Album Cover Art

Anyone who collects vinyl records will tell you that part of the appeal is the album cover art.  The pantheon of rock and pop music is full of iconic masterpieces that are quite special to collectors.  Certain artists' work is synonymous with particular bands.  For instance, Peter Max created a new world for the Beatles to inhabit in Yellow Submarine.  Andy Warhol did album covers for the Velvet Underground and the Rolling Stones. Rick Griffin's artwork recalls the Fillmore-era of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Rick had a distinctive lettering style and his artistic talents quickly became associated with the Grateful Dead. Roger Dean's art graced the covers of many albums by the group "Yes" and featured fantastic mystical landscapes. He also created album art for the bands Osibisa and Uriah Heep.

Sometimes, the artwork was more than just the front/back & inner covers, but extended to supplementary posters and inserts that accompanied the LP. I still have the original artwork that came with the LP for the Beatles' Sgt Pepper.  It was and image of the band intended to be cut out and folded for placement beside your stereo.  I am happy to say that I did not not defile it with scissors and it is still intact.  Often, the artwork was quite creative and special, as for Alice Cooper's School's Out album.  In that case, the entire record sleeve folded out into the shape of a elementary school desk. The LP was encased in a pink paper panty.  I'm not kidding. The album art for Led Zeppelin III contained a round dial on the front cover that could be spun to reveal various images.  The detailed cut out cover must have been quite an investment to produce, yet they reprised it for Physical Graffiti.  The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers cover contained an actual zippered fly on the front of the jeans.  Nothing was out of bounds.


Bands must have realized the power of of having a stong visual image to galvanize their music. Consider for a moment the iconic covers of Springsteen's Born to Run, the Stooges' Raw Power, or most of the albums by Pink Floyd, Queen, U2 or the Who, and you realize how important the album art is to the lasting appeal of the music.  The best artists of today are carrying on that fine tradition.  OK Go's videos are works of art.  Lady Gaga embodies art.  They are carrying on a fine artistic tradition by constanting innovating and appealing to the mind's eye as well as the ear. Too bad that CDs and iTunes downloads are not the same size as vinyl LPs, so that we could appreciate the visual grandeur of today's artists.  I suppose we should embrace the new media of the artists' websites and revel in the visual spectacle of their concert performances.


Some artists use album art to pay tribute to their heroes.  It was obvious that the Clash were fans of Elvis Presley when they released their masterpiece London Calling because the album art was an homage to Elvis' debut album.  Elvis broke new ground and so did the Clash.  Elvis combined Rock & Roll, Country and the Blues into a new form of exciting music that was distinctly his own.  The Clash escaped the Punk vortex and crafted their own sound that blended reggae influences with the urgency and passion of punk music.  Punk was never the same again after the Clash rocked MTV with "Rock the Casbah".  Unlike many of their punk contemporaries, the Clash's music still lives on Classic Rock radio.  And Elvis?  Well, the King will live forever. Elvis Presley and the Clash each left an everlasting mark on the rock landscape and their influences live on today.

As with any great art, album art is unfettered by social conventions and has no boundaries.  Sometimes, album artwork pushes the envelope beyond the limit of polite society.  David Bowie's Diamond Dogs album showed David as a half-man, half-dog circus freak complete with doggie genitalia.  A group you might not remember called Mom's Apple Pie gave us a risque album cover with female genitalia hidden within the missing pie slice.  The original pressing of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Street Survivors showed the band engulfed in flames. After their deadly plane crash, the album art was altered to de-emphasize the flames.  Even the Fab Four were tempted to gross out their fans when they released their infamous "butcher block" cover for Yesterday And Today, which showed the happy lads wearing butcher's aprons covered with baby doll parts and raw meat.  Funny, or disgusting, depending upon who you might ask.  The point is this:  Musicians should be FEARLESS.  They should not compromise their art but rather follow their muse.


Sometimes, cover art parodies other albums.  A good example is Whipped Cream & Other Delights by Herb Alpert's & The Tijuana Brass  generated elicited numerous parodies, but my favorite was Soul Asylum's Clam Dip & Other Delights.  Finally, album cover art can just be FUN.  Take, for instance, any of Weird Al Yankovic's album covers, or Foghat's Fool For The City cover depicting a guy fishing from a manhole in the middle of a city street.  Rick Springfield's Working Class Dog cover was a Spuds MacKenzie-style mutt. Classic.   More recently, Big Bear's Doin Thangs featured bears smoking big cigars and partying.  What could be more fun than that?  The beauty of album art is that it can be anything.  Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes not.  Sometimes it's boring, sometimes it's fascinating.  Sometimes it captures a moment in time, and sometimes it's timeless. Sometimes, like Jimmy Buffett's Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes it can be your compass to help you get through life.

I have included just a few of my favorites in today's blog, but I have many, many others.  Think about some of your favorite album covers and let me know what they are.  Until next time, remember to look at the album covers and engage in art appreciation.  Like the great painters throughout history who tried to capture the truth in their art, musicians have tried to do the same on their album canvasses.  They are ours to enjoy.

