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FOREWORD
BY SIR PETER BLAKE I .
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We Hope You Will

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Enjoy The Show
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♦♦ SIR PETER BLAKE SALUTES THE ART OF THE ALBUM COVER.

~WM N ALBUM COVER is the initial moment of the record.
m ^k It's a doorway into the music. You know what you're
J^^M getting, but as you pick up an album there is always the
M ^^k excitement of an image that introduces you to that
jM^- ^L music. From an artist's viewpoint it's a good format
because, as with book illustration, it ties in with another artform.
You're illustrating another way of working.
At the age of 14 I wanted to be painter,
but I was advised by my tutors at junior art To me, I was
college that nobody made a living that way,
so I took a commercial course in graphic de making a piece
sign. However, in 1953 I was accepted into
the Royal College of Art as a painter. So I
have this odd background. The first album
of art with
sleeves I did were hypothetical ones for jazz Sgt Pepper.
records. I was especially keen on early modern jazz and early vocal
groups such as The Four Freshmen. Elvis intrigued me, but I was
never an enormous fan. However, I did love The Everly Brothers, Bo
Diddley and Chuck Berry. At that point I was influenced by Andy
Warhol's line drawings and David Stone Martin's designs for Blue
Note. I never drew actual sleeves — by the time I turned professional
in the late '50s I'd started doing book
jackets and covers for the Sunday Times
Magazine. Painters weren't offered opportu
nities to do album sleeves.
Sgt Pepper was die first time a painter such
as me had designed an album cover, which
came about through my agent Robert Fraser,
who knew The Beatles well. I had noticed
the early psychedelic sleeves, but I didn't

4 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 . .and their favourite album cover.

Mappin House,
4 Winsley Street,
London W1W8HF
Contact us at:
special.projects@emap.com

Editor-in-Chief
Mark Blake
(Aja- Steely Dan)

Art Director
Lora Findlay
lAlligatcr Boogaloo - Lou Donaldson)

Production Editor
Michael Johnson
(Snaftj - East Of Eden)

Picture Editor
Dave Brolan
Ifill Things Must Pass - George Hamson)

Senior Designer
Isabel Cruz
{Sticky Fingers - The Rolling Stones)

Sub Editor
Justin Hood
(Amnesiac [library book version) - Radiohoad)

Contributors
Martin Aston, Mike Barnes, Fred Dellar,
Daryl Easlea, Paul Elliott, Andy Fyfe,
Pat Gilbert, Ian Gittins, Ian Harrison,
Ashley Kahn, Steve Malins,
Mark Paytress, Bob Stanley, Kieron Tyler,
Richie Unterberger, Lois Wilson

Photographers
Henry Diltz, Barry Feinstein, Phil Franks,
Bruce Fleming, Jill Furmanovsky,
Chris Gabrin, Gered Mankowitz,
Jim Marshall, Eric Meola, Mick Rock,
Jerry Schatzberg, Kate Simon,
Michael Spencer Jones, Kirk Weddle,
Kevin Westenberg, BobWhitaker,

Special thanks to
Matthew Lees; Reckless Records
(26 Berwick Street, London Wl
(www.reckless.co.uk); Robin Sanford at
Warner Chappell; Sounds OfThe Universe,
7 Broadwick Street, London Wl
(souljazzrecords.co.uk)

MOJO Editor-in-Chief
Phil Alexander

Production Manager
Triona McKee

Publishing Director
Stuart Williams
Music Manager
Gavin Hoare

Music Senior Sales

Vanessa Richardson

Music Sales Executive

Anna McQueen

Advertising Production Manager

Laura Byrnes

Marketing Manager
Sophie Watson-Smyth
Events & Promotions Manager
Nardia Plumridge
care for all those swirls of pink and orange and green. I wasn't taking Marketing Executive
Lauren Kreisier
LSD or any other drugs, so I wasn't involved in that culture. There
Creative Director
was Klaus Voormann's drawing for Revolver, but most album covers at Dave Henderson
the time weren't interesting; you'd see The Everly Brothers just sitting CEO Emap Performance London
Marcus Rich
on a Lambretta, turning around to camera. There was no invention.
Group Chief Executive Emap Pic
After Sgt Pepper, I could see its influence everywhere. There were Tom Moloney

hundreds of parodies — starting with The Mothers Of Invention's We're Colour origination Rival Colour

Printed
Only In It For The Money — which were amusing but easy to do. byJarrold Printing
Album design became slicker and more complicated, yet I think Sgt Covers printed
by Norwich Colour Print Ltd
Pepper itself has a simplicity and primitive quality I don't think it's been Distribution by Frontline Ltd
bettered, though there have been better different covers. Storm Thorg-
erson's surreal covers for Pink Floyd, depicting things that couldn't
MOJO Greatest Album Covers is published in the
actually happen, are brilliant. Warhol's banana for The Velvet Under UK by EMAP Metro Umited on behalf of EMAP
Performance (Network). © EMAP Metro Ltd 2007
ground was brilliant, but more in the tradition of record cover art, "Like to be a gallery/Put you all inside
whereas to me I was making a piece of art with Sgt Pepper. my show"

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 5

SLEEVENOTES
_Cover
Story FROM BLACK-AND-WHITE PORTRAITS TO ALBUM ARTWORK DOWN
LOADS: A BRIEF HISTORY OF SLEEVE DESIGN BY FRED DELLAR.
Real albums. These were books filled with
pockets that held 78rpm shellac discs. At first
they came poorly designed, usually with a
I N T H photo
E B EofG the
I N Nartist
I N Gont hthe
e r ecover
w e along
r e a lwith
b u mthe
s.
title, often in black and white. Sometimes they would
be brightened up with a single-colour tint. Others
would be exceptionally stark and given a generic non-
design, devoid of all illustration.
Gradually, during the 1940s, the situation changed.
Record company art directors were increasingly given
free rein. Artists such as Alex Steinweiss at Columbia
Records argued that beautiful music should be beauti
fully packaged. When albums featuring Steinweiss's
individually illustrated sleeves began outselling less-
artistically dressed offerings, other pictorial pioneers
In the early '60s, it was decreed
that all the young generation
required was a glossy portrait.
found their talents in demand, including Bob Jones and
Jim Flora, the latter a designer heavily influenced by
modern artists Miro and Kandinsky.
The arrival of the first vinyl microgroove long-
players in 1948 proved the catalyst for a graphic art
explosion. Initially, most pop records came in the 10-
inch format, but expansion to the standard 12 inches in
the '50s saw designers providing covers that were works
of art in themselves. Artwork for jazz and folk sleeves
6 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
PLEASE PLEASE ME * THE BEATLES
became more striking and beautiful as die decade pro
gressed, but the advent of rock'n'roll found sleeve art
taking a back seat.
Rock'n'roll changed everything, but while initial Bill
Haley and Elvis Presley releases showed some artistic
flair, it was soon decreed diat all the younger generation
really required was glossy portraits of their heroes. The
simple photographic image predominated during the
early '60s. The Beatles' debut album Please Please Me
pictured the Fab Four beaming down from the staircase
at EMI's London offices; The Beach Boys hugged the
requisite surfboard for Surfer Girl; while The Rolling
Stones' debut album featured the band in almost family
portrait mode. For a while this was as good as it got.
As rock music changed and became more innovative,
ever ready to break established moulds, a new breed of
designers sought to reflect this revolution. Instead of
staid family portraiture, record covers began taking their
cue from the pop art of Hockney and Warhol, the
visionary work of 18th-century poet and painter Wil
liam Blake, the erotic illustrations of 19th-century artist
Aubrey Beardsley and coundess comic-book images.
Embracing the new phenomenon of psychedelic
music, sleeve design entered an era of colour, flamboy
ance and hallucinatory dreamworlds. In Europe, Klaus
Voormann paved the way, via his black-and-white illus
tration for The Beatles' Revolver and his colourful
creation for the Bee Gees' debut. Across the Adantic,
the hippy district of Haight-Asbury in San Francisco
became a hotbed of artistic talent, with the likes of
Stanley Mouse and Rick Griffin creating dazzling posters
and handbills for bands such as Jefferson Airplane and

the Grateful Dead. Their similarly eye-catching album
cover designs would go on to influence the likes of Brit
ish artist Martin Sharp, as seen in his dazzling creation
for Cream's Disraeli Gears.
J^kS THE '60s gave way to the '70s, a slew of
^^A bands inspired by the musical ambition of
^V^^ft 1 he Beades Sgt Pepper began creating music
^B^^A tailor-made for the album rather than the
flft^H^fe single. This was serious music that re
quired serious artwork. Artist Roger Dean's
otherworldly landscapes and mythical creatures pro
vided the ideal visual accompaniment for the music of
British progressive rockers Yes. Elsewhere, heavy
weights Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin relied on the
intriguingly named Hipgnosis partnership to decorate
their musical works of art, with the sleeves often caus
ing alarm among record company executives by
eschewing both the name of the band and the album.
Hipgnosis partners Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey
Powell produced images of perfection that somehow
encompassed both the beautiful and the bizarre, echo
ing the work of surreal artist Salvador Dalf. In contrast,
the next generation of punk designers in the late '70s
and early '80s shunned such sophistication, with sleeves
housing albums by Crass, the Dead Kennedys, Dis
charge and The Jam striving for a downbeat realism. Yet,
with the passing of time, Jamie Reid's creation for the
Sex Pistols' Never Mind The Bollocks album, deploying a
striking mix of gaudy colours and ransom-note cut-up
lettering, would prove as enduring and influential as
SURFERGR
IL
THEBEACHBOYS
Hipgnosis's rainbow and prism for Pink Floyd's The Tomorrow never
knows: cover art
Dark Side OjTheMoon. before the flowering
of psychedelia. (From
While punk changed the look of album art, some of left) Elvis Presley's
those creating the covers remained from die previous Elvis 1956 (1956);
The Beatles' Please
era. Barney Bubbles, who had established his reputation Please Me (1963);
The Rolling Stones'
designing covers for Hawkwind in the early '70s, eponymous second
became the darling of the post-punk crowd working for album (1965); The
Beach Boys' Surfer
Stiff Records, whose roster included Elvis Costello, The Girl (1963); the
Yardbirds' Five Live
Damned and Ian Dury & The Blockheads. The latter's Yardbirds (1965).
Do It Kmra^attracted considerable publicity in 1979 via
Bubbles' strikingly mundane wallpaper design.
It was inevitable, though, that a period of realism
should follow as rock cast off the back-to-basics ap
proach of punk. The trend was best illustrated in Martyn
Atkins and Brian Griffin's approach to sleeves for the
likes of Echo & The Bunnymen and Depeche Mode.
The latter's 1982 album A Broken Frame featured an im
age of a Russian peasant cutting corn beneath a broody
sky worthy of romantic artist JMW Turner, its rich col
ours and imagery far removed from punk's stark
brutality. Throughout the rest of the decade and the
'90s, bands opted for an intriguing realism in their
album cover photography, best exemplified by the likes
of Nirvana's Nevermind and Oasis's Definitely Maybe.
If the onset of digital music has done away with the
need for conventional artwork in the new century, then
many of the artists of the last 50 years remain inextrica
bly linked with the images that housed their music.
Time to celebrate a fantasy world of circus freaks, pop
art bananas, pigs cruising over powerstations... Some
album cover memories remain forever wonderful.
MOJO Greatest Album Covers 7
THE STORIES
=eel Free
IN THE PSYCHEDELIC ERA, ALBUM COVER ARTISTS' IMAGINATIONS RAN AS WILD AS THEIR BUDDIES
IN THE BEATLES, THE GRATEFUL DEAD AND CREAM. RICHIE UNTERBERGER TURNS ON AND TUNES IN.
SAWTHIS FACE looking up out at me out of the trashcan. Itwas
a woman. It looked like a flamenco dancer staring at me. As I pulled
[die photo] open, the emulsion was peeling and there was some
chemical reaction going on that was making the stuff bubble and
peel off the lace. I reached down, pulled it out and asked the pho
tographer if we could use this on the album. He said, 'Yeah.'"
It sounds like die kind of hasty expediency employed at the graph
ics desk of the sleaziest of low-budget exploitation labels. The speaker,
however, is James Lowe of The Electric Prunes, revealing how the
cover to the band's Underground album — with almost definitively
psychedelic, banana-yellow clouds over a haunted female face — came
into accidental being. Many listeners imagined even odder scenarios
for the birth of late-'60s psychedelic albums, which sometimes
seemed not to have been drawn but dreamed, or dropped from the
sky. In fact, much psychedelic artwork came about via ever-closer
overlaps between freaky bands and their freakier artist pals, as the
strands of '60s counterculture started to merge and throb with the
power of a Californian earthquake.
In Britain, this often involved close ties between the bands and
their art-school pals, later widening to rope in bands and poster/
fashion designers affiliated widi die London underground rock scenes.
Here as in so many areas, The Beades were pioneers. Late-1965's
Rubber Soul could even be said to be die very first intentionally psych
edelic sleeve in a way, featuring as it did tilted, distorted, elongated
faces of the four as photographed by Robert Freeman.
Freeman, who'd photographed dieir previous five LP sleeves, sub-
sequendy proposed a photomontage of their faces for Revolver. Taking
Psychedelic albums seemed
not drawn but dreamed, or even
dropped from the sky.
advantage of the increased creative freedom
allotted to the biggest group in the world by
1966, The Beades opted to instead use Klaus
Voormann, the artist they'd befriended years
earlier in Hamburg. "You can imagine how I
felt after having heard some of die songs diat
were going to be released by The Beatles
soon," recalls Voormann today. "A new trend
was going to be set, and there was little me hav
ing to come up widi something just as daring,
or at least give die record buyer a lead to what
they were getting themselves in for. Brian
8 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
Epstein was scared the fans might turn their back on the band and say,
'What happened to our Beatles? I want them the way they were
before.' But when Brian saw the Revolver cover he said, 'Klaus, your
cover manages to build the bridge from the music to the fans.'"
The Beades were pleased too, Paul McCartney recalling in The
Beades Anthology: "We liked the way there were little things coming
out of people's ears, and how he'd collaged things on a small scale
while the drawings were on a big scale. He also knew us well enough
to capture us rather beautifully in the drawings. We were flattered."
from both art-school connections (as The Zombies did with
BYTHETerryFOLLOWING
Quirk) and year, other exploding
London's groups were hiring designers
underground poster
scene. Martin Sharp, a flatmate of Eric Clapton, was already noted for
his covers and illustrations in Oz by the time he did Disraeli Gears for
Cream. He'd go on not only to design Cream's next album, Wheels Of
Fire, but also to produce highly valued posters of rock superstars.
"A lot of the musicians and the artists had been to art school
together," explains Pete Brown, himself a close collaborator with
Cream as a frequent lyricist for the band. "If you look at some of die
[Pink] Floyd stuff, all diose guys had been living in Cambridge and at
art school together. It was whole groups of people that were associ
ated dirough the art schools, or through hanging around with people
from the art schools. And all those guys were music fans. So the bands
got dieir friends in to do it — to a large extent, anyway."
It wasn't necessarily the bands who got the new wave of designers
involved, however, even if some of the sleeves were so freaky that many
assumed that no one else but the bands
would have given the go-ahead. The rain
bow riot of colour that was the Incredible
String Band's The 5000 Spirits Or Layers Oj
The Onion, for instance, was chosen not by
the duo of Robin Williamson and Mike
Heron but by their producer Joe Boyd —
himself well plugged into the London
underground as co-founder of the UFO
Club.
"I was anxious to separate the ISB from
their 'folkie' background and bring them
into the growing 'psychedelic' scene where
I felt diey belonged — and where they would
sell a lot more records," Boyd claims.
"Mike and Robin knew of the plan and
were fine with it, and I think they liked the
final result. But they were up in Scotland
most of die time, and the discussions with
Simon and Marijke were all in London."
Acid reign: (clockwise
from top) It's A
Beautiful Day's It's A
Beautiful Day (1969);
The Move's The Move
(1968); the Bee
Gees' Bee Gees 1st
(1967); the Steve
Miller Band's
Children Of The
Future (1968); The
Electric Prunes'
Underground (1967);
Cream's Wheels Of
Fire (1968). (Left) The
proto-psych Rubber
Soul sleeve (1965).

