Maybe the upswing of vinyl has to do with that tactile and beauty of album artwork. Which are your favourites and most inventive ones?
This is one of mine (unsurprisingly) from the great Barney Bubbles
Vinyl Fetish – You Don’t Get That With A Download
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Loved the art work for Armed Forces, the buyers of fresh air music don`t know what they are missing.
I`ve always loved the front cover of (shock) `Forever Changes` and there are dozens of prog albums whose artwork is stunning. I also recently bought `Bitches Brew` and the artwork is brilliant.
Nice to see the ‘Gallifrey’ tag appearing down the page. Good work.
I have this one at home:
(Jethro Tull – Stand Up)
They did a New Boots N Panties for this years Record Store Day with a pop up Ian & Baxter
Ooh, I do love a pop-up. This one’s great (cat sold separately).
What’s the album?. Don’t tell me Napalm Death’s Xmas Classics
Close. http://www.discogs.com/Various-A-Christmas-Present/release/1462616
Robert Goulet singing ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ !!!!
Sold for £7 for a VG\\VG copy!
Even more if it’s completely unplayable!
Minibreakfast. Because GURL.
The cover of “School’s Out” folded out into a school desk with opening lid, containing the album and a pair of paper panties. The graffiti on the desk lid all references the band.
A band supplying emergency underwear for their fans. How thoughtful. You wouldn’t get that from The so-called One Directions.
didn’t Muscle of Love come in a brown cardboard box?
More Tull:
Legendarily took longer to make the sleeve than record the album.
Doesn’t pop up, or come as a fake local rag, but this to me epitomises LP artwork – the anti Pepper:
[URL=http://s1302.photobucket.com/user/gary_thompson1/media/Meddle%20IC_zpsqfdolmkg.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1302.photobucket.com/albums/ag136/gary_thompson1/Meddle%20IC_zpsqfdolmkg.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
I’ll try again.
Doesn’t pop up, or come as a fake local rag, but this to me epitomises LP artwork – the anti Pepper:
http://i1302.photobucket.com/albums/ag136/gary_thompson1/Meddle%20IC_zpsqfdolmkg.jpg
This is a fantastic shot. Serious without being self-serious. Eye contact without a trace of self-consciousness. I suspect four shots were comped together, but that doesn’t matter. Shame the outer cover was such a pig’s ear!
let’s not forget Wish You Were Here shrink wrapped in its black sleeve.
I find this picture quite funny. Dave looks really grumpily cheesed off (“I’m telling my mum of you”) Rick is going “hurry up, I want a wee”, Nick’s thinking, “I’m missing the Grand Prix for this”, and Rog, totally out of character, is only just taking it seriously.
Man’s map of Wales, folds out from the Be Good To yourself … sleeve
https://jonb52.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/4626326-11b.jpg
You would say that, wouldn’t you?
The first album I ever bought was Billion Dollar Babies by Alice Cooper (yes, my parents were delighted!). It was constructed like a snakeskin wallet complete with giant dollar bill. In order to get the whole experience, you needed to tear a section out of one side of the gatefold and reveal a picture of…. well I’m still not entirely sure as I couldn’t bring myself to damage the perforations. It’s still pristine to this day with the picture still hidden. I’ve just looked for some pictures and it seems to be worth more money than I expected. I’m not parting with it though.
Oh, I have that one too! It’s a lovely thing! fyi the perforated section is just pictures of the band members…
wasn’t it a billion dollar bill if memory serves?
I thought long and hard before I typed that! I am an idiot! This is not the only evidence.
Round Ogdens Nut Gone Flake sleeve anyone?
No, but I have the round Big Wheel sleeve (XTC). Probably not that unusual.
I’ve got that one, Metal Box and Armed Forces as illustrated above. Inventive they may be but practical they aren’t! After a few days I blu-tacked my Armed Forces sleeve together so I could use it as a proper sleeve. I transferred all the bits of MEtal Box (except of course the Metal Box) into a brown cardboard LP mailing sleeve which, all these years later, is where it still lives. The XTC cover simply let the dust in so, although I still use the original sleeve, it has a more sensible inner sleeve inside which inevitably sticks out of corners and rather loses the original interest.
That reminds me. I saw this narrow boat at Paddington Basin a couple of years ago.
http://i1122.photobucket.com/albums/l522/davebigpicture/IMG_0016.jpg
The cover of Family’s Bandstand is cut out to look like the front of an old timey telly, like you’d watch the Coronation on. The picture through the “window” is of the band in the studio looking singularly pissed off (as they were, but that’s another story).
Great album though but – easily their best non-psychedelic LP.
The Flaming Lips “Zaireeka” – Four LPs (or CDs) that you have to play at the same time to hear the complete songs.
Have you ever heard it, Fatima and, if yes, what’s it like?
As a record, it’s a great concept.
Reminds me of an off-shot of that We Buy White Albums thing a couple of years back, when somebody recorded about a hundred different copies being played at the same time. The result was absolutely terrifying (and bits of White are pretty freaky as it is)
I’m part of a circle of Lips fans in Berlin who come together once a year with four CD players to listen to “Zaireeka” as intended. As you’ve got 8 speakers there are some amazing stereo effects!
The four discs can be listened to separately, but sound like demos or instrumentals in part. For example, the bass may “wander” from disc 1 to disc 3 and back, or the backing vocals sometimes are divided over three discs. And there’s a harrowing scream that builds from disc to disc for a really cinematic effect.