Roxy Music

Roxy Music began as an experiment between Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno. Bryan blended American Soul and Pop Music with European Cabaret while Brian Eno deconstructed Rock Music into pure electronic tones forming a new kind of avant-garde music. Like the Velvet Underground, their music was daring, defiant and something truly original and exciting. Their bizarre costumes and fascination with glamour got them lumped into the Glam-Rock category, but their musical experimentation and sleek artistic pop separated them from the herd of rock bands wearing eye shadow and glitter at the time. Bryan Ferry’s passionate crooning and occasional blending of English, French, Spanish and Italian lyrics made them more of a World Music band than a glam-rock or art-rock band. We should remember that Roxy Music originated in the early ‘70s, before most of the Progressive Rock movement really started. They were true innovators who inspired a legion of imitators of arty glam bands and later the new wave soul-pop groups.

They called themselves “Roxy” until they learned there was already an American band called Roxy, so they changed their name to Roxy Music. Besides Bryan Ferry on vocals, Brian Eno on keyboards, Roxy Music a powerhouse of talented musicians including Paul Thompson on drums, Andy Mackay on horns (saxophone and oboe, mostly), and the mighty Phil Manzanera on guitar. Their first album, Roxy Music was produced by Peter Sinfield of King Crimson was largely ignored in the U.S. but climbed into the British Top Ten in the summer of 1972. Shortly thereafter, the non-LP single "Virginia Plain" rocketed into the charts, followed by the non-LP "Pyjamarama" in early 1973. While Roxy Music had become a sensation in England and Europe, with their novel amalgamation of high culture and kitsch culture, they had trouble getting noticed in America.

The group's second album, 1973's For Your Pleasure was another huge hit in the U.K., but ignored in America except for college radio. Creative tensions began between Ferry and Eno. Apparently, Ferry refused to include any of Eno’s compositions on the album, so Eno left the band after the completion of For Your Pleasure. Maybe there was tension between them because their names were both Bryan/Brian. That must have been confusing. “Can we call you Bruce to keep it clear?” For Your Pleasure includes the terrific track “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” (the ultimate version is found on their live album Viva! Roxy Music; truly awesome). My favorite tunes on this fabulous album are “Beauty Queen” and “Grey Lagoons”, but the popular favorites were clearly “Editions of You” and “Do The Strand”, which became staples in their live shows and crowd favourites. Before recording the third Roxy Music album, Ferry released a solo album, These Foolish Things, comprised of pop/rock covers.

Roxy Music’s third album Stranded was released in December of 1973 and became the band's first number one album in the U.K. Stranded was recorded with new Roxy member Eddie Jobson, a violinist who previously played with Curved Air. The album received a warmer reception in the U.S. than its two predecessors because of the tracks “Street Life”, “Amazona” and “Song for Europe”. “Street Life” was later recorded by Def Leppard on their excellent cover album Yeah! Phil Manzanera’s guitar work on “Amazona” is absolutely mesmerizing. Bryan Ferry’s vocals on “Song for Europe” are magnificent. In my opinion, it’s one of the greatest songs ever recorded.

Their success with Stranded set the stage for their American breakthrough album Country Life in late 1974. Sporting a controversial photo of two models dressed in see-through lingerie the cover was initially banned in the U.S., and replaced with the forest background. Being a connoisseur of fine album covers, I told my girlfriend that I really wanted the original cover version. At the time, she was attending Texas A&M in the metropolis of College Station and I was over at Blinn Jr College in the small town of Brenham (home of world famous Blue Bell Ice Cream). I couldn’t find Country Life with the original cover anywhere. Margaret found it in College Station and purchased it for me. When my mother saw the cover, with the scantily-clad models, she said this about my girlfriend: “That girl must really love you if she bought an album with a cover like that”.  Margaret and I have been happily married for 31 years now.

Country Life was the first Roxy Music album to break into the U.S. Top 40 and became their fourth British Top Ten album. One wonders whether some of Roxy Music’s commercial success was related to the fashion models that graced the covers of most their albums. Texas model Jerry Hall was the siren on Roxy Music’s next album Siren. Jerry Hall was born in Gonzales, Texas, was a long-time girlfriend of Mick Jagger, received an engagement ring from Bryan Ferry, and appeared in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman as the gangster girlfriend of Jack Nicholson’s Joker. She also appeared in the video for Bryan Ferry’s solo hit “Let’s Stick Together”. Let’s watch it now, shall we? www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ma9cm_TvOc
Back in 1975, however, Jerry was the mermaid on the cover of Roxy Music’s biggest album in U.S. to date. Siren featured the disco-flavored "Love Is the Drug," which was their first American Top Forty hit and is still heard today on Classic Rock stations nationwide.

After working on some solo study, the band regrouped and released Manifesto in 1979. Their sound changed to more commercial disco-influenced soul-pop that was markedly different from their earlier records. Despite that, Manifesto became their highest-charting U.S. record, peaking at number 23, largely on the strength of the single "Dance Away." Quickly following up on their success, they released Flesh + Blood in 1980, which was a mild success. In 1982, the year my only child Jessica was born, Roxy Music released their final album, Avalon. Avalon contained one of Roxy Music’s most recognizable tunes, “More Than This”, which was immortalized by Bill Murray in the film “Lost in Translation”. Let’s watch Bill croon to Scarlett now: www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1UYohidXRg&feature=related

After Roxy Music broke up, Bryan Ferry released many great solo albums. One of my favourites was his album of Bob Dylan covers called Dylanesque, which contains a truly wonderful version of “Make You Feel My Love”. Last month, Roxy Music announced that they will regroup and headline the Lovebox festival in London on July 17, 2010. It’s about time.