Two blokes shaking hands – one is on fire
Blond children crawling up the Giants Causeway, and an orange sky
Charles Hawtrey
Textually Described Album Covers
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Mount Rushmore, only there are five heads, all with long hair.
Wish You Were Here
Houses Of The Holy
Best Of The Smiths
Deep Purple In Rock
How about:
Jesus, a golden figure and another unknown seem to be in a taxi.
Together Alone ?
Correct!
Cow’s arse.
Pig’s ear.
Atom Heart Mother
….and Meddle….
Young bloke walking down city street in the middle of the road with a young woman on his arm.
Bob.
Group of blokes looking moody in leather jackets.
Got you now haven’t I!
Leaning against a wall?
Bowl hair-cuts and ripped jeans?
The OsmondsThe RamonesThe second Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes album This Time It’s For Real.
Woman in a cloak standing in the woods near Mapledurham Watermill
Black Sabbath 1
Four blokes crossing the road
I think I know this one.
It’s the Abbey Road EP by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, isn’t it?
With strategically placed socks?
Could be … or Booker T and The MGs: Mclemore Avenue
Bunch of hairys sitting on the lawn in someone’s garden with elderly couple standing outside the garden wall.
Fairport Convention – Unhalfbricking
Couple on the back seat of a car. He’s pulling bubble gum off her chest.
I don’t want to give that one away too early but I’ll offer a clue:
It’s fandabidozy!
It’s a Krankies album?
That’s what I was leading the readers to believe (snigger!)
Scorpions – Lovedrive
Accusations of sexism are incorrect – that’s art that is
There’s a woman, with no clothes on, riding a serpent.
Whitesnake…..LOVEHUNTER…
There’s a woman with no clothes on manipulating a silver serpent.
sounds like Lovehunter again?
No. ‘Serpent’ is probably inaccurate. Let say Silver Machine.
Space Ritual
???
No, nowt to do with Stacia. Other than the Ginger hair.
It was very ‘controversial’.
Blind Faith
?
Yay. Hurrah for Mr Digit.
The Silver Machine is the hood ornament for a Chevrolet Bel Air. The model is an eleven year old girl. Hardly a ‘woman’.
Ah, but it was the ’60’s where everything was possible and nothing was real.
Almost Blind Faith.
How much more white could it be? The answer is none. None more white.
I think it’s an off white, so it could be whiter.
A suburban sprawl below, with a bacchanalia going on in the clouds above….
Hatfield and the North.
Correct!
Your username was a clue.
Dang nabbit…..
a prism generates a rainbow…
It’s Dark Side of the Moon. I would have thought that this should have been a non-more-black cover.
Similar to a current McDonalds advertising campaign, but ruder…
Atom Heart Mother?
Er… no. Does this help?
http://i1150.photobucket.com/albums/o615/JohnDetail/E07E4E2B-01AF-4CE8-B4AA-B1A477CA2AC9-197-0000004FDC10A5EC_zpsfbun5qr7.jpeg
Never Mind The Bollocks
Not seen that advert – has Julien Temple got a new gig?
They’re everywhere over here. Have been surprised at no comment on the AW. Maybe there’s a Jamie Reid shaped obstacle to using them in the U.K.?
Jamie Reid!
Why did I say Julien Temple?
(Because I’m a tw*t)
This of course means I will have to resign my commission from The Afterword, and immediately shoot myself
A misted-up window with writing on it.
Slippery…
I Want to see The Bright Lights Tonight, no? By The Thompson Twins.
The Afterword’s generational divide in a nutshell
A giant beetle.
Massive Attack
‘Mezzanine’
Gigantic balding long-haired man’s head in the sky, above a distorted rural landscape.
The balding guy is Terry Riley. Rainbow in curved air.
Gorrit.
Rear view of the neck and headstock of a Fender bass guitar against a blue background, showing bassist’s left hand.
801 live?
Correct!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3az6E4qUwoA
Cartoon car with 7 cartoon figures, atop a cheeseburger.
Mothers – Just another band from LA?
