Album covers that say "Buy me", or, why I miss 12" LP artwork!

The Undertones - 'All Wrapped Up'

This sleeve caught my eye and I wound up buying the record based on the image alone...I sure got a weird look from the clerk at the register!

By the way, the picture is entitled 'Dressed to Grill'

 

YEAH! I've always loved those two covers!

 

Yes, both of these covers are great covers. The same with the Stones covers mentioned earlier.

 

My favorite Gordon Lightfoot cover of his UA years is "Lightfoot!" and my favorite Gordon Lightfoot cover of his Reprise years is "Sundown."

 

Dylan - "Highway 61 Revisited" Cool, cool shot of Dylan
Beatles - "Rubber Soul" Great effect on that on!
Stone's - "Between The Buttons" - Great shot of the Stone's on that one. It was my avatar for a long time.
Clash - "London Calling" It was a spoof of the Elvis cover, but cool none the less.

 

I like simple and bold graphics, particularly in the context of a record store filled with visual clutter: hundreds of LPs face-out, co-op diplays, posters, magazines, etc.

For that reason, I appreciated the U.S. edition of Elvis Costello's ARMED FORCES, with its Mondrian-esque splatter paint; and Neil Young's REACTOR, whose safety colors implied, "Warning: Contains Loud Music."

And although I could die a happy man without hearing another note of Pink Floyd's THE WALL, that cover told you exactly what album this was, and its refusal to explain itself any further reinforced the, er, concept.

Prince's SIGN O THE TIMES, with its after-hours, unglamorous soundstage of idle instruments and the out-of-focus artist half-cropped out of the picture, somehow implied the seemingly effortless mastery of the varied styles within.

Not every simple graphic is good, though. Certainly Spinal Tap's SMELL THE GLOVE went too far, although fans Metallica and Prince both paid homage on their own albums.

 

Steve, I miss the 12 inch LP artwork, cause in a lot of cases it was ART. I have many LP covers that could easily be framed and put up on the wall. Where today would you ever see a CD cover that had the time and care put into it such as Sgt. Pepper's or Revolver?

Also, as I get older my eyesight is slowly deteriorating. Yesterday at a garage sale, I bought a huge magnifying glass. I told the seller I need it to read small print on CD labels and inside the CD jackets, especially when the CD jacket reproduces the LP jacket exactly. Decrease the liner notes from a 12 inch LP sleeve to a 5 inch sleeve and the font size shrinks right along with it.

Here is an LP jacket that caught my attention at a recent garage sale. A little risqué for DG, don't ya think?

 

I not only bought the CD of the Irish Rovers's "The Unicorn" for the great music on it, I also bought it for the cover as it is a great cover.

 

That DG "Festival of Hits" series had some pretty nice covers. I think that the only LP that I bought in the series was the Stockhausen one. That was because it was such a bizarre concept for Stockhausen to have a "greatest hits" album.

Cheers,
Chris

 

That photo of the pretzel vendor on the cover of Steely Dan's Pretzel Logic LP was taken in New York's Central Park.

Story has it he refused to consent to having his photo used, but they discovered he was selling without a license, so they figured he wasn't gonna do anything about it, so they used it anyway.

Cool cover IMO.

 

Any stories of anybody buying a great forgotten cover just based on the cover alone, only to have the music be absolute crap?

I think I did that in the 80's a couple of times- but I can't remember what they are now...

James

 

album covers that I bought for the cover, only to fall in love with the music inside:
Rolling Stones: Their Satanic Majesties Request, Christmas '67.
The first B-52's album.
The first Pretenders album.
The Tubes-Young and Rich
Pink Floyd-Atom Heart Mother
Big Brother-Cheap Thrills
Janis Joplin-Pearl
Frank Zappa-Lumpy Gravy
Yma Sumac-Fuego del Ande
Queen II
Jefferson Airplane-Surrealistic Pillow
Fleetwood Mac-Then Play On
Billie Holiday-Lady In Satin
Gong-Est Mort
Alice Cooper-Love It To Death
Funkadelic-Maggot Brain
Jethro Tull-Thick As A Brick
The Hives-Veni Vidi Vicious
Kaleidoscope-Side Trips
Gong-Shamal
Three Dog Night-Seven Separate Fools
and there's many more, but those especially made me say 'it's ME!' so I had to buy it even if the music was crap. Fortunately, with all of those titles the music was even -better- than the cover.

 

Unicorn album cover

As I mentioned earlier, I love the cover for the Unicorn album by the Irish Rovers and here it is:

 

Re: Unicorn album cover

A new favorite cover of mine is The Soundtrack Of Our Lives- Behind The Music. Great music if you like the Stones, Who and other 60's & 70's British rock.

HINT: Get the vinyl edition. It has five bonus tracks that are among the best stuff on the record. There's this great tabla/ Indian type track that is very much like the Moody Blues' Search for the Lost Chord album. Always been a favorite of mine for some reason.

Here's the cover.

 

Re: Re: Unicorn album cover

Another nice cover is Jellyfish- Spilt Milk.

I have a poster of it as the cover picture is continued throughout the booklet. It shows a 360 degree view of the recording studio.

 

You know, I was looking through some of my vinyl and it occurred to me that the 12" versions just seem more important. They make more of an impact on you. Artwork that I may not pay attention to an CD really makes me want to study it on the record cover.

 

Yep. Iron Maiden's Powerslave has some pretty cool (and some pretty funny) heiroglyphics that don't even show up on the CD insert. All of those Derek Riggs covers are much better in 12" form.

 

This one took some work. "A Picture Of Nectar" by Phish (1992). The cover features a nectarine superimposed with the image of Nectar Rorris.
Nectar was the owner and operator of Nectar's (restaurant/bar) in Burlington VT where Phish played hundreds of shows in the mid 80's. It's kind of their Cavern Club. Nectar sold the place this year I was lucky enough to stop in on one of his last days (this past January) for a plate of homemade fries and gravy and some wonderful stories.

 

I love Shusei Nagaoka's artwork on several album covers he did including:

All N' All-Earth Wind & Fire
Best Of Earth Wind & Fire Vol. 1
I Am
Raise
Powerlight

Joy & Pain-Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly

Out Of The Blue-Electric Light Orchestra

Spitfire-Jefferson Starship

 

"Bringing It all back home." is the ultimate for me, though all the early Dylan LP's are great.

 

Ian's five fingers always confused me.

 

Gasolin' had a nice cover

 

I've bought heaps of records based on the cover. If it screams "disco", I want it! Seriously though, some of my faves are:

Ultimate: (self-titled)
Poussez: Come On And Do It!
Macho: I'm A Man
Talk Talk: Spirit Of Eden
Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here (esp. UK version in black shrinkwrap)
Earth, Wind, & Fire: I Am
Air: Premieres Symptomes (paper CD case with cutout pattern... would look so much cooler as an LP)
Tangerine Dream: Rubycon/Stratosfear/Force Majeure/Tangram/Hyperborea
Robert Schröder: Floating Music -- and most other LPs released on Innovative Communication from 1979 - 1982
Harald Grosskopf: Synthesist
Manfred Mann: The Roaring Silence
Donna Summer: Live And More
Klaus Schulze: Timewind
Edgar Froese: Aqua/Ypsilon In Malaysian Pale*/Macula Transfer/Pinnacles
Erasure: I Say I Say I Say -- UK ltd edtn -- CD, but in 12" gatefold pop-up cover that is way more cool than the album itself
Vangelis: Soil Festivites
Jean-Michel Jarre: Equinoxe

*Note the spelling, which is the German version, which is a much deeper shape of green than the UK version which is spelled "Epsilon"... but anyway...