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 9

THE STORIES

» More popularly known as The Fool, Simon Posdiuma and Marijke

Koger would also design sleeves for The Move and The Hollies.
In the US, the vanguard of psychedelic sleeve design would come
not from the art schools — which were much less of a bohemian insti
tution dian in die UK — but from the poster artists for gigs by emerging
psychedelic bands, particularly in San Francisco. "The musicians
brought in die artists diat had already been advertising them in dance-
hall posters," observes one of the most prominent SF poster-makers
who crossed over to album design, Victor Moscoso. "That's how I got
to do Steve Miller's Children Of The Future. And Stanley Mouse and
Alton Kelley of Mouse Studios got to do the Skull and Roses poster,
which became the logo for the Grateful Dead." Mouse and Kelley also
worked on die art for several early Dead albums, and fellow Bay Area •-:
■4 ^ p l
poster giant Rick Griffin designed the Dead's most striking psychedel "When they got artistic control,
ic cover, 1969's Aoxomoxoa. George Hunter even doubled as a that's when the door opened for us.
psychedelic rock musician (for The Charlatans) and poster artist, like What die hell, die posters were every
wise crossing into album design for his friends in fellow local bands where anyway; the poster artists
/-';-.
Quicksilver Messenger Service and It's A Beautiful Day. were already in Life magazine before •;,';;'!
Furthermore, as Moscoso elaborates, artists such as he were in the bands had signed. That's really
strumental in spreading the gospel of Bay Area psychedelia even out of the neighbourhood, man!"
before the records they designed were available. "The posters were As in London, die artwork often
being seen but the bands weren't being heard, unless you were in San grew out of friendship between the
Francisco," he says. "So people came to San Francisco primarily be artists and the bands, which were
cause of the posters. They were like die banners for what was going on often able to give direct input into
locally. That's when it started to leak out as to what was happening the final result. For his famed Cheap
here, and the record companies came up. But the bands didn't roll Thrills cover, legendary cartoonist R.
over and say, 'Okay, we'll take whatever you give us', which is usually Crumb asked Janis Joplin "about the
what a garage band would do. They were no longer garage bands; they characteristics of the individuals
were concert-hall bands. They were doing real good, so they held out in the band, several things maybe
for what they wanted, which was complete artistic control, more other people didn't know about",
studio time. Not even more money. discloses Big Brother & The Holding
Company bassist Peter Albin. They
left it up to Crumb as to how to
illustrate the individual panels for
specific songs, resulting in an "out- he Grateful Dead pia^fe.
take" of sorts that was, intriguingly, fans drawn to San Francisco's flower-power
epicentre - Haigfit-Ashbury - jjartlV by the work
only represented on the cover, not of poster artists such as Victor Moscoso (inset).
(Left) One of Martin Sharp's distinctly lysergic
the record. "There's one panel diere posters for the UFO club at north London's
that looks like an Indian guy," con Roundhouse, September 1967.

tinues Albin. "Originally there was a

song on there called Hare Krishna,
but the song was taken off the record. I think [Columbia executive]
Clive Davis thought it was a stupid song and didn't belong on it."

sleeves and posters can approach astronomical values, the Cheap

TODAY,
ThrillsORIGINAL
cover being a
ARTWORK
case in point.ofIt was
bothoriginally
psychedelic
done foralbum
$600;
it was later sold by Sotheby's for more than $20,000; and Big Brother
drummer Dave Getz (who had been told that the original artwork
"disappeared" from Columbia Records' art department) has "heard
that die piece has been resold at least once and maybe twice. I would
guess it could be worth 10 times or more of diat first auction."
Albin also discloses that die now-iconic cover was originally going
to be used on the back but was used on the front at the group's request:
"The front cover that he had designed was not used. It was more like a
high-school yearbook-type cartoonish rendition of a band on stage,
using, like, stick figures with funny instruments, and tiien cut-outs of
photographs of our heads put on these stick figures. It was the goofiest,
most amateurish thing I had seen. Anybody could have done it. I think
it was a parody of that type of graphic artwork."
Yet often even the wackiest of sleeve designs had shockingly little
input from the musicians, or no input at all. Peter Stampfel of The
Holy Modal Rounders didn't see the cover of The Moray Eels Eat The
 never met any of Love.,. I was
Holy Modal Rounders until it was done; for Fare- w I ,^^-^v ir^W f
well Aldebaran, Jerry Yester (half of the duo, i I ItyVt^l
with Judy Henske, that recorded that album) i i i 11 i
"didn't know anything of the cover until we | (J) \ (J | | | Q_J |
saw it on our advance copies". As much as . .
Ron Cobb's illustration for After Bathing At Q\~] |[)0 O^ / \y
son Airplane, he spent only an hour or two
"free-associating ideas about possible imagery" with the group in Los
Angeles, never meeting them again.
Still, that was more direct contact than some album illustrators
managed. Forever Changes designer Bob Pepper never even met any of
the guys from Love. Instead, he says, he was merely "given their last
album to listen to and contact sheets from tiieir last album shoot.
I was told who the leader was, what instruments they each played, that
tiiey were a new group Elektra wanted to push, and that they all had
to appear on the cover. I never met any of them, nor did I receive any
input from them. I listened to Love's album and was not very im
pressed. I found very little in their music, etc to build an illustration
from." Intriguingly enough, he then turned to artists who did know
something of the music they were illustrating for inspiration: "At
the time, there were many great, graphic, psychedelic rock-concert
^o\/ n
V V7 I , BOB PEPPER, FOREVER CHANGES SLEEVE DESIGNER
posters coming out of San Francisco. They were fresh, bright, beauti
ful, and said 'rock' and everything connected to it artistically and
loudly. I decided that would be my approach."
Nonetheless, many of the most adventurous psychedelic sleeves
remain emblems of a time when bands not only subverted rock music
but also helped change the rules of who was in charge of how tiiey
were represented on album covers. For a while, anyway. "When we
Steve Miller's Children Of The Future, the art director, who was usually
telling me what to do, had nothing to do but stand in the corner with
his arms crossed," says Victor Moscoso. "The job was done for the
band. That was their agreement with the record label. Now it's back to
the old days."
For more information on Victor Moscoso, go to www. victormoscoso. com
MOJO Greatest Album Covers 1
 ♦ ♦♦♦♦».♦♦♦♦♦♦ t»>»tH»»»»»»»HHH»t»»Ht»»M»tt»t-H)ttMtM,t»HtH»HH»
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A LONG, STRANGE TRIP IN THE COMPANY OF FLYING HOUSES, CARNIVAL

FREAKS AND "A PHALLUS SQUIRTING SEED". BY RICHIE UNTERBERGER
♦+++++++++++++++++^.»+4+,»++++>++++.» ♦»»♦♦♦ ♦♦+♦++++♦♦♦♦ ♦♦♦♦»♦ w»HHHmWW»»»»WHHHm»»W»H» ♦
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S|
-o
REVOLVER
Revolver The 13th floor Elevators Sunshine Superman
THE BEATLES THE 13TH FLOOR ELEVATORS DONOVAN
PARLOPHONE, 1966 INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS, 1966 EPIC (US), 1966

Design Klaus Voormann Design John Cleveland Design Dick Smith

The first truly way-out psychedelic sleeve
was, ironically, in black and white. But Klaus
Voormann concocted a collage of photos and
drawings that, like the music within, managed
to warp the Fabs' image into unexpected new
dimensions while keeping them recognisable to
their longtime fans. The pencil sketches of John,
Paul, George and Rmgo on which the design
was based were done from memory, Voormann
having been a close mate of The Beatles since
their Hamburg days.
What it sounds like Eclectic and adventurous
but always tuneful, it encapsulates 1966 Mod
rock and anticipates psychedelia.
The 13th Floor Elevators' debut album cover
boasted swirling, sprawling colours just as fluid
and lurid as the light shows at early psychedelic
rock gigs. The eye-within-an-eye at its centre
topped a pyramid in a subtle subversion of the
image used on the back of US dollar bills.
Plenty of Califomian psychedelic rock posters
would use similar colours and patterns,
although designer John Cleveland was, like
the Elevators, based in Austin, Texas.
What it sounds like A percolating electric jug
and Roky Erickson's vocal yelp certainly echo
the eerie lyrics, although the album is not quite
as freaky as the cover might lead you to expect.
Photograph Barry Feinstein
With multi-hued leaves and lettering encircling
a paisley-shirted Donovan, the original edition
of Sunshine Superman (released in the US
before its UK counterpart) was one of flower
power's most blatant advertisements.
Donovan himself preferred the more subdued
UK design, an illustrated'S'. "But Epic in New
York wanted a photo," he explained in 2005,
"and [photographer] Barry [Feinstein]
introduced my romantic image to the world."
What it sounds like Embraces folk rock,
classical, jazz, and Indian music, stretching
from medieval fairytales to Sunset Strip.

yiS^Mfc-yr;
t v ^'--■■'
' ^£&■'
^ h'

The 5000 Spirits Or The Layers
Of The Onion
THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND
ELEKTRA, 1967
Design Simon & Marijke
Best known for their short-lived psychedelic
mural on The Beatles' Apple Boutique, Simon
Posthuma and Marijke Koger-the Dutch
design team also known as The Fool - created
a number of LP covers, including a painting for
Sgt Pepper's inner gatefold that was never used.
Their cover for The Incredible String Band's
second album used eye-bruisingly dense and
luminous hippy imagery, topped by a male/
female double-headed winged mermaid of sorts.
What it sounds like A joyful clamour of
Scottish acid folk and blues.
Their Satanic
Majesties Request
THE ROLLING STONES
Design Michael Cooper
Featuring a three-dimensional photo of the
Stones in a medieval fairlyland of sorts, Satanic
Majesties was astronomically expensive cover
art for the time, costing £15,000. A Decca press
release went so far as to hail it as "one of the
most inventive album covers ever produced".
Unfortunately it couldn't help but draw
accusations that the group was ripping off Sgt
Pepper, particularly as designer/photographer
Michael Cooper had worked on that sleeve too.
What it sounds like All aboard the psychedelic
bandwagon!
Buffalo Springfield Again
BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD
ATCO. 1967
Design Eve Babitz
Though mostly known as a writer, Eve Babitz
was responsible for the collage on Buffalo
Springfield's second album. Laying a picture
of the band among a flower-framed woodsy
waterside, it evoked the most idyllic aspects
of the Califomian lifestyle, with a blonde girl in
a flowing robe extending bassist Bruce Palmer
a helping hand. The dozens of dedications on
the back cover were a fascinating encyclopedia
of the band's friends and influences.
What it sounds like Brilliant LA psych-tinged
folk rock.
Disraeli Gears
CREAM
REACTION, 1967
Design Martin Sharp
The most flamboyantly famous of the
psychedelic day-glo LP covers was designed
by Eric Clapton's flatmate (and Tales Of Brave
Ulysses lyricist) Martin Sharp. Surrounding
a publicity shot of the band with imagery in
bright shades of red, orange and green (some
taken from Victorian decorative engravings),
it was actually done in black and white before
being painted with fluorescent colors. The
enigmatic title came from a Cream roadie's
mispronunciation of "derailleur gears".
What it sounds like Blues-rock morphing into
psychedelic pop and proto-heavy metal.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦MMo♦♦»»♦♦■»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦■

