two teen-aged girls at the time. Good times and such an amazing album.
thruppence
The cover for The Tubes’ Remote Control had a now prescient image of a baby in a baby seat/bed with a spherical television mounted at the foot, aimed straight at the baby’s face, with a pacifier nipple in the middle of the screen. Replace that TV with an internet tablet with a pacifier on the screen and you have today’s childrens’ experience.
Spanky
@BellaPea: “Every Good Boy Deserves Favour” (“Every Good Boy Does Fine” in the US. IYKYK.)
That kid always squicked me out with his weirdly long, bony fingers.
p.a.
The Who Sell Out.
ETA: Zep 3 original, with the spinning disc.
BTW, the Who’s on their… 23rd, I think? farewell tour🙄
Just look at that parking lot
“I…I..I didn’t order Santana Abraxas”.
moonbat
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band’s Trout Mask Replica
caringandsensitive
@Spanky: I’m 79. I haven’t looked any further in the comments. This is the right answer. (It was also a fairly good album)
Spanky
@Just look at that parking lot: The painting predated the album by quite a bit:
h/t Wikipedia
Marc
From my college days (early 70s) have to go with the Yes album art by Roger Dean (favorites Fragile and Close to the Edge) while Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album cover would be seen in just about any dorm room. Plus, Parliament/Funkadelic had some crazy album covers if you looked at them carefully.
oldgold
The album cover for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was fun and interesting.
Suzanne
The Velvet Underground and Nico
Speakerboxx/The Love Below by OutKast
Substance by New Order
Nukular Biskits
While I wouldn’t claim his album covers constituted art, I think Weird Al’s are worthy of mention, if anything for their absolute absurdity.
Another one: The cover art for Prince’s single “Breakfast Can Wait”, fearing Dave Chappell dressed as Prince.
Nukular Biskits
@BellaPea:
That would have been awesome!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
‘Signify’ Porcupine Tree
‘I Robot’ Alan Parsons Project
‘Candy-O’ The Cars
‘Aqualung’ Jethro Tull
RandyG
@caringandsensitive: Dolores Erickson is the model, who’s still around at 89. As is Herb Alpert, who just turned 90.
NeenerNeener
@Almost Retired: Here’s another vote for all the Little Feat covers done by Neon Park.
Spanky
@p.a.:
Yeah, and they fired Zak Starkey. Again.
Craig
I like the almost Blue Note feel of Butthole Surfer’s Rembrandt Pussyhorse
me
The Reign in Blood cover art is appropriately disturbing.
narya
I like “Born to Run” best of Bruce’s covers, tbh. That pic of him and Clarence is iconic.
frosty
Bruce and Clarence on the cover of Born To Run nailed the respect they had for each other.
I’ll second Whipped Cream and Other Delights and Cheap Thrills.
Tehanu
Firesign Theatre, How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere at All — All Hail Marx [Groucho] and Lennon [John]
caringandsensitive
@oldgold: That’s number 2
caringandsensitive
@RandyG: Apparently she was pregnant when the cover was shot
Booger
@Craig: Finally. Thank you. And most other LZ album covers as well.
Marc
And, getting a bit more obscure, Weather Report: Mysterious Traveler, Heavy Weather, Black Market
zhena gogolia
Bringing back some memories.
I like Workingman’s Dead. But it’s subtle compared to some of these being mentioned.
For some reason The Wurst of P.D.Q. Bach stuck with me.
Kristine
“The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.”
NotMax
Perhaps not best but certainly memorable: Labat/M.Frog.
Craig
@me: excellent choice.
SpaceUnit
I own a print of the Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers album cover art by the band Jack Off Jill. It was created by a fairly famous surrealist painter named Mark Ryden. And yes, dammit, that’s really the name of the band. I have a thing for female alt-punk bands.
Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers
Also, that album is pure fire.
kalakal
@Marc: I was a huge fan of Roger Dean’s album covers, the Yes ones, and also the Osibisa ones
Another artist I was fond of at the time was Rodney Matthews.
Suzanne
Also some great ones…..
Like A Prayer by Madonna
Live Through This by Hole
SiubhanDuinne
@karen gail:
A few days ago I came across a parody of this album cover. Pink Freud: The Dark Side of Your Mom, with the light beam entering and the spectrum emanating from a portrait of Sigmund himself.
TheOtherHank
I have always had a special regard for the cover of my first album: Who’s Next
Czar Chasm
@Craig: Hendrix’s opinion of that cover was never outright stated by him, but inferred by whomever was interviewed about the cover later, so…
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mike R
quicksilver messenger service, happy trails. The sky and horse were soothing 😌
kalakal
Fun fact, the cake on Let it Bleed, one of my favourite Stones albums, was made by a then unknown Delia Smith who was asked by a photographer friend to make a “gaudy cake”. When she delivered it she found out it was for the Stones latest cover.
Nukular Biskits
@Marc:
Now there’s an act I haven’t heard mentioned in a long time.
Me and several friends were into jazz years ago, with one of them being a super fan of Weather Report.
CliosFanboy
The cover to Fleedwood Mac Mystery to Me kind of creepd me out but someone painted a copy of it on the wall of a study room I enjoyed using, so I associate it with pleasant memories.
Supertramp, Breakfast in America is a great choice. I also rather liked Styx, The Grand Illusion
Paul in NC
Jethro Tull “Aqualung”.
Lehrjet
2 from Elton John, Good bye Yellow brick Road and Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
The Crimson Pimpernel
My childhood next-door neighbor, John Hermansader, was an artist best known for his 1950s album covers for jazz label Blue Note Records. Just in case there are any jazz aficionados in the group.
RandyG
@karen gail: Love the music too. I still have original vinyl for all of the band’s early and mid-period albums.
Well … not Go Now, as that was pretty much pre-Moody Blues, although it’s a good song.
Craig
I love The Replacements ‘ Let It Be ‘. Simple photo, classy typography, plus the shear audacity of naming your simple little punk rock record after one of the best Beatles songs. On brand cause those guys were snotty little punks who’d just recorded an album of beautiful little songs about growing up weird in a small town. A true classic.
Gin & Tonic
@moonbat: Also one of the weirdest albums ever released.
Just look at that parking lot
@Nukular Biskits: Weather Report’s Mysterious Traveler is still one of my favorite covers. I actually like it better the the album itself.
Gin & Tonic
@The Crimson Pimpernel: I’d have to use a tape measure to count my Blue Note records.
Craig
@TheOtherHank: brilliant cover, yes.
CliosFanboy
Check out the cover for Propoganda: A Blatant Attempt to Influence Musical Taste with songs by the Police and Joe Jackson. Mao playing guitar for screaming Chinese youth.
Marc
@Nukular Biskits: I can get more jazz obscure :)
Mahavishnu Orchestra: Mahavishnu Orchestra, Birds of Fire, Visions of the Emerald Beyond
AliceBlue
Steely Dan’s “Aja.” The cover is a photograph of Japanese model and actress Sayoko Yamaguchi. She was the first Asian model to appear in western fashion magazines.
kalakal
Hipgnosis were probably the cream of album cover designer doing covers for Led Zep, Floyd ( including Dark Side ), 10cc, Peter Gabriel, Bad Company, Wishbone Ash and a zillion others.
I loved their 10 cc ones like How Dare You
Hipgnosis gallery
SpaceUnit
@Gin & Tonic:
Trout Mask literally made me ill when I tried to listen to it. Trying to process all the overlapping time signatures and alternate scales gave me the equivalent of motion sickness. I had to turn it off after only about 12 or 15 minutes.
Some interesting stuff though.
NotMax
Thumbs up for the debut album of It’s A Beautiful Day.