A winner!
Frizzy red-head climbing out of a sunken garden
Zappa, Hot Rats
A Neon Ice Cream
A Man Shines a torch on a piano
First one’s the last Blur album
Is the second one Rattle & hum?
Billy Joel – Songs In The Attic
Yes, it’s blur and Billy…
Perched lizards look on as a flying elephant swoops in
Roger Dean’s “Osibisa” cover. Nice.
specifically…
Woyaya, I suppose – although the first album’s cover is pretty similar
Fish in a hat and velvet jacket.
Trout Mask Replica!
ah, not the SFAJTH then
Four t-shirted men confront the viewer – apart from the chap second from the right, who’s squinting sideways at the man on his right, our left. All four men are gagged with what could be heavy-duty adhesive tape. In the background is a neo-classical building upon whose portico the name of the establishment, and the album, is written in capital letters in a serif typeface. The whole image is ‘lo-f’i, as if it has been photocopied multiple times.
An airborne komondor
Odelay by Beck
Affirmative.
A ballerina lies on her back gazing at the camera with a backdrop of a grand concert hall.
A Passion Play
Off-duty Pierrot havin’ a fag.
Woman suspended on a kite.
Mannequins at a party.
Giant orchid preserves singer’s modesty.
bowie – scary monsters
bush – kick inside
Two down, two to go.
Roxy Manifesto
Prince Lovesexy
Four down, none to go.
A close-up of the left eye of a snowy owl.
I know the one you mean but can’t remember the name.
Got back home, sat down and the name Mari Boine Persen came to me. Hurrah. Am I right @duco01 ?
You most certainly are, Sir Hubert, sir.
“”Gula Gula” by Mari Boine Persen.
Hollywood Boulevard transposed to the desert, with the Hollywood Hills depicted as a giant jelly
Little Feat “The Last Record Album”
…like a mirage in your garage…
St John’s Ambulance Bearers
Setting sons by The Jam?
it is!
A Chinese horseman watches impassively as a cowboy’s corpse is devoured by vultures.
Ah, two cultures CLASHing.
An excuse to post one of my favourite records! Anyone with a passing interest in dub and The Clash should make room for Dub Spencer & Trance Hill’s ‘Clashification Of Dub’ album
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFT2ll2-eH0
yessir
Kudzu. Everywhere.
R.E.M. Murmur
yup
He´s a bit out of focus, wearing suede and a chess board, and has a lot of hair.
Dylan´s Blonde On Blonde, anyone? He was famous long ago.
Two airborne dolphins.
Orange Juice You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever
Mmhm
Orange Juice
Half a point
The lead singer sporting a drawn-on moustache, head and shoulders wrapped in a bedsheet. In moody black and white.
The Auteurs new wave
Cow’s eyes lying on some salt.
Pixies
0.5 again
Trompe Le Monde
Oui!
Its the frozen north somewhere, we’re looking out over maybe a lake or a flat field. In the distance a line of trees and behind them perhaps a mountain. There’s a pole in the foreground.
Extra hard one:
A girl is pouting. Behind her are some large cuts of meat hanging from hooks in an abbatoir or butchers.
Is the first one Yield by Pearl Jam?
No sorry.
I include the second one as it comes in a cardboard sleeve with a fetching photo of the band on so the girl and her meat are only visible once you get to the CD cover proper. The record company – not the first – went ‘piles of meat do not an album sell’.
Is the first one Matt Bianco?
@black-celebration no it’s not.
Meat album number two: (number three of course is the HJHers)
There’s a girl. She loves meat. She loves meat so much she’s only gorn and made a dress out of it the crazy minx
The Undertones ‘All Wrapped Up’
Yup – any ideas on ‘girl plus meat one’ then?
Take away the girl and we have the Edgar Broughton Band
Nope it’s girl plus meat. She looks unhappy. Whereas the girl on Unwrapped looks delighted at all that meat.
Black Box Recorder – the Facts of Life
A sky blue album cover with bright red lettering. A pair of hands with red nail polish are resting upon the cover. The right one is tearing a chunk of it away.