Strange Days
THE DOORS
ELEKTRA, 1967

Design Bill Harvey

Photograph Joel Brodsky
"Jim Morrison said, 'I wanna see the four
of us standing in a big room full of dogs,'"
recalls The Doors' keyboard player Ray
Manzarek. "Bill Harvey said, 'How many
dogs?' Jim said, 'I don't know, like, a
hundred.' Harvey said, Jim, it's gonna be
impossible to organise 100 dogs in a room
with you guys standing in the middle - it
could be dangerous.'"
"I don't know exactly who came up with
the idea, but it was sort of communal: 'Hey,
let's have something in New York City, like
'strange days are coming to your town with
a Fellini circus troupe'. You have the poster
of the first Doors album on the wall off to
the side with that little stripe across it
saying 'Strange Days'. It was a great way
of having The Doors' faces on the album
coverw/tnout having The Doors' faces on
the album cover."
What it sounds like An admirably dark
carnival of moody, sensual tunes.
♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦
-f♦
-♦
♦♦♦
>♦♦■♦ »+♦♦++♦♦»♦♦»♦♦♦♦+♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»
«t»»»»i ♦■■▶
-♦
♦
>

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 13

 Axis: Bold As Love
THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE
TRACK. 1967
Design David King, Roger Law
Art direction Ed Thrasher
While Hendrix wasn't the most Indian-
influenced of psychedelic rockers, Chris Stamp
of Track Records arranged for a design of
interlocking regal Indian figures, with a three-
headed representation of the musicians in
The Jimi Hendrix Experience at the centre.
"When I first saw that design,"commented
Jimi at the time, "I thought, It's great, but
maybe we should have had an American
Indian. The three of us had nothing to do with
what's on the Axis cover."
What it sounds like Guitar histrionics plus
galactic funk and soul.
Forever Changes
LOVE
ELEKTRA, 1967
Design Bob Pepper
Influenced by Yellow Submarine art director
Heinz Edelmann and Gustav Klimt's decorative
expressionistic work, Bob Pepper-who also
designed sleeves for Elektra's classical
subsidiary, Nonesuch -grouped all five faces
of Love together on Forever Changes "because
they were a group, each dependent on the
other for their product" and used bright,
solarized colours. These days he's most
famous for creating the artwork in the Dark
Tower and Dragonmaster games.
What it sounds like Gorgeous folk rock with
luminous horn and string arrangements.
THE ZOMBIES
CBS,1968
Design Terry Quirk
As both a designer of posters for the Middle
Earth and Marquee clubs in London and a
flatmate of The Zombies' Chris White, Terry
Quirk was more qualified than anyone to
design the sleeve of the group's psych-pop
swansong. Influenced by both Klaus
Voormann's florid collage for See Gees 1st
and romantic classical art, Quirk was also
responsible for the famous misspelling of
'Odyssey' as 'Odessey'.
What it sounds like Chiming pop-rock and
stately story-songs couched in sublimely
melodic arrangements.

♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»»«♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦>■♦♦♦♦♦»<»♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦■

After Bathing
At Baxter's
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE
RCA, 1967

Design Rick Cobb

'The loony association of an airplane with
an archetypal San Francisco Victorian
house popped into my mind right from the
start," says designer Rick Cobb, then a
Los Angeles Free Press political cartoonist.
"For me, the vision seemed to embody the
central connection between the band and
the San Francisco/Haight Ashbury scene.
I could see other advantages to using the
flying house, especially with the addition
of its rear cover banner and balloons.
"The whole concept also worked well
in conveying the buoyant, optimistic,
even celebratory feel of the music while
still evoking the correct amount of comic
absurdity the times called for. The Victorian,
high-flying Jefferson Airplane would
display all the colour it could bear, while
the blighted urban landscape passing
underneath would be seen in only black-
ink-on-white, as with my cartoons. The
final touch was the corny, ironic or cynical
(take your pick) use of the national stripe
and stars."
What it sounds like R&B jams, folky
ballads and hallucinatory instrumentals
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦» corralled into five song-suites.

14 MOJO Greatest Album Covers


EMYESTERf
Farewell Aldebaran
JUDY HENSKE & JERRY YESTER
STRAIGHT, 1969
Design John Williams. Photograph Ed Caraeff
On the back: a happy if eccentric portrait of
Henske, Yester and their young child relaxing in
a garden with the family cat. On the front: a
horror movie, bathing a reverse negative of
the photo in ghoulish green and violet. The
decaying house hovering ominously in the
background "was kind of a metaphor for what
was going on at the time", explained Henske,
whose marriage to Yester was also crumbling.
What it sounds like Airy, mystical folk rock,
spaced-out country licks and grinding blues.
Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake
THE SMALL FACES
IMMEDIATE, 1968
Design Uncredited
No major LP of the late 1960s had as
ambitious a physical design as the final album
by the original Small Faces line-up. Its circular
fold-out sleeve mimicked an actual tobacco
tin, the title riffing on an actual Ogdens' Nut
Brown Rake label. "All of the pictures, slogans
and all are exactly the same," said keyboardist
Ian McLagan. "It was a beautiful thing."
What it sounds like Semi-conceptual
melange of fairytale trippiness and raucous,
blue-eyed soul.
Cheap Thrills
BIG BROTHER & THE HOLDING COMPANY
COLUMBIA, 1968
Design Robert Crumb
R. Crumb, the most legendary cartoonist to
come out of the underground comics scene,
did the Cheap Thrills cover at the request of
Big Brother singer Janis Joplin. With most of
the panels devoted to caricatures of band
members and vignettes inspired by the song
titles, its slovenly raunchiness would have
been unimaginable on a chart-topping LP
sleeve even a year or two earlier.
What it sounds like Joplin's charismatic blues-
rock wail backed by gritty psychedelia.
The Moray Eels Eat The Holy
Modal Rounders
THE HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS ELEKTRA, 1968
Design Gene Szafran
On a chaotic acid folk album ending with
playwright Sam Shepard forgetting the words to
the Pledge of Allegiance, it was only appropriate
for a scrambled red-white-and-blueflagto be
used as the cover art. This version of the Stars
and Stripes was jammed with bugs, reptiles and
writhing naked bodies, though, like an American
dream succumbing to LSD nightmares.
Designer Gene Szafran later created covers for
numerous Robert Heinlein sci-fi paperbacks.
What it sounds like Rural blues and hillbilly
folk colliding head-on with stoned dementia.
Happy Trails
QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE
CAPITOL, 1969
Design George Hunter
The Happy Trails cover didn't so much evoke the
psychedelic age as it did a bygone romantic old
West that might have never existed, courtesy of
a designer (George Hunter) who himself helped
pioneer San Francisco psychedelic rock as a
member of The Charlatans.
What it sounds like A West Coast psychedelic
guitar gallop that includes in a 25-minute
workout on Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love.
The Soft Machine
THE SOFT MACHINE PROBE, 1968
Design Byron Goto, Eli Aliman, Henry Epstein
The Soft Machine's self-titled debut album
(initally issued in the US only) mixed images of
cogwheels with photos of the band members
and a rear view of an alluring naked girl — albeit
one with a wind-up knob attached to her back.
As originally packaged, you had to turn the
wheels to see the people - an innovative
feature sadly lost on reissues, even those that
otherwise present the original artwork intact.
What it sounds like Goofy, whimsical
surrealism teetering into improvised jazz.
Joni Mitchell
JONI MITCHELL
REPRISE, 1968
Design Joni Mitchell, Ed Thrasher
Photograph Mark Roth
The cover of Mitchell's debut is dominated by
her own artwork, though a small distorted
photo of Joni herself can also be seen amid
a trippy multi-coloured blend of overlapping
flowers, birds, cacti, sea and ship, with
seagulls spelling out the alternative title Song
To A Seagull. It helped set a precedent for
allowing artists to draw and design their own
covers, as Mitchell has done several times.
What it sounds like Acoustic singer-
songwriter set tinged with psychedelia.
Aoxomoxoa
THE GRATEFUL DEAD WARNER BROS. 1969
Design Rick Griffin
San Francisco poster artist Rick Griffin created
the Grateful Dead's wildest cover. As Dead
biographer Dennis McNally wrote in his liner
notes to the band's The Golden Road box set,
it was here that the group's trademark skull
"becomes a phallus squirting seed". Griffin
also had a hand in the origination of the trippy
title, a tribute to his fondness for palindromes.
What it sounds like A confident country-folk-
psychedelic fusion.
MOJO Greatest Album Covers 15
 THE THEMES
LIVE PHOTOS

CELEBRATING THE SMELL OF GREASEPAINT AND THE ROAR OF THE CROWD. BY DARYL EASLEA

That's The Way It Is Live At Fillmore West

ELVIS PRESLEY ARETHA FRANKLIN
RCA, 1970 ATLANTIC, 1971

Design Uncredited Photograph Jim Marshall

A beautiful shot of Presley in his full Aretha's concerts at the Fillmore West in 1971
rhinestoned glory, taken at the MGM Grand were her high-water mark. Supported by King
in Las Vegas. The gathering gloom of the
Curtis, the show was illuminated by the presence
black and white conflates the superstar of of Ray Charles. Jim Marshall's photograph of her
the 70s with the early pictures of the Tupelo emoting at the piano conveys the full power of
Rash. Poignant and mesmerising, Presley the Queen of Soul doing what she does best:
looks strangely alone in his superstar world. losing herself in her music.

It's Too Late To Stop Now

VAN MORRISON
WARNER BROS, 1974

Photograph Ed Caraeff
Design David Larkham
By 1973, Morrison had built a fearsome live
reputation as he toured with his Caledonia
Soul Orchestra, blending horns and strings to
support his soul vision. With him emerging
from the blue at London's Rainbow, lights
casting diamond beams above his head,
Morrison looks every inch the rapt, singular
bandleader he was.

16 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 Guts
JOHN CALE
ISLAND, 1977

Design Bloomfield & Travis

Photograph Michael Beal
After leaving The Velvet Underground, John
Cale had earned his status as an uncompro
mising performer who, rather than rest on
his laurels, would frequently challenge his
audiences. Guts shows this aggressive side,
with Cale decked in glitter scarf, his flying V
held proudly and his head encased in an ice-
hockey goalie mask - a look appropriated later
by Jason in the Friday The 13th films.

Frampton Comes Alive!

PETER FRAMPTON
ASM, 1976

Photograph Richard Aaron

Design Stan Evenson
Frampton's US rise in the mid-'70s was
breathtaking, and this album was the view
from the summit. Today it would be something
akin to the guitarist from, say, Gene going to
America and coming back a superstar. Aaron's
photograph frames Beckenham's second most
famous pop star in all his beautiful glory.

Live At The London Palladium

MARVIN GAYE
TAMLA MOTOWN, 1977

Design Uncredited
Marvin Gaye's live performances were always
something ofa lucky dip, depending on his
mood. At his October '76 Palladium show,
he was on fire. Although the cover is bargain
basement at best, the shot of Gaye redeems
on every level, capturing him as every inch the
love man and superstar.

Let There Be Rock

AC/DC
ATLANTIC, 1977

Design Bob Defrin

AC/DC always came alive on stage. And that's
why this hand-tinted shot was chosen for the
cover of their third studio album, with Bon
Scott standing back while Angus Young holds
his guitar in what has become his archetypal
pose. The fact that it looks as though Young is
making a storm brew above his head only adds
to the sleeve's brooding malevolence.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 1 "i

 ACCOMPANIED BY HEAVENLY HARMONIES AND DREAMY ARRANGEMENTS, BOB STANLEY
PICKS HIS WAYTHROUGH A PARADE OF PAINT SPLATS AND HUMAN-HEADED MOTHS.
♦ ♦ » » H > * » H » H H » » « H H H H H M » - H * < n » H * H H H H t H K » » » t H H H ) H H H t M t H t M » » t l H H « » t ) H H ^ H t » H H t » n - t » * « »

The Sunshine Company Lonely Side Of The City Harpers Bizarre 4

THE SUNSHINE COMPANY THE AMERICAN BREED HARPERS BIZARRE
DOT, 1968 WARNER BROS, 1969

Design Woody Woodward/John L Eastman Design Christopher Whorf Design Uncredited

No hint here that the Co were formerly a folk
rock group. Their dazzling sophomore sleeve
screams: "Mamas & Papas only brighter]"
Unsurprisingly, the group were less than
impressed and opted for muted oranges and
blues for their final album, SunshineAnd
Shadows, in a bid to be taken more seriously.
Their time would come 30 years later, via a
Japanese wave of enthusiasm.
What it sounds like Melodically closer
to Mamas & Papas melancholy than
Spanky And Our Gang cheek. Vocally
a dead spit of both.
Soft pop was an urban sound, and Chicago's
American Breed had the feel in spades: brassy,
layered harmonies and a super-tight sound.
Whorf's sleeve is as perfect in its way as his
design for Isaac Hayes' Hot Buttered Soul.
Unlike the more 'bubblegum' aspects of the
genre, this is a twenty-something response to
The Beatles, Beach Boys and Motown, pushing
for a brand new big-city beat.
What it sounds like Doesn't contain their
big hit Bend Me Shape Me, but a brace of
Roger Nichols/Paul Williams gems in Always
You and To Put Up With You.
The four Harpers do their level best to equate
lifestyle with the music within - super-soft and
easy-going, but with an existential edge.
The smoothie in the bottom right shot, Dick
Scoppettone, reveals in the notes that he
"appreciates the fine arts and a pretty face".
Ted Templeman, the guy in the flashy car,
rebelled against HB's woozy softness by later
producing Van Halen.
What it sounds like Airy harmonies over
lightly bronzed arrangements courtesy of
Jack Nitzsche and Nick De Caro. Prime cut:
Witchi Tai To.