Also one lonely vote for the New Riders of the Purple Sage album The Adventures of Panama Red.
Hodge
Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours has always captured my attention.
Although I think Baud had it at 15. Breakfast in America seems like an insight worthy of Tocqueville
zhena gogolia
@Marc: I loved them.
Dr Daniel Price (Saint Vincent)
Alan Parsons Project, Stereotomy. Its cover, with text and images in blue and red, is to be placed within a coloured vinyl overlay, such that four differing covers would appear as viewed through the red or blue side of the overlay.
SpaceUnit
@AliceBlue:
That’s a great album.
Wileybud
Jeff Beck – Blow by Blow. Photo on back & painting of the photo on front.
Splitting Image
I’m fond of the cover of Rush’s Moving Pictures LP. It’s an elaborate visual pun and includes the “dogs playing poker” painting that I remember from my grandmother’s house when I was a little kid.
prostratedragon
@Spanky:
Ah, I’d wondered: was thinking of Bitches Brew.
Ivan X
@Craig: I think we’d get along.
Mr. Bemused Senior
I was surprised it took so long before a mention of Sgt. Pepper.
Meanwhile, I offer Renaissance, Turn of the Cards
prostratedragon
The World Is a Ghetto, War
@The Crimson Pimpernel: Blue Note records were class product inside and out. Still are, far as I kmow.
kalakal
Nick Lowe’s Jesus of Cool was rather fun with about 20 photos of Nick playing dress up as different styles of rock star.
The most astonishing album ‘cover’ I know of is the 1979 The Pentateuch of the Cosmogony – music by Dave Greenslade and artwork by Patrick Woodroffe. You got a double album inside a hardback book. The book’s illustrations and the music purport to be a document found inside a wrecked alien spacecraft orbiting jupiter, the whole thing taking inspiration from Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. Humdrum it isn’t
NotMax
Anyone mention Milton Glaser’s psychedelic silhouette of Bob Dylan?
JeanneT
Jethro Tull’s Songs from the Wood and Heavy Horses covers (and music) pulled hard at me at a time when I was living in the city but romantic about the countryside and the Foxfire book series and lost skills. I was leaning into folk music at that time, so those two albums might have been the last rock music I ever bought.
Just look at that parking lot
@The Crimson Pimpernel: Blue Note had some great covers. I have a coffee table type book with a couple of hundred pictures of them. Columbia Records had some beautiful covers for their jazz releases as well. Thelonious Monk had some strange album covers, but then he was a bit odd himself.
CliosFanboy
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
great choice!!!
SpaceUnit
Okay, here’s my nomination for worst album cover of all time.
ELP Love Beach
I liked Emerson Lake and Palmer but what the fuck were those guys thinking.
Craig
@Ivan X: right on.
RevRick
@Spanky: Oh yesss! It was the first one that came to my mind.
zhena gogolia
@SpaceUnit: They did have a good one, though. Can’t remember which. Trilogy?
SpaceUnit
@zhena gogolia:
The Brain Salad Surgery album was pretty notable. It had the cover art from H.R. Giger.
ETA: Found it. Brain Salad Surgery Cover
prostratedragon
Miles Davis album covers
In 1967, Davis released Nefertiti and Sorcerer
Trivia Man
van Halen, Diver DOwn
Suzanne
Another one that I always loved that I haven’t seen mentioned yet….. To the 5 Boroughs by the Beastie Boys.
MagdaInBlack
@SpaceUnit: Well, it was their last album before they split, so…..ya know
p.s> Wikipedia tells me they were “tax exiles” in the Bahamas when they made it, too
scav
Rather fond of Dire Strait’s Love over Gold.
Marc
My two favorite Parliament albums from the 70s: Mothership Connection and Funkentelechy vs. The Placebo Syndrome. And, Sun Ra (and his Arkestra): Secrets of the Sun, We Travel the Space Ways, The Other Side of the Sun; I saw him and the Arkestra play at least 4 times over the years.