The Tubes first (self-titled?) LP
Correctamundo!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFltXDMQsQQ
Eight sheep in a field near a wooden gate and a tree. Seven are lying down, one is standing. Blue but clouded sky. No lettering.
Are the sheep Chilling Out?
Yes they are, Mini.
Framed picture of a cockerel, perched on a metal fence and crowing with bright sun behind his head. Picture is very slightly askew against nailed wooden planks.
Hundreds of iron beds trail into the distance of Saunton Sands beach, Devon. A trouserless man sits on one while five dogs look on and a microlight flies overhead.
Momentary Lapse of Reason.
Bird shit and fruit.
Might it be…..Procol Harum, Exotic Birds & Fruit?
Nope.
Quite a few species of birds, and they’ve been very busy…
You’ve got me there, Moose – I give up!
The Stone Roses?
Stone me!
He’s right.
Naked loony with a turtle shell on his back crawling through a field.
Fried
Copey’s “Fried”
Correctomundo.
A heard of Elephants rampaging towards you with what look like pterodactyls overhead.
Armed Forces.
Are they disco elephants?
Two snooker balls, one red and one yellow.
Venus and Mars?
Correct!
Two blokes walking along a country lane turn back to face the camera. Both wear scarves.
S & G with their Sounds of Silence.
Man wears gas mask pretending to be an elephant.
2 Live Crew and Lenin also make an appearance.
Goodbye jumbo by World Party?
Wahey!
2 Live Crew’s As Nasty As They Wanna Be could be described as “Four Female Arses and Four Male Arses”
Sunset. Three men or the same man three times?One in a car, one lights a cigarette, a third has a torch which has a trail coming from it…
And then there were three
Old bloke without a shirt on gets ready for a fight.
Peace and love by Pogues?
No.
Jammy Smears Ivor Cutler.
(Woollen) Aye
Bog-eyed vent’ dummy.
Two chaps in nick. One of them, rather ill-advisedly, is pouting.
Cannot believe nobody’s got this…
It Takes A Nation Of Millions? Are you going to tell him that’s a pout? I’ll just wait outside….
He can’t see me, he’s too busy reading the lyrics on the underside of his hat.
Father and son standing outside a clothes shop.
New Boots & Panties!!
16portraits of the four band members, each portrait painted by a different artist.
That sound a bit like Face Dances by the ‘Orrible ‘Oo.
It does and it is.
Bona omi spark out on his palliasse. Very green image.
Dog man star
Fantabulosa!
A distant figure with a walking stick/staff climbs a hill of brown-ish grass.
Common One?
Yup.
Leonardo’s cannons.
Family “Anyway”
Yus!
A marble bust of a military figure with some kind of middle-eastern town in the background.
Empires and dance, simple minds.
Aye (travel)
A lot of sweet wrappers.
Pills n Thrills n Bellyaches. How would you describe the image on the inner sleeve of Bummed, Mr Moose?
Which side – standing or sitting?
A pink cloud comes out of a subway.
Loaded . The Velvet Underground.
(Nice work Rigid! This thread was a lot of fun.)
A grid. Just a grid – on the first vinyl pressing. One colour for the framework, one colour for the spaces between the frames. The framework is slanted and the spaces between the grid are lozenge-shaped. Or a collection of lozenges in a grid formation arranged against a different-coloured background. You get the idea.
Animal Collective – Meriweather Post Pavilion?
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark?
@walker1 indeed, first vinyl pressing had a natty cut-out, like the much more famous Blue Monday.
Man opens his coat to reveal poor-quality merchandise
(steady)
Joe Jackson I’m The Man
Tick!
Curtains, vase with purple flowers, table/dais/stage type thing.
Wire – Chairs missing
Aftermath of a nasty DIY accident.
*sigh* I thought you were all teenage metalheads. It’s Kill ‘Em All.
Still of a sailor from a classic Sergei Eisenstein film
The Redskins! Neither Wasington Nor Moscow! A great album! All the songs have exclamation marks at the end!