MARK ERIC
The Goggles
THE GOGGLES
REVUE, 1969
AUDIO FIDELITY 1970

Photograph Frank Betz Design Rhea Atkins

The image is of the surfin'jock-the kind of This was the soundtrack to a
musclehead Dustin Hoffman rooms with in The
quickly forgotten American TV special,
Graduate - having his mind blown by nature,
Super Plastic Elasticated Goggles.
flowers, the grains of sand on the beach. In The sleeve was infinitely more memorable,
reality Eric was a gentle soul who almost cried a splendid circular gatefold that needs
when he first heard the album's French horn
loving care in case it disintegates
arrangements. He eventually earned more the first time you open it. It hinted at a
money from acting (Hawaii Five-O, The Partridge bubblegum maelstrom that songs such
Family) than music. as We All Live On A Rainbow and Jennifer
What it sounds like A voice not dissimilar Rain, good as they are, only partially deliver.
to Dave 'Crying Game' Berry, couched by
What it sounds like Low-energy bubblegum,
Califomian strings, brass, bells, vibes and
'ba-ba' back-ups. gently orchestrated. David Cassidy would
gladly have covered most of these songs.

18 MOJO Greatest Album Covers


Stars/Time/Bubbles/Love
THE FREE DESIGN
PROJECT 3,1970
Design Uncredited
The Dedrick family's fourth album came
in record label Project 3's usual high-gloss,
heavy card gatefold. Usually these were aimed
at audiophile bachelors, but this time
mainman Chris Dedrick asked their in-house
designers to come up with something new.
No problem, said they, and came up with a
suitably abstract yet minimal sleeve by blowing
oil paint through straws.
What it sounds like Joyfully childlike, yet with
a darker undertow than previous FD efforts.
As close as they got to gospel - which was still
a good few miles away.
Design Uncredited
The 'butcher' cover we all know. Other
collectors search in vain for the 'beard'
cover (The Monkees' Headquarters was
first pressed with pictures of the hirsute
band after six weeks in the studio) and the
'toilet' cover. Possibly the rarest of the lot,
this was The Mamas & The Papas' debut,
shot in a bathroom. The offensive latrine
was soon covered by a scroll announcing
the hit singles therein, which is the only
sleeve released in the UK. Even this wasn't
enough, and a third sleeve appeared in the
States, cropped tight to suggest that they'd
never been near a bathroom. Instead it
gives the impression that they could all be
in bed together, which probably wasn't
Dunhill's intention.
What it sounds like Slowed down,
baroque versions of standards and
deathless originals (California Dreaming,
Monday Monday), with harmonies you
▶♦
♦♦♦
♦♦
»♦
♦<
» could fl y a kite in. |k~t++
■'
»♦♦»♦♦♦♦
MOJO Greatest Album Covers 15
THE OUTTAKES L YESTERDAY AND TODAY W*4
THE BEATLES f fj

cb d> w d>

Run For
AS ROBERT WHITAKER EXPLAINS,
THE INFAMOUS 'BUTCHER SLEEVE'
PHOTOS WERE MEANT TO SHAKE
UP THE WORLD'S COSY VIEW OF
THE BEATLES. MISSION ACCOM
PLISHED, HETELLS LOIS WILSON.
>♦♦♦+*++♦♦♦♦♦■*>^+***++4>+++*+♦♦++♦++

perception of The Beatles forever. "I remember

sleeve artwork. Photographer Robert thinking they were a very lucky bunch of guys to
Whitaker's controversial portrait of The have so many girls screaming at them," recalls
Beatles, dressed in butchers smocks and Whitaker of the first time he met the band on their
accessorised with slabs of meat and doll 1964 Australian tour. "To me they were normal
IT WAS NEVER
parts, intended
was instead to be as
conceived usedthe as
grand guys, great fun to hang around with, but basically
finale to a larger work entitled Somnambulant no different to you or I. By 1966 they were tired
Adventure. Inspired by the surrealist artists Hans of being portrayed so one-dimensionally on their
Bellmer and Meret Oppenheim, it was a bold record sleeves. They were intelligent people,
project that Whitaker hoped would change the they weren't just about the 'yeah yeah yeans'.
I wanted to show that they were

"The meat was from a butchers human beings, rather than idols
that people should worship,

in Chiswick. I took it back after especially the young ladies.

I wanted to rattle the birdcage."
And that's exactly what he

and he sold it that day. ROBERT WHITAKER

YESTERDAY ■ DR. ROBERT
I'M ONLY SLEEPING - AND YOUR BIRD CAN SING l
WE CAN WORK IT OUT ■ DAY TRIPPER
\(G§toh NOWHEREJUAN- WHAT GOES ON!
DRIVE MY CAR ■ IF I NEEDED SOMEONE
ACT NATURALLY
TRe Beatles
did. Inviting the group down to
1 The Vale in Chelsea on March
25,1966, over the course
of two hours Whitaker set about visually
deconstructing the concept of fame, adulation
and The Beatles as cutesy, cheeky moptops
through a series of photographs.
"I was trying to show they were just flesh and
blood. The meat was fresh; I got it from my school
friend, Robert Sandford's butchers in Chiswick.

yesterday I took it back to him after and he sold it later that

day. The dolls were procured from a doll factory in

And Today Chiswick. They weren't dismembered, that's a

myth. That's how they were in the box when I
tipped them out. And for me they were supposed
to represent the fans idolising the band. It was
also a comment on the Vietnam War."

SHARING THE CAMERA frame with such

oddities might have phased other bands, but The
Beatles took Whitaker's artistic requests in their
stride. "They were always compliant; they left me
to come up with the ideas but were happy to
enact them. I envisaged the shot as the final part
of the project - it was going to be used small, set
on a gold and silver background so it looked like a
Russian icon. The Beatles had been canonised."
The remaining stages of Whitaker's dramatic
vision were equally ambitious. "The first shot
involved the studio's secretary. She knelt in front
of the band and was joined to them by a string of
sausages that symbolised the umbilical cord.
They were supposed to be coming out of her
nether regions. She found it very amusing.
"Then there was a picture of George with his ;
head in a birdcage; it was to show the group as
caged idols but also referenced their song And » ;

20 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 Offcuts:
John, Paul,
George and
Ringo happily
deconstruct
their mid-'60s
image.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 21

THE OUTTAKES K YESTERDAY AND TODAY H
THE BEATLES W %J
» Your Bird Can Sing. Then i put Ringo in a box.
I was going to colour his face so it looked like an
alabaster cast and I wrote 'two million' on the lid
so he wasjust one of two million models. John
would then be unpacking his head from the box.
And there was a shot of George hammering nails
into John's head. Overthe transparency I was
going to put wood grain, so his head literally
became a block of wood."
22 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
While those shots remained unpublished at
the time, what became known as The Butchers
Sleeve' snap was first unveiled in colour on the
front page of Disc magazine in June 1966 under
the title "The Beatles: What A Carve Up". A few
weeks later it appeared on the front cover of a
cobbled-together US compilation, Yesterday And
Today. Within two days their US label, Capitol,
had been swamped with complaints, and it was
quickly pulled off the shelves.
Said label president Alan W Livingston in its
defence: "The original cover created in England
was intended as a pop art satire." The statement
wasn't backed up by deeds, however, and a new
sleeve was quickly assembled using an earlier
picture Whitaker had taken of the boys around
a trunk- "We all just happened to be in Brian
Epstein's office; the trunk was there; I took the
picture" - and then that was cheaply glued over
the top of the old image.
"Of course people didn't get it," says Whitaker
of the original photo today. "How could they?
It was only one small piece of a larger puzzle,
but I'm very proud of the picture. It still causes
discussion. Using a camera is like creating with
a hammer or a screwdriver or a paintbrush. It's
only ideas, and frankly you can read into them
whatever you like."
"The dolls represented fans idolising
the band. It was also a comment
on the Vietnam War. ROBERT WHITAKER

You can't do
that: (this page,
clockwise from
top) Harrison as
singing bird; the
Fabs umbilically
connected to
photo-studio
secretary; Ringo
as packaged
commodity.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 23

 ♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦

FROM DOLL-HUGGING MADEMOISELLES TO CRUCIFIED CATS,

KIERON TYLER EXPLORES COVERS WITH A CERTAIN JE NESAIS QUOi
♦♦
+♦♦
♦
+♦♦
♦♦♦♦
♦ »+++++>++++++»»♦»»♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦■»♦♦♦♦♦♦»■»»♦++>+++++++»»+»»♦»»♦

Jacques Dutronc Baby Pop Michel Polnareff Antoine

JACQUES DUTRONC FRANCE GALL MICHEL POLNAREFF ANTOINE
VOGUE, 1966 PHIUPS,1966 DISC AZ, 1966 VOGUE, 1968

Photograph Jean-Marie Perier
Although Dutranc had lurked in French pop's
shadows as a songwriter and session guitarist
from the early '60s, he hit big in 1966 by
cheekily marrying the boulevardier tradition to
a Troggs-like garage beat. Jean-Marie Perier's
photo is set at an angle, confirming Dutronc's
wonky world view. Stylish to a tee, Dutronc's
stance for the cover of his first album says,
"Stop. Listen." Francoise Hardy clearly did
- she and Dutranc were soon an item.
What it sounds like The clattering punkishness
ofEtMoi, EtMoi, Et Moi sets the benchmark for
this classic set.
Photograph Patrick Bertrand
Painting Monique Kerever
Stridently voiced teen pop sensation France
Gall is usually portrayed as Serge Gainsbourg's
puppet, but without her strong and joyful
presence there would have been nothing for her
regular songwriter to work with. Baby Pop's cover
captured that persona in riveting style. Boldly
placed in front of a Mondrian-esque image
painted by Monique Kerever (who still works, but
in a more figuratively abstract style), Gall exudes
youth, exoticism and a captivating directness.
What it sounds like A strong, infectious set that
finds Gall upbeat throughout.
Photograph Jean-Marie Perier
Blending folk rock with yearning, passionate
melodies, Polnareff was propelled to the centre
of French pop in 1966. Well aware of the
importance of image, his career has seen regular
Bowie-like metamorphoses. But his first album
captures him before the changes. Jean-Marie
Perier's bold picture suggests introspection.
Nowhere on the sleeve does it say who this
album is by-Polnareff was already thinking of
the image as icon.
What it sounds like Veers from elegantly
baroque folk rock (L'Amour Avec Toi) to wild Lou
Christie-esque drama (You'll Be On My Mind).
Illustration Michel Bridaine. Design Antoine
The bande dessinee (comic-book) is part of
France's cultural fabric, and it's no surprise
that the medium appealed to pop musicians.
Antoine emerged in 1965 as fe Sob Dylan
Frangais, but in 1968 he became a red-homed
devil, swooping over hippies, go-go chicks and
Peanuts' Linus. The comic continued over the
multi-paged gatefold, lampooning The Beatles,
America and fellow Gallic star Michel Polnareff.
French pop at its most perversely cynical.
What it sounds like With no breaks between
songs, the album marries a Zappa-like satire of
contemporaneous pop to a Dylan-informed
version of chanson.

M*^gr histoire de melody

SERGE nelson

GAIN URG

Eric Charden Histoire De Melody Nelson Francoise Hardy

ERIC CHARDEN
DECCA, 1968
Design Uncredited
Eric Charden arrived as a typical eariy-'60s pop
chansonnier, but he was adaptable and ably
rode the decade's musical changes. By 1968
his modish reflectiveness was validated by this
extraordinary montage of 17th and 18th-century
north European paintings - an analogue to the
Victorian cut-ups favoured in Brit psychedelia.
War and carnage peep out between domestic
scenes, and in the middle, pensively looking
forth, is Charden himself.
What it sounds like Contrasts uptempo Ray
Davies-ish beatsters with Barry Ryan-esque
portentousness and the dramatics of Whiter
Shade Of Pale.
SERGE GAINSBOURG
PHIUPS, 1971
Photograph Tony Frank
Gainsbourg's concept album about the 14-
year-old Melody Nelson and the Rolls-Royce
driver who runs into her was the zenith of
French pop's evolution. It's dark musical
dynamic has become genre defining. Perfectly
complementing the music was the arresting
cover photo of Gainsbourg's gamine muse
Jane Birkin hugging a doll while sporting
Melody's red hair. If Birkin had become Melody,
what did that say about Gainsbourg's hearty
appetite for transgression?
What it sounds like Its sparseness, snappy
bass, close-miked recitation and sweeping
orchestral grandeur still reverberates today.
FRANCOISE HARDY
SONOPRESSE, 1971
Photograph Jean-Marie Perier
Francoise Hardy's 12th French album was
also the ninth to simply bear her name as
its title. Striking cover images of the singer
were enough. Those images were inevitably
supplied by her former partner and long-time
collaborator Jean-Marie Perier, French pop's
leading photographer. For this iconic sleeve,
Hardy looks unusually defiant, Jaggeresque
-not for tussling with. It's in keeping with
the smokily reflective musical mood of her
best album.
What it sounds like Hardy's fascination with
Nick Drake lent her music an even more
enthralling melancholy than usual.

24 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 +♦++♦++♦»♦+♦++++♦♦♦♦♦♦++++++++++>»++»++++++++++4+++++.«

Brigitte Fontaine Est... Folk

BRIGITTE FONTAINE
SARAVAH, 1968

Design/painting Maurice Tapiero

Fontaine has penned plays and prose, and
onstage her approach anticipated performance
art. Musically, her third album was typically
challenging, and the artwork was just as

SYLVJI
striking. For the full-colour gatefold, Maurice
Tapiero - known for his collectable classical
sleeves - conjured up a horrific Garden Of
Earthly Delights-style tableau with drilled
brains, crucified cats and syringes as fingers.
What it sounds like Swooning melodies
and the sometimes jarring arrangements of
Gainsbourg collaborator Jean-Claude Vannier.