SpaceUnit
@MagdaInBlack:
It was a commercial disaster.
Trivia Man
@p.a.: I think I saw Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians on their 35th annual farewell tour
MagdaInBlack
@SpaceUnit: I didn’t even know it existed til you posted that cover photo.
SW
Blind Faith. Beautiful and disturbing.
Sure Lurkalot
Repeats: Court of the Crimson King, Velvet Underground and Nico, It’s a Beautiful Day
Adding: David Bowie, Heroes
Jive turkin
Weasels Ripped my Flesh, by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. I remember seeing a review that the album cover lives up to the album title.
Craig
@Suzanne: forgot that one. It’s great. I do prefer License to Ill. The gatefold is awesome.
zhena gogolia
@SpaceUnit: Maybe that’s the one I remember.
Craig
Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures, and Closer are both classic album covers.
RevRick
I always felt strangely moved by the Derek and the Dominoes album cover with its minimalist? expressionist? depiction of a woman’s portrait. It perfectly captures Layla.
My first memory of an album cover (my dad’s) was a collection of photographs of then star symphony conductors of the early 50s. The album itself was a selection of classical music “greatest hits.”
Pittsburgh Mike
I always liked Roger Dean’s album covers for Yes.
Just look at that parking lot
Just so the genre gets represented, I throw in Merle Haggard’s Big city. Laying back on the bed in that ratty looking room with his guitar and snake skin boots is pure Merle.
Citizen Dave
There’s a million. For rock band, Who’s Next. Parody, Spinal Tap Smell the Glove.
Tom Waits, Rain Dogs.
Hard to look at,
Dead Kennedys, Plastic Surgery Disasters https://images.app.goo.gl/uUjgxWejYY4LDaPm8
zhena gogolia
This Sviatoslav Richter cover was a big one for me. A high-school friend pointed out that he looked like Boo Radley.
lowtechcyclist
@Mr. Prosser:
That was my immediate thought when I saw the thread title.
Steve LaBonne
In the classical realm the Westminster Gold label in the 70s had the greatest album covers of all time.
No One of Consequence
Tongue in cheek, but only a little: Big Black – Songs About Fucking
Really compliments the album: Roger Waters – Amused to Death (the original cover)
And I have to second:
@Splitting Image: One of the reason my son has his name is because of this cover. It’s a (edited to add:) visual triple entendre. Always thought that was very cerebral, then I learned about Neil Peart. Geddy and Alex are no mental midgets either.
Also was always partial to a few classics:
Hendrix – Axis Bold As Love
Sgt. Peppers
Exile on Main Street
-NOoC
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus:
IDK how long the actual zipper version was available but Sticky Fingers sure was an attention-grabber, as was the first edition of Their Satanic Majesties with the 3-D artwork.
The Monty Python Instant Record Collection unfolds and becomes a 12X12X12 cube displaying the spines of a row of LPs.
No One of Consequence
@Steve LaBonne: Never seen these. Cool.
Jersey Tomato
Tales from Topographic Oceans by Roger Dean for Yes. I had the poster in high school and college, and as soon as I had some disposable income I bought the official Roger Dean signed lithograph. It hangs in my dining room and makes me happy every time I see it.
No One of Consequence
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Good call. Hypgnosis don’t miss.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
Most striking covers I remember are FGTH’s Welcome to the Pleasuredome, Vollenwider’s Down to the Moon and Julia Fordham’s Porcelain.
BlueGuitarist
@NotMax:
love it, but Milton Glaser’s Dylan was the poster inside Greatest Hits, not the album cover, which was improved upon for Greatest Hits, Volume II.