Indeed (and many feature parenthesis)…
Wearing sunglasses, the artist stands in a large building that looks like a station perhaps, eating a banana.
Is the station in Manhattan, or maybe Berlin?
Len´s I´m Your Man.
Quite correct Kid D and Neela.
Flaxen-haired beauty in maxi dress reclining languorously on a chaise- longue.
The man who sold the world?
Correct, oh by jingo.
Beardy guy sniffs own armpit.
I was convinced that the beardy guy was Zappa. But my memory seems to be playing tricks with me.
Doesn’t have Courtney Love on the back cover.
The Magic Of Richard Clayderman
(Courtney Love is not on the back cover of that album, so this is a technically correct answer)
but was it ever popularly* believed that it did?
*”popular”
Malcolm X impersonator, not quite dressed for the part.
It’s not about a salary, it’s all about…
By All Means Necessary
You clearly think very deeply…
Valentina Tereshkova
(not strictly an album)
Two geisha girls against a green background.
Kimono My House
(only album I can think of with Geisha Girls (there must be others?) – no idea about the background colour)
Correct – I thought it might have lasted a little longer.
A friend at the time insisted that was really Ron and Russell in drag.
Karl Marx – possibly – covers his face in tiredness or despair.
Come on….
Come on…
“I’m really annoyed with my bass guitar. Take that y’bastard”
London Calling.
Yup
God turns out to be a cartoon dog.
Uh oh I think I’ve got this.
Heh.
Very underrated. I played it very loud last night and it sounded very good indeed.
David Byrne uh-oh
A bicycle – possibly punctured – on a hillside desolate.
Cartoon of a man in Top hat & tails straddling a piano (against a very busy background).
Captain Fantastic?
Four well-turned-out chaps are on their way downstairs. They notice something mildly interesting happening over to their left, and stop to have a shufti.
Please Please Me
?
They stopped again 8 years later, but were much hairier
No. “Left” not “down”.
Kraftwerk’s The Man Machine?
KOORRR-EKT!
(wouldn’t it be great if any K-heads got this brilliant in-joke?)
A cartoon pig in pink shades wearing a yellow shirt with loads of writing on it
Now That’s What I Call Quite Easy!
Although I’ll look rather foolish if it isn’t…
Four blokes in suits laugh, whilst flanking a stern woman in a dress.
Parallel Lines.
I made that too easy, didn’t I?
If I got it, yes
A diagram depicting radio waves emitted from a Pulsar
Unknown Pleasures
Showing a high degree of insight there, Mr Moose
I remember everything.
A rear shot of a bloke walking down Berwick Street
Faster than a cannonball?
Some might say
The waters after the flood start to subside, revealing a tree…
Spirit of Eden?
Oh yeah (the world’s turned upside down)
Man in red suit and sombrero plays trumpet. Looks astonished.
Have you any idea how many Mexican album covers this decribes, Moose?
I started looking and got distracted by this senorita in a sombrero.
I see no trumpet. Not on the screen, anyway.
Hmm, none of the Tijuana Christmas albums I can think of feature an astonished-looking chap. Pained, perhaps, but not astonished.
I think our Torero Band* friend looks astonished, but I have succeeded in bringing you to this thread, so he’s served his purpose whatever we think of him.
(*as he definitely will be, by no means some random bod in EMI’s art department, who probably came in to do the drains and got kidnapped)
Darn it. Lured in with Torero-flavoured Breakfast bait.
This guy looks quite astonished, but is lacking the red suit: https://www.discogs.com/Border-Brass-Tijuana-Christmas/master/335176
Do you think when he puts the trumpet down his ‘tache goes with it?
Naked burlesque dancer has a migraine and a stomach-ache
since none of you got this, here’s the answer:
Fried egg on a white plate – cigarette stubbed out in the yoke.
by the Death Walks Behind You hitmakers?
Half a point deducted for omitting the album title…..but yes, the DWBY hit makers is correct!