MOW GOINi

Me A Nashville
SYLVIEVARTAN
RCA VICTOR, 1963

Photograph Jean-Marie Perier. Design Uncredited

Brigitte Bardot
BRIGITTE BARDOT philips, 1963
Front cover photograph J Dussart
Other photographs J Dussart, S Wienziak
It was inevitable that Bardot's volatile mixture
of beauty and raw sexuality would propel her
towards the recording studio - whatever her
vocal shortcomings. Lavish packaging was
a given. The album sported an exceptional
picture-covered heavy card multi-page gatefold
with full-colour foldouts, which included an
album-sized black-and-white transparency.
Perhaps it was for displaying like a stained-
glass image? After all, she was already an icon.
What it sounds like Anaemic calypso rubbing
up against light jazz, with Serge Gainsbourg's
upbeat twist-rocker L'Appareil A Sous clearly
the highpoint.
Sylvie Vartan was the queen of '60s French pop to king
Johnny Hallyday, whom she married in 1965. Her early
covers of Brill Building pop were balanced with French-
penned material that drew on US archetypes. A Nashville
- recorded in the States - was a mission statement,
both musically and visually. The cover was almost
Warholian, Sylvie bridging the transatlantic divide as
she competes with US-advertised household products.
The relationship of Vartan to the world of commerce was
emphasised by the gatefold, full-colour, tear-off card
poster affixed to the back of the cover. Holding on to
a glazing bar while gazing through a window, Vartan
seems open and inviting, yet challenging. Whether the
uncredited designer knew it or not, Sylvie A Nashville is
a pop art classic, laden with meaning.
What it sounds like With only three tracks French-
penned, Vartan rechannels American pop with verve.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 25

THE STORIES
FOR ANDY WARHOL, DESIGNING RECORD SLEEVES
COULD BE AN ACT OF CULTURAL REVOLT, AS HIS
COVERS FOR THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND THE
ROLLING STONES DEMONSTRATE. BY MARTIN ASTON
»M-»>»»»»»»4*»»»>»*> » » » > » » » » » > * » t » » » » 4 4 * * » » » » » » »
Andy Warhol once said. "Just measure it in inches." By
which measure, two album covers designed by the 20th
century's most iconic artist rival Peter Blake's Sgt Pepper for
DON'T PAY
theANY
title of
attention
most famous
to what of all
they
time.
write
'Measure'
about isyou,"
the
operative word, too, since the images adorning both 1967's The Velvet
Underground Si^Nico and The Rolling Stones' 1971 classic Sticky Fingers
are united by a most uncommon theme — the human penis. The
Velvets' yellow banana sticker peeled off to reveal a pink version, while
to get to the vinyl of the Stones' opus you had to pull down a real
metal zipper on a cardboard male crotch and reach inside.
As Malcolm McLaren's grandmother Rose would tell him — help
ing, he claimed, establish the credentials for punk rock— "better to be
bad than good". To Rose, 'bad' people changed diings, while the good
were simply conformist and boring. Warhol's success was direcdy pro
portionate to the way he'd break taboos of taste — from screenprinted
Marilyns and Super-8 films such as Blowjob to the druggy escapades
and gender experiments of the self-styled Warhol Superstars.
Andrew Warhola, of Slovakian extraction, started out by studying
for a Fine Arts degree in Pittsburgh, and after moving to New York,
freelanced at fashion magazines. Among commissions for book jackets
and ad campaigns, in 19 S1 he illustrated his first album cover. It was for
a radio series called The Nation's Nightmare about — oh, the irony —
drugs and crime. He hit his stride with designs for jazz albums, where
his deft, curvaceous line drawings matched die musical contents, but
it wasn't until 1963 that he created somediing identifiably Warholian.
His cover for a record of interviews with pop artists resembled a super-
'Andy said, TllgetYokoOnoto
pose naked with you and well
call it John And Yoko'" «,■„
market ad with "GIANT SIZE $ 1.57 EACH" in bold black
lettering. Another pop art aesthetic emerged on 1964's This
Is John WallowitchW, where Warhol assembled photo-booth
images of the American cabaret artist from chest to mouth,
eschewing identifying facial features.
Somehow, Warhol still had time to start managing The
Velvet Underground in 1965. The peelable banana is so
iconic now that it's not common knowledge that he didn't
originate the image himself. His genius, though, lay in sens
ing its symbolic power. According to Velvets member John
Cale, Warhol saw an ad in a medical magazine for a peelable
26 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
banana, and "asked if we'd like that for a record cover". The cost was
prohibitive but the image was as powerful as it was simple and unique,
and has helped serve the Velvets' reputation and mystique through die
years. "Andy was perfect for us," Cale said. "It was cheeky and sexy."
T'S SOMETIMES FORGOTTEN that Warhol created the cover
concept for the Velvets' 1968 album White Light/White Heat — a none-
more-black depiction of Factory acolyte Billy Name's tattoo. That
year, Warhol was unavailable for work after being shot by feminist
Valerie Solanas. But he'd recovered by the time he casually mentioned
to Mick Jagger that it would be amusing to have a real zipper on an
album cover. Later, Jagger proposed die idea for Sticky Fingers.
The idea appealed less to the singer's vanity than his sexual prowess;
here too was an opportunity to collaborate widi a bona fide artist, as
The Beades had with Peter Blake. But the torso in the blue Levi's wasn't
Jagger's; it was Warhol's choicest — and best-hung — male Superstar,
Joe Dallesandro. Beneath the crotch was a photo of equally bulging
Jockey pants, ostensibly to protect the vinyl. With a whiff of danger, a
dose of controversy and a measure of sex (might Joe's penis possibly be
semi-erect?), a classic album got the image it deserved. "It's really this
multimedia sort of presentation because of the zipper," said Stones fan
and musician Beck Hansen. "It's simple and yet really iconic."
For Warhol, the Sticky Fingers cover made explicit what his sleeve to
The Velvet Underground And Nico had made implicit. Mission accom
plished, Warhol appeared to lose his mojo. He'd retired from films and
his only album cover of the next five years was for John Cale's The Acad
emy In Peril, a stylistic repeat of the Wallowitch cover. (His instinct for a
polemical image remained, however, as a
comment from Cale confirms: "Andy said,
'I'll get Yoko Ono to pose naked with you and
we'll call it John And Yoko.'") Warhol spent
the '70s courting new, rich patrons for
portrait commissions (Jagger, Liza Minnelli,
John Lennon...) all of which, in screenprint
form, were turned into album covers.
Until his death in 1987, every Warhol
cover — from Aretha Franklin to Deborah
Harry — took the same route: aesthetically
Warholian but creatively lazy. But his influ
ence lives on. Check The Dandy Warhols'
2003 album Welcome To The Monkey House,
and the image of a banana being unzipped.
As time has shown, nothing sells so well as
sex; trust Andy Warhol to be so ahead of the
game, even in an artform that he treated
more as a hobby than a job.
 NJ3LUE LIGHTS
Hang him on your Louis Smith, Junior Cook, Tina Brook*
wall: (clockwise from
top) The Rolling n Duko Jordan, Bobby Trnimons
Stones' Sticky
Fingers (1971); ^ ^ : ' Sam Jones, Art Blakoy
Johnny Griffin's The
Congregation (1957); ggg
Blue Note 1506 Volume 2
John Cale's The
Academy In Peril
(1972); Kenny
Burrell's Blue Lights, ^C\ -C

mm
Vol 2 (1958); The
Velvet Underground &
Nico (1967); This Is
John Wallowitchll! — ... »*,
(1964); Diana
Ross's Silk Electric
(1982). (Opposite) W
Warhol snaps. ■.<.-

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 27

THE OUTTAKES ARE YOU EXPERIENCED
THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE

i cb cD cD d?

Stone Free
♦
♦♦♦
♦
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*■♦■+
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
^*♦
+ ♦♦♦
♦♦♦
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♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦■♦
♦♦

JIMI HENDRIX WAS A RELUCTANT SUBJECT FOR PHOTOGRAPHER BRUCE FLEMING. BUT THEN,
AS MARK PAYTRESS DISCOVERS, THE GUITARIST'S HAIR WAS PICKING UP OTHER WORLDS.

That was in September 1966. Barely six

at The Scotch of St James
club, I couldn't believe it," - Fleming, a freelancer who'd become Hendrix's
says Are You Experienced
sleeve photographer Bruce
WHEN I FIRST s a w"It may
Fleming. J i mhave
i p been
lay
the night when his manager Chas Chandler found
Eric Clapton sitting on the pavement with his head
in his hands saying, 'You told me he was good,
but you didn't tell me he was that fucking good!'"
months later- most probably February 27,1967
in-house photographer, was trying to get the
guitar-trashing, amp-humping guru of the London
underground to pose. But he wasn't meeting with
much success.
"We were in my old studio, on the third floor
at 12 Great Newport Street, just off Leicester
Square. Downstairs was Ken Collier's jazz club,
Studio 51, where The Rolling

"We were in my old studio. Jimi Stones used to play early on.
Jimi showed up wearing a cloak
and I thought, This is kinda wild.
showed up wearing a cloak and I But when I tried to get him to
pose he'd say, 'Man, that's
not me.' And he was right. He
thought, This is kinda wild. BRUCE FLEMING didn't want to pull silly faces;
he was a quiet, affable guy who
wanted to exude naturalness. I guess he was
tired of being in other people's bands and playing
the game."
Though Hendrix was becoming closely
associated with the soon-to-explode underground
rock scene, Fleming resisted the temptation to
smother the shoot in psychedelia. "I was going
more for classic shapes," he says. "I shot them
from two angles - waist level and the floor. I
begged them to use the floor shots because they
were more dramatic, a bit Hammer horror. But
they went for the more conservative angle, which
was a bit dull."

ALREADY THE TOAST of London, and with one

hit, Hey Joe, behind him, Hendrix nevertheless
resisted any starry airs. "It was obvious that he
was the boss, and that Mitch Mitchell and Noel
Redding had a huge amount of respect for him,
but they seemed more like mates. During the
session, everyone just chatted, drank cups of
tea and laughed a lot."
While Fleming asserts that Hendrix was
"an egalitarian", he also acknowledges that
the guitarist was not simply "one of the boys".
"You always had a feeling that he was not quite
with you, that there was always a little bit of him
elsewhere. And there was," he adds. "He was
with his music."
Some time after the shoot, Fleming
remembers Hendrix turning up one day with his
hair waxed into points. "'Antennae,' he told me.
'I'm tuning in to the sounds around me. It's all
out there, man.'"

28 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

Wing commander:
Jimi with Mitch
Mitchell (left) and
Noel Redding, plus
two other black-
and-white Are Vou
Experienced outtakes,

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 29

 HtMHH HDtltl ^(MtHIMIt t OHIHt t(tHHHHUtH»m»t>HtHHttmHtt>»)>»(tH

THE PLOUGHSHARES AND PISTOLS COME AS NO SURPRISE... BUT STUDDED BIKER

JACKEfS AND CENTAURS? FRED DELLAR CURATES A DIVERSE COLLECTION OF COVERS.
4M«»«M«M♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦■♦
♦- ■♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦»♦»♦♦
»♦
in*
* ♦♦»♦♦>♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

LIVING STE*m&

Teensville Bluegrass Breakdown Nashville Zodiac

CHET ATKINS THE LILLY BROTHERS BILLY EDD WHEELER
RCA, 1959 PRESTIGE, 1964 UNITED ARTISTS, 1969

Design Uncredited Design Susan Marsh Art direction Frank Galina

By the end of the '50s, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis,
the Everly Brothers and others had established
a teen-pop connection. And producer Chet
Atkins was one of those responsible for creating
country's new youth market. Which is why he
opted to create a pop-rock album of his own,
filled with tracks such as Night Train, Hot Toddy
and One Mint Julep. No bam-dance hokum was
depicted on the sleeve -just kids dancing to
jukebox fare - and the sleeve note stemmed
from the Everlys themselves. Natch.
What it sounds like Polite but engaging pop
instrumentals featuring Atkins' neatly picked
way with a guitar.
Graphic designer Susan Marsh spent more
than 30 years shaping books and record
sleeves for artists ranging from Sun Ra and
Champion Jack Dupree through to Paul
McCartney, with whom she worked on his
book of paintings. But she had little to worry
about with West Virginia's Lillys, who, like the
Monroes and Delmores, were marvellous
exponents of the art of brotherly bluegrass.
The photo of Everett and Bea looking sartorially
striking ensured instant attention.
What it sounds like Unadulterated bluegrass
of the kind that established the brothers during
the early '60s.
Half guitar man, half horse. And pigs in space
even before the Floyd got around to such
things. Wheeler had been exploring things
psychedelic early on - when he wasn't singing
about outside toilets, that is. His first hit was
Ode In The Little Brown Shack Outback, while
Zodiac contained his cover of The Interstate
Is Coming Through My Outhouse. Aflne
songwriter who's penned hits for Johnny Cash,
Kenny Rogers and Elvis, he's also a painter,
poet and playwright. File under 'prolific'.
What it sounds like Bits of bluegrass and
Cajun, plus a liberal dollop of pure lunacy.

flVUCHAHL NESMITH^
V : TiJi HKM NAiin.N.U liAND J

^ f f \ THE FARMER

MrVADA FIGHTER

Nevada Fighter Bustin' Out The Farmer Elite Hotel

MICHAEL NESMITH & THE FIRST
NATIONAL BAND
RCA, 1971
Design Dean 0 Torrence
Here the ex-Monkee turned Cosmic Cowboy
heads a line-up that included pianist Glen D
Hardin from Elvis's band, plus such guitar
worthies as Red Rhodes and James Burton. The
album is dedicated to the Najavo Nation under
the title Nevada Fighter, which is odd, because
Navajos mainly live in Arizona, Utah and New
Mexico. Still, the sleeve, designed by one half of
Jan and Dean, does suggest some affinity with
the Hopi's famed Eagle dancers. So that's alright.
What it sounds like Mainly tender Nesmith
originals, plus fare borrowed from Clapton,
Nilsson and others.
PURE PRAIRIE LEAGUE
RCA, 1972
Design G Gross
The sleeve design was based around Luke, a
character created by naturalist painter Norman
Rockwell for a Saturday Evening Post cover in
1927. The illustration proved so eye-catching
that the band, whose second album it was,
retained the Luke image on all their subsequent
releases. Bustin' Out initially sold zilch, and
RCA dropped the band, though they re-signed
them when Amie, a single from the album, took
off at a later date.
What it sounds like Melodic but healthy
country rock that boasted session aid from
Bowie sideman Mick Ronson.
PORTER WAGONER
RCA, 1973
Art direction Herb Burnette
Though Wagoner was famed for his flamboyant
stage outfits, his albums sometimes came
clad in sleeves that were pure Americana -
SkidrowJoe, which pictured Porter himself as
a Nashville down-and-out, being a case in point.
The Fanner, a concept affair with a cover painted
by Bob Jones, followed much the same path,
and reflected Wagoner's own boyhood, when
he was forced to maintain a farm owing to his
father's ill-health.
What it sounds like Songs of the soil
punctuated by spoken-word pieces.
EMMYLOU HARRIS
WARNER BROS, 1975
Design Ed Thrasher
Emmylou recalls that it was photographer Tom
Wilkes who took her out to California's Mojave to
shoot the cover of her first album for Warner
Bros, which was given the working title 'Wheels'.
Various shots were taken, the final one being at
the Elite Hotel. "When we saw the picture," says
Harris, "we went, 'Well, I guess that's our
album', because it just spoke to us."
What it sounds like A mixed bag of rockware
and heartbreak ballads that includes three Gram
Parsons songs.