Love the cover of Dylan’s 1974 live album with The Band, Before the Flood, of folks in the audience holding up lighters/matches, enacting “show an affirming flame” from Auden’s September 1, 1939.
raven
Dave Mason ALONE TOGETHER – Blue Thumb Records 1970 – USED Vinyl LP Record – 1970 FIRST Pressing Splatter Colored Vinyl – Only You Know And I Know – Just A Song – World In Changes
raven
Dave Mason ALONE TOGETHER – Blue Thumb Records 1970 – USED Vinyl LP Record – 1970 FIRST Pressing Splatter Colored Vinyl – Only You Know And I Know – Just A Song – World In Changes
lowtechcyclist
@Tehanu:
Yes! That’s a great cover.
And of course, it’s a great album too. “Antelope Freeway, [1/2^n] mile.” “No anchovies? You’ve got the wrong man. I spell my name – Danger.” [click] “What?”
NotMax
Oddball pastiche: Switched-On Bach II.
;)
raven
@BlueGuitarist: That was my short timers calendar in Vietnam and I found a poster and used it for my retirement short timer calendar.
kalakal
Fun fact the next
Lucille Handbergs classic 1927 photo of a tornado at Jasper, Mn has been used as the basis of 3 album covers all of which look great
Miles Davis Bitches Brew
Deep Purple Stormbringer
Souxie and the Banshees Tinderbox
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
I’ll second that one.
No One of Consequence
@SiubhanDuinne:
bwhahahahaaaaa never seen this
Sandia Blanca
I agree with the comments above about all the Joni Mitchell covers, but for my absolute favorite I choose Traffic’s Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.
kalakal
@Sandia Blanca: Good call
BlueGuitarist
At one of the No Kings demonstrations someone had an awesome poster they made
based on Nirvana’s Nevermind album cover
The one with the baby in a pool swimming after a dollar bill:
But they had Musk instead of the baby,
one musk hand outstretched in his evil salute and the other holding a chain saw
swimming naked, tiny, after the dollar bill
No One of Consequence
Oh yeah, I meant to list this hear earlier, on a previous music thread, but I did run across an interesting youtube channel by Norman Maslov.
https://www.youtube.com/@mazzysmusic
He has turned me onto some good music that I never knew about. Little older than I, but in the wheelhouse for a good portion of the jackal demographic, methinks.
Hope it helps at least one person. It has me. I love good music.
-NOoC
divF
@Mr. Prosser:
@lowtechcyclist:
Cheap Thrills was at the top of my list too. Some others from around that period:
Traffic, The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys. An album cover designed to look like a cube.
Bruce Springsteen, Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ. A beach town souvenir postcard. A friend of mine were so taken by the album when we first heard it, we took a midnight drive in the middle of November from Princeton to Asbury Park to pay homage.
The early Commander Cody albums (first, second, fourth, and fifth) were done by Chris Frayne, the Commander’s commercial artist brother. The fifth in particular was a gorgeous riff on thirties’ science fiction.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
It certainly did!
Not showing quite as much skin, but still pretty erotic, I’ve always liked the cover of Josie Cotton’s Convertible Music. To steal Chappell Roan’s line, she’s hot to go.
MagdaInBlack
@Sandia Blanca: …and off I go down the you tube rabbit hole. Thanks for one of my favorites music-wise =-)
lowtechcyclist
I’ve always been fond of the art work on the cover of Cat Stevens’ Tea for the Tillerman.
zhena gogolia
@Steve LaBonne: Oh, yeah, I had a bunch of those. The teddy bears!
tam1MI
The Clash, London Calling
The Police, Ghost In the Machine
Duran Duran, Rio
The English Beat, Special Beat Service
lowtechcyclist
@divF:
That’s another great one – I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned it already.
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist: Oh, yeah, that brings back memories.
ETA: I loved that album, but why do I always think Sandy is on it? That’s The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle.
divF
@lowtechcyclist: Women rockers in the early days (the late 60’s / 70’s) were feeling around trying to find how to present themselves in a business where front men were, well, men (often highly sexualized men). To my current shame, at one point in my youth I had a highly sexualized poster of Maria Muldaur hanging over my Murphy bed (so it mostly was hidden). Even Linda Ronstadt, who was a major superstar in the 70’s, struggled with this in her album art.