Man with moustache in pink t-shirt and white jacket
It’s yer Uncle Frank – Broadway the Hard Way?
Yo!
It is dark. Two sisters in their undies stand in front of some trees.
Roxy Music – Country Life
Country life by Roxy?
A Victorian diver emerges from the sea carrying a woman wearing a red dress.
10cc – Deceptive Bends
How Dare You get it right so quickly!
The artist, a man wearing jacket and tie, a lady with two faces and a chap wearing specs and a boater stand in front of a lake.
Human’s Lib.
You have thrown off your mental chains, correct.
A tempestuous shoreline and some long thin metallic hanging tubes.
The answer is in the question. The answer is of course Mike Oldfield’s “Tempestuous Shoreline”.
Although you may prefer the sequel which was Tempestuous Shoreline 2
A lady, on the point of being embraced, with a key on her tongue.
The Dreaming – Kate Bush
Five air traffic controllers stare pensively as an unexplained phenomena emerges from a blue and purple sky.
Jethto Tull – A
That’s right: the rear cover is great as the Tull rock the ‘beard and boilersuit’ look.
Final one for now…
An envelope shows a figure going for a moonlit walk in a shallow sea.
That sounds like “Communiqué” by the Lady Writer hitmakers.
It is
The boxer has six fingers on his right hand. He has to.
Peace and Love
PS That’s my answer, I haven’t become Ringo.
Just so. I like that you got the answer when it had already been a wrong suggestion for one of your one entries higher up.
Yeah. I remember the six fingers too. Not so much southpaw as wrongpaw.
A painting of a basket of flowers, to which has been added some small coloured squares.
Cower, Lorruption and Pies
Peter Saville really was taking the piss, wasn’t he?
I feel like he picked that one up in a jumble sale.
Peter Howson’s “The Bodybuilder” painting.
Quench.
Possibly one of the bleakest albums ever made.
No. Afraid not.
The painting on the cover of Quench is indeed by Peter Howson, but it’s not “The Bodybuilder”.
Curse! Foiled by huge men with flat heads.
Hmmm … it sounds like you’ve got it, Moosey.
The answer was indeed “Fairy Tales for Hardmen” by Jackie Leven.
Some people are standing around on a beach, except their heads are toes.
Toe Fat!
That cover freaks me right out. Always has done. I hate it. I just can’t look at it.
How incredible would it be if it wasn’t Toe Fat? But yes, the answer is Toe Fat, and it freaked me out too when I first saw it.
Exhibits from the golden age of toys….
Oh come on.
Octagonal glasses
A pipe
A knotted beard
Wreathed in smoke.
Your user name is quite a clue!
Album named after your older brother.
Thought it could be quite difficult!
Alas no.
A troubadour sits on some steps and serenades us, seemingly unaware or unconcerned by the hole in the crotchular area of his blue jeans.
“And it’s a long way to Buffalo
It’s a long way to Belfast city too
Especially when you’ve got a hole in the crotchular area of your jeans”
Why! it’s our favourite old curmudgeon, Sir George Ivan Morrison. Oh yes!
It is. Have some pickled herrings ( in case you get finished before dinner)
We didn’t want that kind of preview, pal!
Not-so-young soul rebel in ‘relaxed’ attire.
Kevin’s “My Beauty”?
Too rye ay!
There’s only one face, but all of the band members’ faces are on it.
Too easy – Love’s Forever Changes
It’s not what I’m thinking of…
There’s *literally* just one human face on the album cover. (Yet, hmm, all of the band members’ faces are on it.)
Queen’s The Miracle. A *hideous* album cover.
What?! That’s got four faces on it.
I’m talking about one human face (i.e. two eyes, a nose, a mouth, a chin)
Spirit?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v662/strontiumdawg/download_zpsghedgtq8.jpg
Dashboard. Windscreen. Road. Fences. Fields. Sky.
Nebraska!
@drj .minimal. Left ‘flat’ off.
There’s a woman and she’s stuck halfway through the ceiling feet first , so we can see her knickers and her billowing skirt – or is it her skirt? Or some artex ceiling effect. My mind is blown…honestly this cover is only one step away from Love Drive, it’s just awful.