30 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 p^f^....

THE FLYING BURRITO

BROTHERS a&m, 1969
Art direction Tom Wilkes
The term Wilkes-work is associated with
the sleeves to such albums as The Who's
Tommy, the Stones' Beggars Banquet,
Jan is Joplin's Pearl and a multitude of other
classic albums. After shaping the artwork
forthis, the Burritos' debut album, Tom
Wilkes was the man you needed most to
project an image. Certainly he and
photographer Barry Feinstein produced the
goods on The Gilded Palace..., lining up
"Sneeky" [sic] Pete Kleinow, Chris Hillman,
Chris Ethridge and Gram Parsons, all four
clad in Nudie suits, outside the ironically
monikered shack that gave the album its
title. Contrary to myth, that's not uber-
groupie Pamela Des Barres in the doorway;
despite her close association with the
band, the girls were two unknown models.
It's the shot of Parsons that everyone
remembers first, standing proud amid
embroidered flowers and cannabis leaves,
looking forward to a future he foresaw for
a band that he believed was linking R&B
with a new type of country music. The birth
of true country rock? Many believe so.
What it sounds like Rock-tinged country
with its roots in Bakersfield.
»»»«♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
♦* ♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦«♦♦♦
»*♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦
»lf
MOJO Greatest Album Covers 31
 K tGtfennessee ~~~'

NASHVILLE PRODUCTS CO
jTa,-? j\ ' ts|
.■

Going Back To Tennessee Joe Ely Human Emotions:

MEMPHIS SUM JOE ELY Happy Side/Su-i-side
BARCLAY, 1975 MCA, 1977 DAVID ALLAN COE
Photograph Dennis Wile Cover illustration Paul Milosevich COLUMBIA, 1978

Record companies once chose to hide the
fact that a country release featured a black
artist - RCA sending out promo copies of
Charlie Pride's early singles without the usual
accompanying photographs and biogs. But
black music had always been part of country
music, and the first performer to play on the
Grand Ole Opry broadcasts was Deford Bailey,
a black musician. By the mid-'70s there was
no need for anonymity. Slim, the self-appointed
Blues Cowboy, stood casual but proud.
What it sounds like Blues for the Nashville
Skyline crowd, featuring all the musicians that
came together as Area Code 615.
"Wherever he played, I was there with a
sketchpad,"says Jamaican-bom artist Paul
Milosevich, who has a studio in Santa Fe.
"I did Joe's first album cover, a charcoal
portrait. I began about eight in the morning
and took it to California that afternoon."
Unfortunately the original got lost, but
Milosevich had taken prints and all was saved,
enabling the music that would eventually lead
to a link with The Clash to appear suitably clad.
What it sounds like Some of the most
potent honky-tonk ever to emerge from
Buddy Holly's hometown.
Design Uncredited
It was all about defiance and the ability to
demonstrate to Nashville that he wasn't ready
to be part of the usual Music City scene - as
befitted a man who once lived in a hearse and
whose case history includes time on death
row after killing a fellow prison inmate who
demanded oral sex. The album was released
just after Coe's 1978 divorce, which is why
the back sleeve features a gravestone
emblazoned 'This Love Is Dead'.
What it sounds like Outlaw country, but not
as hard as Coe's image implied.

...... .....A.. ...A. ...........

T T T f T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T f T T

The Last
Gunf ighter Ballad
JOHNNYCASH
COLUMBIA, 1977

Design Bill Barnes and Cheryl Pardue

Yes, it's JC beneath that beat-up, identity-
defying flop of a hat, looking much as he did
when facing up to Kirk Douglas onscreen in
The Gunfight. The revolver he's wielding
used to belong to Hank Williams. A one
time fast-draw man, handy with a Colt 45,
Cash explains in his liner note: "I keep her
close by and loaded with five bullets, the
hammer down on an empty chamber, 'cos
even though I feel I am now the fastest gun
alive, I'd spin that cylinder and give any |
slowpoke a one out of six chance to be
standing after the smoke clears. Old
gunfighters never die, we just go on smellin'
like black powder." But Cash wasn't really
as fast on the draw as he imagined,
confessing: "In a hotel corridor, Sammy
Davis and I once had a standoff and he
dropped me cold. 'It only takes one good
eye to shoot, Cash,' he laughed."
What it sounds like A mish-mash of songs
♦
»♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦■♦
-♦
» ♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦■> t H H I H K M H M H U M t M H M t M X • j that fail to match up to the liner note.

32 MOJO Greatest Album Covers


WILLIE NELSON ISLAND, 1996
Design Red Herring
Willie was always a photographer's dream,
with a face that seemed 70 even when he
was half that age. Chris Buck's furrow-filled
sepia shot, taken when the singer was 63,
wonderfully captures Nelson's qualities.
His "who the hell are you?" gaze somehow
confirms the tenacity that has seen the
bandanna-clad one win battles against
everyone from the Nashville hierarchy through
to the IRS, not to mention several wives, one
of whom beat him with a broomstick.
What it sounds like Fine original songs set
amid the sparest of backings.
tffli
Bide With Bob
ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL
DREAMWORKS, 1999
Art direction Buddy Jackson, Ray Benson,
Sally Cams
Not so much a record sleeve as a brilliantly
envisaged '40s-style magazine. It included
ads for false teeth, figure improvement and
liver bile cures, plus a comic strip and even
a crossword puzzle for Texans, which is apt for
an album dedicated to the memory of Bob
Wills and his Texas Playboys. Come the 2000
Grammy Awards, the total packaging concept
swept all opposition aside.
What it sounds like A star-studded
celebration of Western swing - the way it was.
Double Trouble
GEORGE JONES AND JOHNNY PAYCHECK
EPIC, 1980
Photograph Slick Lawson
There was always going to be madness when
George Jones linked with PayCheck in the
studio. And when the time came for bass-
playing photographer Slick Lawson to grab a
series of shots for an album designed to appeal
to the rock generation, tongue-poking and
extreme bouts of face-pulling ensued, with the
air of hilarity spilling over into the music.
What it sounds like Sloppy, run-for-the-hills
covers of rock'n'roll favourites.
The Last Of The True Believers
NANCI GRIFFITH ROUNDER, 1986
Design Pat Alger and Nanci Griffith
Shot at Anderson Fair in Houston by
photographer Frank Golden, the cover depicted
not only Griffith but also songwriter Diane
Warren, big-haired performer Lyle Lovett, Austin
music-scene fixture Paisley Robertson and
author John T Davis. Griffith's one-time gimmick
was to feature books on her sleeves, the one
featured here being Donald Spoto's The
Kindness Of Strangers.
What it sounds like Dedicated to the memory
of Count Basie, it has a genuine old-time feel.
Angel With A Lariat
KD LANG AND THE RECUNES SIRE, 1987
Art direction kd lang, Jeri McManus Heiden,
Kim Champagne
The imaginative 3-D design for lang's major-
label debut came courtesy of clay illustrator Amy
Vansgaard and was shot by Stuart Watson, who
was noted for using a 50-year-old Deardorff
camera on assignments for Jamie Lee Curtis,
Will Smith and others. The suggestion was that
the album was a fun thing and that the singer's
androgynous image presented no threat.
What it sounds like Virtually party time, with
lang in best Patsy Cline mode.
HteSStaJBSi'itf shift
Amber Waves Of Grain
MERLE HAGGARD
EPIC, 1985
Design Robert Harris and GS Martin
Hag's constant plea was for the voice of the
farmer to be heard by America's politicians.
Additionally, he perceived the erosion of the
railways as a loss of heritage and rued their
passing in a series of earlier albums that
included Same Train, Different Time and My
Love Affair With Trains. Both concerns were
reinforced by Harris and Martin's fine cover.
What it sounds like A live album featuring
many of Haggard's hits.
King's Becord Shop
ROSANNE CASH COLUMBIA. 1987
Art direction Howard Fritzson
Design Randall Martin
Hank DeVito, once steel guitarist in Emmylou
Harris's Hot Band, showed Cash a photo he
had taken of a record shop in Louisville,
Kentucky. She liked the hand-tinted print so
much that she asked DeVito to reshoot the
picture with her standing at the door. She had
to settle for standing in front of a shop in
Franklin, Tennessee, though, after which the
Kentucky location was added by computer to
create a Grammy-winning cover.
What it sounds like A rock-pop affair with
country undertones.
White Limozeen
DOLLY PARTON
COLUMBIA, 1989
Design, art direction John Kosh, Amy Dakos
It was Dolly in her own inimitable way saying,
"I'm still here." By the late '80s, success had
slowed a little for Servier County's most
famous resident, but the sleeve acted as a
reminder of all that she had achieved, not only
in the vocal and glamour stakes but also as a
screen personality. And White Limozeen would
duly prove her biggest album since 1980.
What it sounds like Thankfully more
Dollywood than Hollywood.
MOJO Greatest Album Covers 33
jTHE outtakes K
WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY ^^
THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION ¥ %J
fF

With A
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JERRY SCHATZBERG HAD ALREADY SHOT
THE STONES IN DRAG. SOON HE WOULD BE
HELPING FRANK ZAPPA SPOOF SGT PEPPER
WITH THE AID OF JIMI HENDRIX, A CHRISTMAS
TREE AND SOME VEGETABLES. BY LOIS WILSON

Little Help... band, The Mothers Of Invention, were plotting

the morning," recalls photographer
their third album, a combination of heavy
Jerry Schatzberg of the day in late
underground rock, cutting satire and Zappa's
1967 when he was asked to help usual scabrous wit. "The brief was simple,"
create the sleeve artwork to theexplains Jerry, whose CV includes portraits of
FRANK ZAPPA MothersCALLED
Of Inventionme
album
upWe're
inBob Dylan, Faye Dunaway, Fidel Castro and Andy
Only In It For The Money. Warhol. "Frank told me he wanted to combine
Zappa was convinced Jerry was the man for thethe Stones-in-drag idea with The Beatles' Sgt
job after he'd spied the US cover to The RollingPepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band sleeve. But
Stones' single Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, instead of using flowers and a privet hedge like
Standing In The Shadow?, which featured a The Beatles had, he wanted to use vegetables
Schatzberg snap of the group in drag. Frank's and garbage. I thought, Hey it sounds like a fun
idea. I hadn't known him before

"Frank provided the people; my the call, but I knew a lot about him
and I had a lot of respect for him."
The session took two days to

stylist got hold of the fruit. complete in Schatzberg's studio

JERRY SCHATZBERG on New York's Park Avenue South.
"One to prepare, one to shoot,"
says Schatzberg. "My stylist got hold of the fruit,
vegetables and earth from a wholesale produce
company, and Frank provided the people. They
were all friends of his, including
Jimi Hendrix, who we both knew well."

SCHATZBERG HAD FIRST met Hendrix when

he was still a young R&B guitarist called Jimmy
James. "I was part owner of a discotheque called
The Ondine, and we hired him to play. The
Animals and the Stones would come down and
go nuts over him. Jimi was great at the shoot.
He stood exactly where he was told. I brought
along some props too - the Christmas tree and
decorations were mine."
Once the photograph had been developed,
sleeve designer Carl Schenkel added further
images. He explains: "Frank did a little sketch of
the cover and said, 'I want to find these people
and get them and put them in the picture.' There
were over 100 people and we tried to get them,
but it was impossible. Some came out of Frank's
high-school yearbook."
Other images included Nancy Sinatra,
Albert Einstein, Hieronymus Bosch, Rasputin,
Nosferatu, Captain Beefheartand Lee Harvey
OswaId."Frank was great to work with,"
concludes Jerry Schatzberg. "He was kind of
sullen but he loved the whole idea behind the
sleeve, and when people put on costumes they
always relax and have some fun. It really fitted
in with his philosophy and music. The Beatles
were huge at the time, and Frank was their
affectionate satirist." »

34 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

,4

m r
gs.

£?tt*.