Craig
@No One of Consequence: solid. Exile is great. Axis is classic. Big Black’s design philosophy follows from Albini’s spare aggressive approach. As said earlier I prefer Atomizer song wise and cover.
divF
@lowtechcyclist: So was I – so much so that I had to double-check before I posted.
No One of Consequence
@Craig: I make the mistake with these threads to read backwards, trying to catch up. I had not seen that Atomizer cover. That’s kick ass. I do love their art style.
-NOoC
Craig
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): FRANKIE was an amazing punk ass band. Two Tribes rules, and they did a sick cover of Born to Run. Speaking of Born to Run is a killer album cover. Great typography.
geg6
I like Boston’s first album cover. The flying space guitars are cool.
Craig
@tam1MI: yeah. London Calling with it’s callback to Elvis is a classic.
divF
War: The World is a Ghetto.
azlib
@RandyG:
Moody albums always had great art.
karen gail
Creedence Clearwater; first time I saw them live they were the warm up opening act for some band; no clue who they were. But after hearing Creedence we went out and bought all their albums. Don’t remember how many were already out by 1972; ended up with everything they put out.
What I do remember was the Oakland coliseum was not only sold out but bottles of champagne and spifts of hash were being passed around.
WaterGirl
@Jive turkin: Welcome!
(or welcome back)
They Call Me Noni
Tapestry. Carol King just looked so unassuming and cool. And there’s a cat. Seventies single cat lady. Maybe she was inspiration for T Swift.
meander
Johnny Cash, American Recordings (1994) – looming Johnny and two dogs
Matthew Sweet, Girlfriend (1991) – Tuesday Weld’s expression and that big fur collar
Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus (1957) – a modern day icon image
Someday I need to see the film Blue Note: Behind the Notes, as I’m guessing it has something about their covers.
TONYG
@Czar Chasm: I was thirteen when that album came out in 1969. The album cover was very fascinating to me. What’s interesting, in 56-year hindsight, is the fact that the women on the cover of “Electric Ladyland” look like actual human women, not air-brushed fantasy images of women. A different era, of course.
pajaro
I’ll go with the most famous crosswalk in the world, Abbey Road
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@JeanneT:
Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree) has been doing surround remixes of most of the Tull catalogue.
Songs from the Wood is incredibly awesome in surround.
NotMax
Semi-obscure: Ronnie Montrose, Open Fire.
NotMax
@NotMax
Even more obscure? An album from Gryphon.
Jacel
@kalakal: “Battle Of The Bands” by The Turtles has one of the most memorable gatefold interiors. The members of the band are in a dozen group shots where they portray the members of the fictional band playing each song on the album. The surf number “Surfer Dan” is credited to The Cross Fires, the original name of The Turtles when they were a surf band.
Sandia Blanca
@MagdaInBlack: Everything Stevie Winwood has ever done is worth the trip down that rabbit hole!
Don_K
Okay, someone has to say it: The Beatles (aka The White Album) because it was the perfect surface for cleaning an ounce of pot.
billcinsd
The Connells — Fun+Games cover by the IIRC the bands bassist David Connell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fun%26games.png
Nancy
This was fun.
I remembered that I used to have It’s a Beautiful Day. I wore it out. If I liked an album, I really liked it.
...now I try to be amused
@Mr. Bemused Senior: While Turn of the Cards has great cover art, my crush on Annie Haslam made Ashes Are Burning my favorite Renaissance album cover.
I first heard Ashes Are Burning on a Worcester, MA radio program called “The Unclassic Album”. It played an album that wasn’t considered a classic but deserved to be. I was concentrating on doing homework and when the album was over I realized I couldn’t remember a single note, but I also knew it was good. An extraordinary feeling. I ran out and bought the album, and my impression was confirmed.
prostratedragon
@zhena gogolia: Don’t think I’ve ever seen him before. Used to enjoy hearing his recordings on the radio.
