Album Covers - Artwork

Every now and then, I flip through the racks at a second-hand shop or record shop I’ll come across an album I used to own and wish I still did, often by a band close to my heart. I am often tempted to put my hand in my pocket and make a purchase but nostalgia costs a lot more these days.

The late 70s-early 80s era is a particularly rich era for lavish artwork and interesting album covers. Artwork seemed every bit as important as the music contained inside and while the new music played, you'd pore over every detail of the sleeve, read each word, and study the design until the run-out groove crackled and popped to a stop. Today it’s a CD cover and a magnifying glass or a logo on a down load although some bands are going back to vinyl as the market picks up so we are seeing a return to interesting cover artwork.

There was quite a bit of sexism on some album covers one eye catching cover I remember was ‘Country Life’ by Roxy Music (see picture) as making one hot under the collar in 1974. Back then along with the album cover you could sometimes buy a poster of the artwork but has a fourteen year old there would be no way something like this could end up on my wall.

Being a Cardiff lad, I spent most of my money buying my albums at Spillers Records, which was a fantastic place. The times I’d flicked through the racks of albums looking for a gem I had read about in the musical press you probably could only find there. There would be albums cover and posters over the wall and to me it was better than going to an art gallery. I may have not liked the content of many of the albums but I always appreciated album artwork.

Music is a great form of expression, and so are album covers, the right ones. They over the years have frequently been targeted for censorship like the album I previously mentioned ‘Country Life’, banned in the USA but ok in the UK. It was reissued in America using the photo from the album's back cover, which featured only the trees. Some took it close to the edge while others would push it over the limits. Who would think the Beatles’ in 1966 would run foal of the censors with the infamous “butcher” cover of the album ‘Yesterday and Today’. In retaliation for their US record company putting the album out they submitted a brutal cover image (see picture), in which they appeared in butchers’ smocks covered with raw meat and body parts from baby dolls.

Below are six covers that I like but I could have picked many more and it does help if you enjoy the content of the album. They may not be the most flamboyant of covers. That I leave to the crazy world of Heavy Metal and the likes of ACDC, the only kind of music I don’t like and I mean don’t.