$4

Earthy: (above)
Zappa, Hendrix
et al decline to
say "cheese";
(right) the cover
images by Peter
Blake and Jerry
Schatzberg that
inspired Zappa.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 35

 Pretty On The Inside
(As Well As The Outside)
..- > ... * r •

NEVER MIND
THE BOLLOCKS
HERES
' THE

Music froml^jj
 THE OUTTAKES
WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY
THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION

cb d? cL> c& cl
When people put
on costumes they Life's a drag:

always relax and have

outtakes from the
photo that would
appear as the cover

some fun. JERRY SCHATZBERG

when the record
company moved the
Sgt Pepper spoof to
the inside of the
gatefold sleeve. On
a later CD release
the pictures would
be reversed, as
Zappa originally
intended.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 37

 THE THEMES
CARTOONS & ILLUSTRATIONS
Weasels Ripped My Flesh
rKxTxxTKxTKxTx* THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION
BIZARRE/REPRISE, 1970

Design Neon Park

Frank Zappa had seen the work of Neon Park
(born Martin Muller) for San Francisco group
Dancing Food and asked him to design for
The Mothers Of Invention. Park was paid $250
for one of the most distinctive covers of all
time. Warner Brothers despised it and tried,
unsuccessfully, to ban it. Park also designed all
the classic Little Feat covers. He died in 1993.

Loony
TunesINSIDE THE WORLD OF COMIC STRIPS, DOODLES
AND "ANIMATED FREAKAZOIDS". BY DARYL EASLEA

Relics
PINK FLOYD
STARUNE, 1971

Design Nick Mason

Instead of paying for the services of regular
designers Hipgnosis fortheir cut-price stop-gap
collection of antiques and curios, drummer
Nick Mason delivered this extended doodle.
A "fantasy homage to Heath Robinson and
Rowland Emmet", the bizarre instrument was
made real for the sleeve of the 1995 CD
reissue, by which time the group had
considerably more money.

Yellow Submarine
THE BEATLES
APPLE, 1969

Design Subafilms, John Challis, Jim Hiltz

For this 1969 Beatles collection of odds and
sods from their animated feature, a fantastic
montage from the film's poster was deemed
suitable for the sleeve. For children, this
remains the most important Fabs album
sleeve, with everyone from the Blue Meanies
to The Glove present. Oh, and John, Paul,
George and Ringo on a psychedelic hill.

inn I

38 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 One Nation Under
&» &«*«0* V^ ^^ ^^£ l1 A Groove
FUNKADELIC
*«* WARNER BROS, 1978
Jfjjijj
Design Ed Thrasher
_;. . tTl/tvtX- Of course, all of Parliament/Funkadelic's work
had a surreal, cartoon-like aspect to it. Under
Thrasher's "artflammic direction", the sleeve
is a parody of Joe Rosenthal's photo of US

fr ' % 1|f* soldiers erecting the flag on Iwo Jima; here,

various animated freakazoids erect their own
R&B flag, while George Clinton is in full Uncle
Sam pose on the back of the sleeve.

Design Richard Evans, John Entwistle

John Entwistle sought relaxation in art, and
his drawing was a constant throughout his
time in The Who. As he was working on a
cartoon history of the group in 1975, he gladly
tossed off this partially drawn iconic sleeve.
A joining of the dots reveals Roger Daltrey's
enormous flares and Keith Moon standing
in his bass drum.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 39

THE STORIES
GEORGE UNDERWOOD
DESPITE THUMPING HIM, GEORGE UNDERWOOD DESIGNED LP COVERS FOR
DAVID BOWIE AW HIS COSMIC ARCH-RIVAL MARC BOL AN. BY MARTIN ASTON
nrmnn
OST COMMERCIAL ARTISTS are known only
for their published work. But not George Under
wood. Before his association with a number of classic
album covers, he had another claim to fame: chang
ing the course of popular music by punching his best
mate in the eye. Remember when David Bowie sold himself as a curly-
haired cockney Dylan before coming on as a freaky bisexual alien
rock'n'roller? Ziggy Stardust was a more believable creation on the
basis of Bowie's different-coloured eyes: one blue, the other appear
ing brown because of a permanendy dilated pupil (a medical condition
known as anisocoria) that had been caused by an accident.
"It was coming up to David's 15th birthday," recalls George
Underwood now. "We bodi liked the same girl, Carol Goldsmith, so
I invited her to a party. David got absolutely rat-arsed, but I stayed
sober and asked Carol out, and she said, 'Yes, next Wednesday at the
youth club.' David was a competitive sort, and he was furious. On the
day, he phoned me and said, 'She doesn't want to go out with you; she
asked me to tell you.' I thought, Oh well, but went out anyway, and
another friend said, 'You're late. Carol waited and dien left.' David's
call was complete bollocks, and when I later heard him boasting about
how he'd got off with her, I saw red. I hit him. I didn't know until a
week later that he'd been rushed to hospital, so I went to see him and
said, 'It's not worth it over a girl', and we stayed friends."
Even so, Bowie remained competitive. By 1964, he and Under
wood were half of R&B quartet The King Bees. Then Underwood
landed a bona fide record deal. "David was really upset, saying, 'Music
is my life, while you have your art to fall back on.' But he was right.
Music wasn't a passion I could maintain." An art school graduate,
Underwood started designing for a book publisher, specialising in
"nasty little demonic drawings that shocked people". His first two
commissions were for horror paperbacks. But when his drink was
spiked with LSD, Underwood suffered a breakdown, was sectioned
and took a year to begin drawing again.
another friend/rival of Bowie's, which
C U R I Oled
U Sto
LY,
his H
first
E sleeve,
WA S for
r eTyrannosau-
scued by
rus Rex's 1968 debut My People Were Fair And
Wore Stars In Their Hair.... Underwood had
first met Marc Bolan — then plain Marc Feld —
in 1965, but the reinvented persona he
encountered later was a beguiling sight. "He
was sitting cross-legged, not saying anything. I
thought, 'Man, that's cosmic...' I tried to under
stand where he was coming from — the elfin
presence, his fondness for Blake and Tolkien.
I wanted to illustrate a pot pourri of everything
40 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
the music was about. I drew the cover and he loved it." And the little
figure in die left-hand corner of the sleeve was George himself.
HEN, IN 1969, in stepped Bowie himself. Energised by his first
hit single, Space Oddity, Bowie already had a print by geometric
abstract artist Vasarely to front his new album, David Bowie (reissued
in 1972 as Space Oddity), but wanted an illustration for die back. Under
wood still has the sketch Bowie gave him of various ideas — "a fish in
water, two astronauts holding a rose, rats in bowler hats representing
the Beckenham Arts Lab committee types he was so pissed off with",
George recalls. "I added a few of my own, such as the Buddha."
For his 1971 release, Hunky Dory, Bowie again sought out Under
wood. George was now running his own studio with airbrush artist
Terry Pastor, and Bowie requested a colourised version of a photo of
himself in "Hollywood '30s actress" mode. George did a hand-tinted
version, "but Terry came back with a much nicer airbrushed version,
which David liked". The same procedure followed with Ziggy Stardust:
David briefed George, who briefed Terry. "Airbrushing has that misty,
diffused effect," says Underwood. "It creates a comic-book effect."
Ziggy Stardust turned Bowie into an even bigger star, but Under
wood and his wife still joined die Bowies on a transadantic sea voyage
to New York before designing a cover for a live Ziggy album, which
remains unreleased. It would be die last time the two worked togedier.
George's hyper-realist style suited the burgeoning prog-rock scene,
leading to commissions for the likes of Procol Harum and Gentle
Giant, but he recognised that he was no Roger Dean. The intimate
bonds that fuelled Underwood had gone, though there was one
last reunion widi Bolan in 1976. "Marc told me, 'I want me riding a
dragon, and the album's called Futuristic Dragon.' So I drew him holding
a lance. I had to slim him down a little as he'd got a bit fat by then. His
mood would change like the wind — he wasn't a happy man."
Neidier was Underwood: "I've always wanted to paint my own
ideas rather than interpret odier people's,
so I'm out of tiiat game now. Book covers
have given me more freedom."
Analysing the visual themes of George's
painting — warriors, giants, angels, "the
sort of vulnerable heroes that time forgot,
the tilings that legends are made of" —
you'd imagine that no band of modern
times, Bowie included, will beat a path to
his door. "People know me because of
David, which is fair enough," says Under
wood, grinning. "I'm proud to be his
friend." And as for that accidental punch...
"Neither of us knew then that I'd actually
done him a favour."
 An occasional
dream: (clockwise
from right) the back
cover of David
Bowie's second
album (1969); Gentle
Giant's Gentle Giant
(1970); Tyrannosau-
rus Rex's My People
Were Fair... (1968);
David Bowie's Ziggy
Stardust (1972).
(Opposite, far right)
Underwood in The
King Bees with
Bowie, 1964.

1 hit David, but didn't know

a week later that he'd been
rushed to hospital,"

k My peope
l were fari and hod sky ni theri Mr.
But now theyr'e content to wear stars on theri brows

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 41

 THE MUSIC HELPED FIGHT THE POWER. THE COVERS FRIED THE BRAIN, CHALLENGED
THE SOCIAL ORDER AND EVEN MESSED WITH THE AMERICAN FLAG. BYANDYFYFE
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Miafs
Mt .' 1 O : gon
i g on
I' IHARvinGAljE

-*\0. ■«,»»(

fe?V
A'Go-Go Hot Buttered Soul Cloud Nine What's Going On
THE SUPREMES ISAAC HAYES THE TEMPTATIONS MARVIN GAVE
MOTOWN, 1966 STAX, 1969 MOTOWN, 1969 MOTOWN, 1971

Design Uncredited Design Christopher Whorf Design Uncredited Photograph Hendin

Motown owner Berry Gordy seldom missed
a trick, and the idea of his greatest pop asset
(The Supremes) performing songs by his
greatest songwriters (Holland-Dozier-Holland)
already made familiar by his other top acts (The
Temptations, The Four Tops et al) was never likely
to fail. By mixing day-glo pop art with classic
Blue Note-styled graphics, and dressing The
Supremes in Camaby Street fashions instead of
their usual sequinned evening gowns, A' Go-Go's
sleeve caught the breezy mood and firmly
anchored Motown in the modern pop world.
What it sounds like Pop through R&B's finest
filter, Motown house band The Funk Brothers.
Just as Hot Buttered Soul showed a musical
way forward for soul, away from the three-
minute pop song of the '60s and into the
extended funk workouts of the 70s, so Isaac
Hayes' image on the cover presaged black style
throughout the following decade and beyond.
The chunky gold chain, monogrammed dark
glasses and provocatively shaved head
screamed, in the words of Shaft, "one
bad mother...", setting a style agenda
that still resonates within hip hop's
Benz-and-bling world.
What it sounds like The best slow, sexy,
grinding grooves The Bar-Kays ever recorded.
Motown was starting to look monochrome in
a psychedelic world until Temptations producer
Norman Whitfield decided to shake things up
and convinced Berry Gordy that this album's
title track wasn't, in fact, about drugs. While
the traditional finger-poppin' cover shot of The
Temptations was discarded on the outside,
the suits, albeit of a slightly groovier stripe,
were still in evidence. The swirling backdrop,
however, suggested that here was something
entirely new and free from the most
choreographed five-piece in pop.
What it sounds like The sound of the black
'70s being invented.
The biggest clue to the intent of Marvin
Gaye's masterpiece is what's left off the
sleeve: a question mark after the title.
Gaye had no intention of asking any
questions, this was all about delivering
stone tablets to his people, preaching
about war, injustice, poverty, drug abuse,
urban decay and the environment.
On the sleeve he's a black prophet so
immersed in your plight that he barely
notices the rain; a man already shouldering
the world's woes so you don't need to.
What it sounds like The smoothest distillation
of The Truth ever recorded.

Drift Away Sweet Exorcist Caught Up

DOBIE GRAY CURTIS MAYFIELD MILLIE JACKSON
MCA, 1973 CURTOM, 1974 P0LYD0R, 1974

Photograph Marshall Fallwell Illustration Bill Ronalds Design David Wiseltier

Gray was the last great soul singer to come
from a dirt-poor southern rural background.
Drift Away - and its US smash-hit title track -
marked the transitional point of his career from
the northern soul of 1965's Dobie Gray Sings
For 'In' Crowders That 'Go Go' to his later
Nashville country albums. While all around him
flashed the cars, jewellery, girls and fly threads,
he opted for a more downhome, fuzzy approach,
evocative of both his own sharecropper origins
and the laidback country soul grooves he sang
so beautifully.
What it sounds like Horizontal. It could be you
blissed out on that old bed instead of Dobie.
Although albums such as Superfly may
overshadow the lesser-known Sweet Exorcist,
it still reflected Curtis Mayfield's deeply held
concerns about urban consciousness and
African-American pride. Hence Bill Ronalds'
illustration is as much a community centre
mural as a sleeve; the quoted lyrics, from To
Be Invisible, a recurrent Mayfield theme of
the little guy just getting by. None of Mayfield's
other solo albums came as such an integrated
package of art and music.
What it sounds like Hard-hitting social
commentary riding a sharply percussive and
oft-sampled groove.
An album of two hakres. As the image of
a trio caught in the spider's web suggests,
Caught Up tells of a love triangle, but from
the perspectives of both mistress (side one)
and wife (side two). Ignoring friends' warnings
about married men (If Loving You Is Wrong
I Don't Want To Be Right), the mistress
confronts the wife (All I Want Is A Fighting
Chance), who then confronts her husband
(It's All Over But The Shouting). Everyone,
of course, loses. An earthy concept album
you can dance to.
What it sounds like Swooping strings,
muscular rhythms and a woman scorned. Twice.