The disc come with a recorded synchronization clip at the start, but that doesn’t always work out 100% – which doesn’t matter actually 😉
Two words –
METAL BOX.
One word –
BOLLOX
Led Zeppelin – Physical Graffitti
Cut-out windows with different views depending on how the records were inserted.
(Perfect opportunity to throw in a couple of gratuitous porno shots, or a lobster completely missed)
And the In Through The Out Door had those B&W photos treated so they’d turn into colour with application of watered brush
When I was at school we always giggled when someone mentioned The Led Zeppelins – “When you piss on their albums they turn to colour…” 😉
and of course the album came in a brown paper bag!
Uriah Heep – Look At Yourself
Front cover was a mirror, so would actually be looking at yourself.
The sleeve of Motown Chartbusters 7 has a little wheel at the side that when turned, changes the images (instruments, band members) on the pic of the slot machine. It also changes the corresponding song title in the window at the bottom.
Soft Machine Third. A highly evocative gatefold image of a time and place long gone, around 1970.
https://flic.kr/p/c2c7T9
The ladeez moved into the kitchen for this shot (nb handbag under Robert’s chair).
Looks like female feet poking out from the bottom of the image. The chaps don’t look like they’d have much success with the opposite sex mind you but I suppose there’s a certain bohemian vibe that can be alluring.
….all waiting around to see who’s going to crack and finally do some bloody washing up.
“There’s a teabag growing in there”
Led Zepp 3 with the rotating wheel of images.
Tull’s Living In The Past hard back flold out cover but just some pictures inside a bit meh
Magical Mystery Tour: much more vibrant- got a pristine copy -any offers
Who Live at leeds with all the photos and contracts and stuff
More Faces. My older brother had this. At the time I was more interested in the sleeve than the record.
http://i1122.photobucket.com/albums/l522/davebigpicture/The%20Faces%20-%20Ooh%20La%20La.jpg
XTC.
In addition to the circular Big Express sleeve, they did quite a few singles with unusual packaging, including these:
‘No Thugs’ folds out into a paper theatre, while ‘Nigel’ is a board game, and Sgt. Rock a comic (with a band pic on the reverse. Andy Partridge had a major hand in the design.
The English Settlement sleeve is wonderfully tactile.
Have you heard of that one?
I have a vinyl recording of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, I bought and lent several cd-versions of it, directed by several different directors but I never ever got that little detail that made me feeiling that I am in the cathedral it’s played, a simple, perfect, majestuous echo when on a cd a brutal silence takes place. The B-side is a choirs that no critic had mercy not to call kitsch and ridiculous. And, no, you can’t have that in a CD.
On the other hand, the Flaming Lips again: they issued a 24-hour long song on MP3. Wouldn’t work on vinyl. Or CD.
There was a period around 1990 when similar fancy packaging was used to market limited edition versions of some CD singles by some of the major record companies, in an attempt to hype them into the charts. Some of this packaging was quite ornate, and must have cost far more to produce than the retail price of the single. I can’t cite and specific examples, unfortunately.
They were outlawed when the chart compilers introduced new eligibility rules.
Like this ‘that won’t fit in my IKEA CD rack’ release from that aforementioned Swindon pop beat combo
Oh alright can’t seem to get html picture posting to work. Google ‘XTC KIng For A Day CD single’
Allow me.
The CD slides out of the outer case, within a crown-shaped sleeve.
Thanks.
I seem to recall another (Tears For Fears – Sowing the Seeds?) that was a multi pointed star that would also be a pain to file away.
As well as the ‘lost down the back of sofa’ 3″ CD single
That ‘King’ is a 3-incher. ‘The Loving’, ‘Mayor of Simpleton’ and a reissue of ‘Senses’ were done at that size.
The first CD single I ever saw was All You Need Is Love, released in a 20-years-on stylee in ’87. I suppose they’re a throwback to when most CD players didn’t have trays.
(Shit! I mentioned trays!)
You are feeling sleepy…and sleepy…
Especially if you’re listening to Gentle Giant or Warhorse.
Brian Salad Surgery opened down the middle of the cover – and let’s not forget the live triple album ‘Welcome Back My Friends’ which opened to reveal a large ‘ELP ‘
and wasn’t there a Stones best of – possibly Through The Past Darkly – that came in an octagonal sleeve?
The Who – Odds & Sods
Track names written in braille, and cut-outs/tears on front cover.
I’ve actually seen a copy for sale with the advice: “Poor condition – Tears on cover”
Scanning my albums: those HatHut albums are amazing doorsteps with their rugged red packaging, especially the triple One Too Salty Sweet And Not Goodbye by Cecil Taylor; Alone Together by Dave Mason has a fold-out, well, not mountain exactly, more an outcropping; Janis Joplin’s Crumb-drawn sleeve; Traffic’s John Barleycorn and its wheatstraw-effect sleeve; Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection and CSNY’s Deja Vu both channeling sepia-tinted old America; the Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request with its built-in “moving” picture; the middle fold out Quintessence; Tusk by Fleetwood Mac is very heavy-duty; then there’s Heavy Petting by Dr Strangely Strange, which I don’t have, but a mate did, very elaborate packaging indeed, not built to last..
I think that I shall never see
A picture-shaped laser-etched download LP
Sing it again, Rod in a whisky tumbler shaped sleeve,
L.A. Woman originally had etched silhouettes of the band on the clear bit of the cover, to stand out against the inner sleeve, with later copies having a clear clear bit, and the picture as was printed on the inner sleeve