That Two Door Cinema Club album?
Yep, though should be the 1975 as that cover is straight out of 1975.
A giant squid battles a sperm whale in space.
They Might Be Giants, Apollo 18
A turquoise Lancia Flavia in the rain. The artist does not look joyful.
Peter Gabriel
Monochrome. The artist appears to have scratched off the surface of the photograph he is in.
PG “Scratch”
Monochrome. The artist is in a striped shirt. His face is partially melted.
PG “Melt” 🙂
Jenny Saville – Strategy
la lampe philosophique
Alan Hull, Pipe Dreams
Top man. you that is.
The band pretending to busk
Supergrass – In It For The Money
(I listened to that album for the first time in about 10 years last month – it is still damn fine. In fact, probably even better than I remember)
It’s a stunner – of the best albums of that whole decade.
She’s had her face skewered. Looks like swiss cheese (heh heh)
KooKoo – Debbie Harry
I wish I could think of a witticism to counter your “swiss cheese” remark.
A cheese counter?
Shut that bloody bouzouki music up!
It’s radioactive cheese!
Coo, is the Swiss thing a Giger reference?
It’s like one of those big eggs that backfires in your face.
Bloke in pink suit leaning on a green Oldsmobile with the licence plate number 986 JGF.
Anyone? How about a clue? English guitarist, this is an eponymous solo album
from 1976, although he’s best known as a sideman.
Chris Spedding, Chris Spedding (‘English guitarist’ and ‘sideman’ were the clinchers)
That’s the one!
There’s a big black star in the middle… Oh bugger! I’m rubbish at this.
Big Star #1 Record?
or is it The World Of Bobby Crush
1. Graffitied Delacroix
2. Altered Gericault
3. Bosch (probably more than one)
A Coldplay (not a follower so don’t know which one)
Rum Sodomy aNd the Lash
A Black Sabbath Greatest Hits I hafpd as a kid to name but one.
Yup – was thinking of an early Deep Purple for the Bosch but not surprised to hear BS have used him as well
Dead Can Dance’s Aion too.
Sandpaper
Wild Willy Barrett. Or Durutti Column.
Wow, there’s a collaboration waiting to happen.
There goes my ‘Texturally Described Album Covers’ mini-thread!
Three bottle-blonds in a tunnel.
Bottle-blonds makes me think of Sting and his colleagues in the constabulary. It wouldn’t Outlandox D’Amour? The background looks very dark: no light at the end of that tunnel.
They’re in some kind of subway. Probably hiding from a Clash audience.
Plumpish man in bowler polishes Roller.
I can sort of picture this one, Moosey. I know I’ve seen it, but I’m damned if I can think what it is.
It’s George Martin’s best non-Fabs album, The Best of Sellers.
Colourised Reptiles
Baby with reptile head
Baby underwater with dollar bill
Babies trampled under ladies in dresses
Hmmm … well, the last one of those is definitely the Human League’s “Reproduction”.
And the second is Nevermind.
Yes
Yep
A classic black-and-white photo by Sebastão Selgado of thousands of workers at the Serra Pelada open gold mine in Brazil.
Jerry Harrison’s Casual Gods?
You’re on top form today, Moosey.
I googled but was none the wiser. But his black and white photos are wonderful. Perfect for a metal album I thought. Oh well!
also risibly used by Smashing Pumpkins in the video for Bullet For Butterfly Wings, where Billy Corgan thought that it was an apt metaphor for expressing his inner pain. Bless.
A black and white photograph taken in 1940 by Arthur Fellig of a densely-packed Coney Island beach.
George michael. Listen without prejudice I’m guessing
Correct!
Male and female, looks like a kind of post coital vibe. Her expression is loving but resigned, and he just wants out. They both look about ten years old.
Not Bowie’s Pin Ups by any chance?
Very nope
Is it Buckingham Nicks? You know, assuming 10 year old boys have ‘taches.
Not that one either