Craig
@meander: Reid Miles was a genius
Craig
@billcinsd: WOW. Deep. I didn’t know anyone else knew them. Great band.
prostratedragon
This Deutsche Grammophone gallery barely scratches the surface of their art over the years. I thought first of the cover for The Wooden Price shown there. They used the same woodcut-like art for several.covers.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@…now I try to be amused: I don’t recall how I first heard it. Black Flame sticks in my blackened brain.
ascap_scab
For music, Carly Simon – Playing Possum
https://proudgalleries.com/products/carly-simon-carly-playing-possum
And Pat Travers – Putting it Straight
https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616d0000b273b363be75867f0a889b9743ab
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/A1ZGO5HpESL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg
For comedy, Martin Mull – Perfect / Near Perfect
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41jN3l8xdPL._UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/6107xnzu6IL._UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg
Melancholy Jaques
Love every Carly Simon album cover because I adore her. Favorite is Film Noir.
The Clash – London Calling really captured the spirit of that band & that time.
Cyndi Lauper – She’s So Unusual did the same for her & that time.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@AliceBlue: The graphic artist who designed that cover was Phil Hartman, he was a graphic artist before he went into comedy.
Barney
If you take into account all the album art, not just the cover: Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds
Adam
@ascap_scab: I Love the Puttin it Straight album cover. Duff Mckagen hipped me to it. He talks about it here: https://youtu.be/xFwpPFFGPt8?si=-_BQi6C_LLmVgkvH&t=73
Adam
I love the cover of Van Halen’s 1984. The angel smoking the cigarette with 1984 written in roman numerals MCMLXXXIV across the top. It was one of my first records and it perfectly embodies the vibes of the day for me. It’s a great record too. For a brief moment there, Diamond Dave truly was the toastmaster general of the immoral majority.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=1984+album+cover#vhid=ED8nskWlXSguAM&vssid=_ewkraNaNPNv_7_UPmLnogAg_86
Steve
@karen gail: A pink flyrod sounds a little too woke for me, but a blue one would make my summer a lot more fun, especially eating outside. Flies are miserable already!
WaterGirl
@Adam: Welcome!
First comments have to be manually approved, but now that I’ve done that, future comments will show up for everyone right way.
TONYG
@Don_K: My older sister (a mature woman aged fourteen) saved her pennies and bought the White Album in 1968. She allowed me to look at it and to listen if she was playing it, while forbidding me to touch it. (Smart policy, given how clumsy I was.). I remember being fascinated by the weirdness of that album, the blank white cover and all the songs. I even liked the much-maligned “Revolution 9”, just because it was so weird.
Jacel
@ascap_scab: Yes, Martin Mull delivered great LP covers, being an artist at heart. Decades later he said he only took acting jobs to support his painting habit.
BigJimSlade
I know I’m late to this, but here goes anyway.
I used to have this blown up as a poster, framed (it went up in smoke, with the house) from Madvillain:
https://www.stonesthrow.com/store/madvillainy-xl-poster/
John Sterling
Not exactly the album cover, but Star Trek: The Motion Picture had a full size pic inside of the Enterprise. Gleaming, shiny, textured, the big E has never looked better anywhere else.
JustRuss
@karen gail:
Fun fact: I once went on a double date with a girl who baby sat his kids.
George Kennan Was Right
A perfect and unforgettable visual metaphor for the front man, the band, the music, and the times, the greatest album cover in history is “Weasels Ripped My Flesh” by The Mothers Of Invention. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasels_Ripped_My_Flesh#/media/File%3AFrank_Zappa_Weasels_Ripped_My_Flesh.jpg
Eric K
Some I haven’t seen mentioned
Roxy Music Avalon
Beach Boys Surfs Up
Miles Davis Sketches of Spain