Venus And Mars Deserves A More Appropriate Cover

I love the simplicity of the design of the cover. McCartney’s albums often have striking covers including his first solo album.

 

Wings Over America? I don’t think so.

 

I kind of like it! Nothing wrong with a couple of billiard balls on the cover. It's memorable.

 

...by the throat, but hangin in there all the same.

 

I I never thought of it that way. Interesting.

 

Album is fine but not really a fan of the cover. Would be down the bottom of the list of solo Beatles covers for me.

 

I meant the next two studio albums. I forgot Wings Over America. I like Wings but I'm not a huge fan.

 

Walls and Bridges, with the cool tri-fold-out cover, is fantastic, IMO (as is the record contained within )

 

His last true classic, imo.
I don't mind the album cover but it burned in my brain back when I just accepted that the world was an exact place, before i peeled the onion of life.

 

To each his own I guess. But I found it a little demeaning, although I recognize Lennon as a clown, trivializing the work. Help and Mystery Tour are about as jokey as the Beatles ever got with their album covers.

 

WTF?

The image you show is the back cover.

The front cover (i.e. what almost anyone on earth would refer to as "the cover") is a tri-panel-fold-out of three of John's drawings as a child... who had a promising career as an artist if music hadn't taken over his life.

Anything but "Lennon as a clown, trivializing the work".





I assume you are one of zillions of McCartney-ites on the forum, but to misrepresent his "album cover" in this way in truly offensive, IMO.

I guess you'll also soon be posting the back cover of "All Things Must Pass" and say that, since it's all black and nothing else, it isn't very creative.

 

It influenced Spinal Tap.

I was more impressed with the Walls and Bridges sleeve than the record. I'd like to give it another go though, that was over 20 years ago. I sold it then.

Lennon's most dreadful sleeve is Mind Games. An absolute eyesore. Somehow the 45 sleeve was even worse. A totally depressing looking black and white photo of him, with Yoko's face as his hair.

 

I have the Japanese SHM-SACD of this. It reproduces this artwork beautifully.

 

It's part of the cover. When I pick up an album, I look at front and back (if there is one). It is all part of the experience (especially since you can depend upon knuckleheads like Allen Klein to mix up the chosen front and back photos; e.g. Hey Jude ). Kid drawings... yeah, brilliant. Lucky thing they were saved off aunt Mimi's refrigerator door.

 

Yeah, too bad it didn't have the adult drawing talent of this fine cover (to say nothing about the fantastic movie from which it came):





(FWIW, I actually like the Venus and Mars cover quite a bit... er, you know, the front cover.)

 

Several great songs on Walls and Bridges, IMO, so I hope you give it another shot.

And I completely agree with you about the Mind Games cover -- truly horrendous.

 

I think I'd like it now. I actually don't mind the Mind Games album even though it often sounds ghastly. Mind Games is my least favourite song on it!

 

Considering how great all The Beatles sleeves were along with the best solo ones, they've all had some real monstrosities.

 

It's never done it for me either. Great idea, but I don't think it's well done. It's not particularly attractive and nowadays it's more of a 'Who are these people? Wings seem to have a lot of band members!' than the big deal it probably was at the time.

 

I think it's fine. I never really noticed any New Orleans influence in the music. Maybe a couple things since the Archives and hearing b-sides. Otherwise I don't really like New Orleans music (for whatever reason) so I think an image of a greasy Wings on the cover would have tainted it for me personally.

 

I thought...listen to what the man said, complete with macca impersonation in the beginning, and..the later released...my carnival....and possibly let em in, the glam style...descriptions of dressing in an outfit, like maradi gras, rock show song were very New Orleans style songs. As a southern gal, I love New Orleans style music though...all tastes I realize. I went to NO, LA with family for a vacation the summer before macca went that fall, same year. Greasy wings is lol...all that Cajun spiced food....

 

Always loved the cover and the overall design of the package, the typography is great.

As I said before in another thread I do not like covers being revisited and changed. It is what it is, for better or worse.

 

That cover is one of the best solo covers for sure. I love the sentimental nostalgic side of Lennon and the album is an excellent return to form

And on the subject of covers always thought the A Hard Days Night cover was pretty ordinary

 

Ugly is the word I would use

 

Now there you’ve gone and ruined it for me....I normally didn’t like those McCartney...”return to form” albums as found them less adventurous, lol. I guess return to form then would have been to form of BOTR different from his early seventies albums.