Some Favorite Album Covers

Well, I saw that big-low-t just came up with a post with some of his favorite album artwork, and as far as I'm concerned, there's no idea so good that it's not worth ripping off, you know what I mean?.

So, then, like big-low-t said, these are just ten that I came up with quickly; I could be missing some, and I would probably come up with a different list tomorrow. But the real issue, for me, anyway, is separating the cover from the music. Just reviewing, I considered Pink Flag, and it's a good cover, even better than good, but am I overrating the cover some, just because I happen to think it's, like, the-second greatest album of all time? Should I not be surprised that I like the cover to Soft Machine's Third, the music attached to which I think is probably the only thing better than Pink Flag?. Or, moving down the line a bit, is the cover to Let it Bleed really that good, or am I letting the ace music influence my graphic judgement?

These are a bunch of rhetorical questions, I know.

So what I ended up with is a list of some really good albums, but with maybe none among my absolute favorites, just because I wanted to try and focus on the art.

Sepultura - Arise: Michael Whelan is here to tell you that if you're an artist and you've captured the respect of the sci-fi paperback people, well, then, you're *definitely* good enough to do album covers. After Sepultura used Whelan's "Nightmare In Red" second hand, after at least two science fiction/fantasy books had already done so, for Beneath the Remains, Roadrunner commissioned the cover for Arise directly from the artist. It's Sepultura's best album, and their best cover, too, which is to be expected given Whelan's involvement.

Paul McCartney & Wings - Back to the Egg: This album definitely doesn't get the respect it deserves, but even the people who (wrongly) dislike the music recognize that the cover is great. It was the famed design studio Hipgnosis who were behind it, and the reason it's great is the juxtaposition of the warm, rich, comfortable Scottish castle with the cold, metallic, blinking spaceship porthole hidden under that tartan weave carpet. The interior of Lympne Castle would have been good; a view of Earth from space just as good; but the combination is jarring enough to stick in the memory forever, pretty much.

Sonic Youth - Bad Moon Rising: This is another cover that derives its strikingness from a dichotomy. This one's not tradition vs. technology, but rather rural vs. urban. Really, it's the Led Zeppelin IV gatefold, done American style. A scarecrow against the New York skyline. Plus, you know, fire, which should really never hurt an album cover.

Elton John - Captain Fantastic & the Brown Dirt Cowboy: I am of an age such that this record was my first experience with a great album cover; I just so happened to be ten years old during the year when Elton John outsold the rest of the music industry combined. And what a package he and his people put together for his hundred million fans: count them, two, booklets, a poster, and that gatefold cover that made my pre-teen jaw drop; not only the glimpse of a well-proportioned bird-woman's pubic hair, but a roly-poly record player taking a dump. Amazing stuff associated with this rock 'n' roll stuff, huh?

Fuzz: Ooooh, stars and bright colors and that space-monster looks fuckin' *stoned*, man. There's a vibe to this that reminds me of the series of Samorost games from Amanita Design. Yes, the music totally reminds me of fuckin' Blue Cheer, but in this case I am sure that I'm not being unduly swayed by that: the art, by Tatiana Kartomten Compton, so you know, is that good.

Free - Heartbreaker: Tremendous title track that you need to hear if you haven't, by the way, but if you thought that the cover image is a little boring, I might almost understand. This was the last of Free's studio albums, and the band had seen the end coming, too, so the front image (done by an Island Records midlevel functionary named John Glover) was probably fashioned deliberately to suggest an evaporation, a vanishing-in-progress, as the band transitioned from something that existed to something that did not. As their guitarist moved towards death, it must be said. But the idea of gradual reality extinguishment my own sci-fi brain brings to it from there may not be there for everyone else, I realize.

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is another one about disintegration. I like the album okay -- "Two Headed Boy" is good, and so is "Holland, 1945" and the use of theremin will always get some respect from me --but it's not the music that may be influencing my appreciation of the artwork. What may be influencing it is this idea that used to float around, and still does to a lesser extent, that bandleader Jeff Mangum is crazy. I once read a long, horrifying, account of Mangum's many encounters with ghosts, and one, OK, but many I gotta say sorta equals crazy to me. So when I see that fin-de-siecle image they dug out, but with the gal empty where her head should be, I just think of the disintegration of self that comes with insanity.

Gong - Radio Gnome Invisible Part One: Flying Teapot The ultra-hippy thing with Gong kind of obscures the fact that they were as outsider-art as it gets. Daevid Allen was like Grandma Moses or Daniel Johnston or Jandek, knowwhatImean? Yes, perpetually toasted, but he did whatever the fuck he wanted, and it didn't sound or look like anything else, and that meant the album covers, too.

The Beach Boys - Surf's Up This is a weird one for me, because I've never heard the album. But the title is so Beach Boys, and the art is so clearly not. The cover painting is based on a sculpture called End of the Trail by someone named James Earle Fraser, and it is so evocative of defeat, of simply having had all your lifeblood sucked out, it creates an amazing contrast with the former sunshiny image of the band. And makes me, frankly, a little afraid to listen to the record.

Arab Strap - The Week Never Starts Round Here: I first became aware of this Scottish mopecore band when they backed up Jason Molina on The Lioness, and dug this out, their debut, for the People song "Kate Moss." Yet the album is not a favorite of mine. But I think you'll have to agree the cover is beautiful. It reminds me of the paintings Clive Barker did for his Abarat series.

Already, I can think of one I missed, or would put in next time, or whatever, which is Slayer's Reign In Blood. But this is long enough for now, don't you think?