If you take a peek at the album cover for Prince’s masterpiece Sign O’ The Times, you’ll see the word NOOKER. It’s on the neon sign on the right, obviously a cropped ‘SNOOKER’, but still funny. I find that impossible to ignore.
Are there any other ‘nookers’ out there? Strange, funny words on covers…?
There’s also MAN GUE on the cover of Hysteria by the Human League. (Yes it’s a gatefold etc etc)
That was my Mum’s first question when I brought that record home. “Who’s Mangue?”
But they have no clue about snooker in the US, Google revealed the following:
“A Nooker is a commonly used term when talking about an African-American hooker/prostitute. The term is mainly used by the privileged white male”
Nah, that’s Google’s AI summary- it’s making that up.
Edit: I did just find it on urban dictionary, so yeah… but it’s surely not going to be on a neon sign… or is it?
New Order’s Shellshock 12″ had the band’s name and song title superimposed on it by Factory’s Australian distributor. It was only years later I realised in its real guise the only word on the front cover was “Alex!” I still wonder what prompted Peter Saville to include it.