Did you ever buy an album just because the cover intrigued you? I remember one specifically. I had seen Roxy Music on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. Of course, this was back in the day when we had to wait until after 11pm to get our Rock n Roll on TV, and I thought they had a cool look, but I had yet to plunk down my hard earned allowance on actual vinyl...Until I walked into Harmony Hut in the Paramus Park Mall in NJ and saw THAT COVER....Country Life. It was an import, and it probably cost me over ten bucks....but THAT COVER. I rushed upstairs to prevent Mom from seeing my latest purchase, lest I be branded a sex pervert, plunked the needle down, and was quite frankly underwhelmed. It was a good, but not great album, and after getting more familiar with the rest of their catalog, really preferred the albums "Stranded" and "Avalon"
(Photo by Eric Boman)
But back to those old school album covers which were not only great to look at, but those gatefold sleeves that you got on albums like Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy" made removing the seeds from your pot a little easier...right?
Speaking of "Houses" that was one of the covers done by HIPGNOSIS, who did a lot of Zeppelin's stuff, and created memorable covers for Pink Floyd and my favorite by them, for the band Flash
Courtesy of HIPGNOSIS
But my favorite album cover art were the visuals artist Roger Dean created for the band Yes. That iconic "bubble" logo, and covers for albums like Fragile, Tales From Topographic Oceans and others made it seems like he was in the studio as the band recorded the albums.
(Cover By Roger Dean)
You guys consuming your music through faceless .mp3 files have no idea the joy you're missing out on enjoying your music via the vinyl format. Not only the visuals, but all that juicy liner note information, and thanks to The Beatles...you got the lyrics too.
I gotta go...I just got a quarter pound of seedy weed. I'm gonna get my copy of 2112, clean that stash out and ROCK!!
