Times of great cover artwork...

I'm still impressed when I look my old LP covers from the 60's and 70's... ELP's Brain Salad Surgery, The Doors' L.A. Woman, Led Zep's Physical Graffiti and many more...

I think they best period were the 60's and 70's... it's sad the fantasy and great design has gone...

What do you think?

 

The Stand UP inside cover... Thick As A Brick... Led Zepp III with the spinning wheel... Stones Some Girls and Sticky Fingers!!!

Then just the colorful ones like Dark Side, Cosmos Factory!

Will we ever see things like that again?

Chris

 

The CD has pretty much killed cover art. I used to sit and inhale every inch of the cover, the inner sleeve, the gatefold.....now, I can't even get the damn booklet out!

The 60's & 70's were probably THE decades for cover art.

 

Various YES albums.

 

Agreed. The size of CD's killed off great cover art. It also killed off great inserts. Some boxed classical LP sets used to include miniature scores of the pieces.
Or maybe the suits drove the artists away - or the artists turned into suits. I could see the original Satanic Majesties 3D cover piece working at CD size - just the 3D part.

 

Chicago's CARNEGIE HALL. The LP box cover artwork itself was typical Chicago but the package included a set of fold-out building plans for Carnegie Hall.

Jim W.

 

Hey Mark,
So maybe thats why its harder to read things now...and hear
!

I gotta say that even with some of the Japanese mini-lp's of some of the 70's gems- its real tough to see and appreciate what used to be there(only in a much bigger package). I have quite a few of the Japan mini-lp's in cd of Tull, Floyd, MacCartney, etc, and while they have the original inserts, and pictures, artwork, etc, its nice- but boy is it hard to read.


Chris

 

One of my faves is Frumpy's second LP (Krautrock)... the cover was inside a plastic bag (I lost it...).

 

Artwork is an added expense to the labels. And they are crying now about profits. What a far cry from the past it has all come to.

 

Agreed.

 

I agree. My favorites were the various covers for the Moody Blues done by Phil Travers, they were beautiful and so captivating to look at. Also Hipgnosis did great art for Lp covers; The Hollies "Distant Light" is so rich that every time I look at it I see something I never noticed before. Then there were the inserts, liner notes, and often song lyrics that added to the album experience. The booklets for the CD's usually have type that's too small to read (or am I getting old, too???). There were even infamous inserts in some albums: anyone remember what was in "Big Bambu" by Cheech & Chong??

 

Yeah...Hipgnosis did great cover art.

And what about these:

Jethro Tull: Living in the Past (the original with all the color pictures inside)
Genesis: Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound, Nursery Cryme, Wind and Wuthering

And what about these 2 for inside artwork: Led Zeppelin IV and Houses of the Holy.

 

The artwork did add to the enjoyment of many of my FAVORITE albums.

The mystery of the Doors "Strange Days" cover makes it one of my most loved. I can still remember the thrill of buying it and imagining the music waiting for me to discover. Even today, over 30 years later it looks strange to me. Of course all the Beatles LPs covers were always an open invitation to what was inside. There are so many hundreds and hundreds of examples. That does seem to be lost for the most part unless a poster for some new album turns up and even then it's not quite the same. Remember that we are lucky though, at least we can remember when the artwork had such weight. The youth of today are missing out on an aspect of releases that doesn't exist anymore at least on the scale we know.

 

The Stones - "Exile On Main Street" had pretty cool art work and how the LP's were put in the cover, post cards included!

 

Just give me the Reid Miles Blue Note covers and I'll be happy!

 

Beck's Mutations has some awesome photography and artwork that folds out, but the info inside is hard as hell to read! I really hate when they have liner notes or lyrics stretched out across an unfolded CD booklet. I need or ruler or something!

 

While we are discussing the beauty of days gone, so went the exitement of opening an LP and pulling out a 12" disc of colored vinyl. (and holding it to the light) No such replacement in the cd dayz.

Mark P.

 

That's all done by Tim Hawkinson who is amazing. This is really funny that I read this post because I'm talking to a friend about him. Crazy how that happens.

 

That IS wild. What other stuff has he done?

 

Here's a page detailing one of his shows. I know that there is one book of his work in print. It was just odd because my friend is going to Columbia college in Chicago and I told her to watch for any exhibitions of his and I scroll down and see your post. A fantastic artist.

 

Boy, that Blue Cheer Outside Inside gatefold cover was an artistic trip to me. Chock full of neato fold-out hippie stuff...

 

I never bought a CD of the Talking Heads Little Creatures because the vinyl never disappointed. I wonder how they managed to get the cover painting that sported all the song titles along with clever comments to be visible on a CD sized case. Or whatever happened to all of those smart ass articles inside the original Thick As A Brick. Or the impossible maze inside of Satanic Majesties? The equally bizarre crossword puzzle on Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers (along with a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich)? Alice Cooper's school desktop that opened to reveal all sorts of standard grade school stuff, along with some girls panties. Oh yeah - the package was important, and now the art is all but lost.

 

So he did the "finger" piece also? I really enjoy that one. For some reason, I thought some of that art work was done by Beck and his grandfather Al Hansen.