42 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 ♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»»»»M»M»MM»»»»»M»»«M««»»»«»M»MM»MHM»M»M»»»»»»

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Quiet Fire
ROBERTA FLACK
ATLANTIC, 1971

Design Ira Friedlander

Rack's smooth MOR soul and charitable work
for such projects as the Ghetto Children's
library may not have kept the FBI awake at
night, but the gigantic afro sported on the Quiet
Fire's sleeve suggested a more revolutionary
consciousness. After Malcolm X denounced
straightened hair as "a step towards self-
degradation ", the afro was adopted by the
black power movement as a symbol that
screamed "black is beautiful"; something the
white man could neither emulate nor replicate.
What it sounds like Honey-toned jazzy gospel
and soul best experienced with the lights off.

Photograph Steve Paley

The Clones Of Dr Funkenstein
PARLIAMENT
CASABLANCA, 1976
Design Christopher Whorf
The line separating Parliament and Funkadelic
was never thinner than on Dr Funkenstein and
its sister album, Hardcore Jollies. This album's
nearly seamless groove, punctuated by space
noises that could have been created on the
Blake's 7-style technology George Clinton's
using to fry Bootsy Collins' brain on the sleeve,
blurred the distinction to the point where the
only discernable difference was horns
(Parliament) versus guitars (Funkadelic).
What it sounds like The most funkified fun
you can have with your space nappy on.
Few symbols of US independence and
patriotism are more sacred to Americans
than the red, white and blue of theirflag,
supposedly first presented to George
Washington in 1776 by Betsy Ross.
So when Sly Stone dared to change the
colours to red, white and black for the
sleeve of There's A Riot Goin' On it was
either one of the most fearless or reckless
moves of his career. In Sly's self-medicated
mind, the black and white symbolised the
people of America, united by the blood of
the red stripes, the suns representing the
stars that people reached for (why he didn't
just keep the stars was never explained).
Although his intentions were honourable,
Epic copped such flak for the sleeve
that they eventually changed it to a less
controversial live shot from inside the
original gatefold (it was later changed back
on subsequent reissues). Sly was unrepent
ant: "Betsy Ross did the best she could with
what she had. I thought I could do better."
What it sounds like Darkly narcotic funk
from a man just coherent enough to know
all is not right with the world.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 43

THE OUTTAKES L MORRISON HOTEL W*4
THE DOORS WfJ

o d) cl? d? c£

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ONCE JIM MORRISON HAD SLIPPED PAST THE
CONCIERGE, SHOOTING THE DOORS FOR
MORRISON HOTEL WAS A BREEZE, PHOTOGRAPHER
HENRY DILTZ TELLS MARK PAYTRESS.

fifth and most down-at-heel album might have

often," says Henry Diltz, the man
responsible for taking the photograph on
the cover of The Doors' Morrison Hotel
album. "What was Jim Morrison like? And
IT'S THE
I always
QUESTION
say he wasI get
bemused.
askedHemost
had a
poet's way of listening that made you know he
really was paying attention. And he would drink
in his surroundings..."
Given The Doors' singer's penchant for
observation and eavesdropping, the choice of
a bar and a hotel for the sleeve of The Doors'
been obvious. Not so, says Diltz, a folk musician
turned photographer who'd recently shot the
sleeve for the best-selling debut Crosby, Stills &
Nash album.
"My partner graphic artist Gary Burden and
I went to the band's office and said, Do you have
any ideas? They didn't. Not even a title. Then
[The Doors' keyboard player] Ray Manzarek
casually mentioned that he and his wife had
recently driven past a place called Morrison Hotel
in downtown LA [on 1246 South Hope Street],
about a half-hour drive away."

"I saw the clerk leaving his desk, After checking out the place
that afternoon ("a flop-house in
a seedy part of town", remembers

so I said, Quick, run in. HENRY DILTZ

Diltz), The Doors, with Burden and
Diltz in tow, returned a couple of
days later - on a cold December
17,1969 - for the shoot. They hadn't reckoned
THE DOORS on an overly officious desk clerk. "He wasn't
having it at all," remembers Diltz, "so as I'm
looking at the guys thinking that maybe they
could stand in front of the window, I see the guy
leaving his desk, getting in the elevator and
disappearing. So I said, Quick, run in and let's
do this. Click click click. One roll of film. Five
minutes. Done!"
There was no time for positioning or lighting.
"Theyjustfell into that pose," Diltz adds. "All very
natural." That explains the Christmas tree lights,
clearly visible to the left of the picture.

WORK DONE, "LET'S go get a drink," said

Morrison inevitably. "It was about 4pm,"
remembers the photographer, "so we piled back
into John Densmore's VW van and drove a few
blocks away to skid row, where the winos and
runaways drink. There were so many bars. Then
we all saw it - a sign saying Hard Rock Cafe. Oh,
man, let's go get our beer in there!" Jim Morrison
was right at home. "He loved hearing [the other
drinkers'] stories," Diltz recalls. "He bought a
couple of them beers just to listen to them talk."
Soon after the album's release, in February
1970, The Doors' office received a phone call
from London. "I'm opening a place and I want to
call it the Hard Rock Cafe," said the voice. While
the international restaurant chain has since
flourished, both the original Hard Rock Cafe and
Jim Morrison are no longer with us. But the
Morrison Hotel, still as shabby as ever, continues
to resist the downtown developers.

44 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

St? SJ3AOQ ainq|V4S34D3J9ofOW
THE STORIES
lamonas
»>>»»>»'»»»»»>»»>»>»>»»>>»>>»»»>»>>>>>»-»»»>»>»>>4- ,
U
ness. Just ask Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey 'Po' Powell.
As design team Hipgnosis, the pair created some of the
nESIGNING
mostALBUM COVERS
sleevescan
of thebe1970s
a fraught
unforgettable and earlybusi-
'80s,
working -with Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel
and Wings. Though not everything went to plan.
In 1970, on location in the south of France to photograph the
sleeve to Wishbone Ash's new album, Argus, Po wanted to shoot a
"cosmic warrior waving an Excalibur-style sword". Hipgnosis bor
rowed a blade from their movie director friend Roman Polanski — and
promptly lost it, "which really didn't go down too well". Instead
Argus's cosmic soldier was photographed surveying die Gallic land
scape while brandishing a rather less impressive spear.
Nevertheless, the Wishbone Ash sleeve was among those to attract
the attention of Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, who requested the serv
ices of Hipgnosis for his next album. Summoned to a meeting with the
group and dieir imposing manager Peter Grant, Storm and Po came
"EMI's managing director was
apoplectic about the cow for
Atom Heart Mothier. STORM THORGERSON
unprepared. "We just had a list of ideas on a piece if paper — a fag pack
et, literally," says Po, "Hut we suggested two ideas. Firsdy, going to the
Plains Of Nazca in Peru and putting the Zeppelin Zoso symbol in the a photo of the desert in which we placed a line of red footballs
sand with a bulldozer, and secondly, photographing a bunch of naked
children climbing up die octagonal rocks at the Giant's Causeway."
Despite not being given a budget by Grant ("He growled, 'Just go think, Is this any good? Will the public like it? Ummagumma and Elegy
and do it!'"), Powell found himself braving the elements at die Giant's went a long way towards assuaging that paranoia."
Causeway, off the coast of Northern Ireland, with a couple of bare
infants, ending up widi the sumptuous gatefold sleeve to Zeppelin's
next album, 1973's Houses Of The Holy. It was the beginning of a rela
tionship with the band that lasted until Zeppelin's demise in 1980.
miLE HIPGNOSIS'S WORK for Led Zeppelin remains
some of their most highly regarded, it was their covers for
Pink Floyd for which they are most famous. Powell and
Thorgerson grew up in Cambridge, where Storm went to school with
Floyd's Syd Barrett and Roger Waters. The pair moved to London in
die early '60s, with Thorgerson attending die Royal College of Art and
46 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
AS HIPGNOSIS, STORM
THORGERSON AND AUBREY
POWELL OFFERED COWS
AND STICKY NIPPLES TO
PINK FLOYD, LED ZEPPELIN
AND MORE. BY MARK BLAKE
m>i>»*>n»»i>m>t>:',m>}li}ii>tnt>y »>»»»>> ;»s-r
Powell the London School of Film Technique. The pair shared a flat in
Egerton Court, South Kensington, where Barrett also stayed follow
ing his departure from the Floyd. In between negotiating Syd's drug
comedowns and mood swings (Po: "Syd had become discombobu-
lated"), the duo hatched plans to create their own design company.
After toying with die name Consciousness Incorporated, dicy decided
to call themselves Hipgnosis.
The company's inaugural piece for Pink Floyd was the cover art for
the band's second album, 1968's A Saucerfil Of Secrets — a tiny shot of
the band taken in London's Richmond Park and surrounded by what
Po describes as "cosmic swirls".
Floyd's booking agent Bryan Morrison was impressed and hired
them to shoot covers for his other clients, including Tomorrow,
The Pretty Things and Free, for £80 a cover. The pair used the dark
room at the Royal College of Art to develop their earliest photos,
before being kicked out and eventually borrowing £500 each from
dieir respective mothers and taking over two floors in a property in
Denmark Street.
Inspired by die work of artists such as
Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte,
Thorgerson believes that Hipgnosis's design
for Pink Floyd's 1969 album Ummagumma
was a real "turning point". Two years later,
the partnership created a cover for prog-
rockers The Nice's Elegy album. The idea
came to Storm in a dream: "We suggested to the record company the
then unheard-of idea of diem flying us to the Sahara so we could take
acquired in a casbah in Marrakesh. We did it — and it worked. As an
artist, you experience paranoia. It's the same as being in a band. You
Hipgnosis helped establish a single-minded pursuit of vision,
enabling Zeppelin and Floyd to produce album artwork that avoided
the inclusion of the name of the album or even die band. It was an
artistically brave move, and one that made the whole package — music
and artwork — all the more intriguing. Hipgnosis always worked for
the band, never die label, which led to immediate conflict with Floyd's
paymasters, EMI.
"I always wish I'd been able to record the meeting I had with the
managing director of EMI after we'd presented them with die cover
of Floyd's Atom Heart Mother," says Storm. "He was apoplectic about
the cow. I think it took EMI 20 years to realise we knew what we were
Hipgnosis hits:
(clockwise from
top) Wishbone
Ash's Argus (1972);
the Scorpions'
Lovedrive (1979);
Led Zeppelin's In
Through The Out
Door (1979); Pink
Floyd's A Saucerful Of
Secrets (196S); Pink
Floyd's Atom Heart
Mother (1970); Led
Zeppelin's Houses Of
The Holy (1973); The
Nice's Elegy (1971).

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 47

THE STORIES

48 MOJO Greatest Album Covers


doing. The Floyd were interested in atmosphere, emotions, politics,
war, drugs, girls... a simple picture of them on the cover every time
wouldn't have represented that."
Thorgerson created Hipgnosis's most famous work to date, the
iconic prism for Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon. Though, per
versely, Thorgerson favours later versions: "I actually prefer the second
felt on album cover design. "Overnight, punk destroyed the big budg
ets," Po explains. "Record companies realised you could get yourself
an album cover for £2.1 loved Jamie Reed's pieces for the Sex Pistols,
but if a record company could get a cover out of torn-up newspaper
letters, why pay for the big, expensive ideas?"

B
and third times I did that design." But with Hipgnosis's reputation Y THE END of die decade, Hipgnosis had also had their first
now boosted further, the rest of the '70s saw an astonishingly prolific dea rejected by Pink Floyd, namely Thorgerson's suggestions for
work rate, with large-scale concepts to match. The duo had now ex 'the cover of 1977's Animals. "It was of a child in dishevelled
panded to include talented collaborators such as designer/illustrators pyjamas discovering his parents copulating," he explains. "I was
devastated when the band turned it down." Nevertheless, Hipgnosis
George Hardie and, later, Peter Christopherson, producing covers for,
were recruited to shoot Roger Waters' idea of a pig over Battersea
among others, Genesis, Bad Company, UFO, Wings, Roy Harper,
AC/DC and Scorpions. Hipgnosis's sleeve for German hard rockers Power Station, and as Thorgerson admits, "I've learned to love the
Scorpions' 1979 album, lovedrive, featured the enduring image of a pig, and come to love that ugly old factory."
topless woman with one nipple obscured by strands of bubblegum. Thorgerson and Powell split up Hipgnosis in 1983. "We'd gone
Accusations of sexism ensued, which Po flatly refutes. as far as we could," says Po. After a year apart, the two reunited to
"We weren't in any way being demeaning to women. The image of form Greenback Films. Since then, both have moved into directing
chewing gum coming off diat girl's naked tit is just a weird picture. music documentaries. Storm worked once more with Pink Floyd
There's a lot of strangeness and tension diere. I don't think it would
have looked the same if it had been coming off an ear."
With such a large number of prospective clients, ideas were gener
ated in regular all-night brainstorming sessions. "If anyone rejected
our ideas, we sold them onto other people," admits Po. As such, the
cover for Def Leppard's 1982 album High 'N'Dry featured a variation
on artwork originally proposed over 10 years earlier for Pink Floyd's
Atom Heart Mother. Nevertheless, Hipgnosis' heavyweight clients
weren't so easily fooled. In Munich in 1977, pitching ideas to Led
Zeppelin for their next album, Presence, Po was horrified when Robert
Plant picked up one of his cardboard presentation pieces and "saw
about five different bands' names crossed off on the back. He said,
'Fuck me, you've tried to sell us secondhand ideas!" Fortunately, the
mysterious "black object" (or "the obelisk", as it came to be known)
that wound up on the cover of Presence was a new idea. As Po admits,
however, "Robert has ribbed me about the incident ever since."
By 1979, though, rock music had undergone a seismic shift.
Po was photographing singer Olivia Newton John in Denmark Street
when he was disturbed by the sound of a young John Lydon gobbing
out of the window behind him. The fledgling Sex Pistols had moved

"Punk destroyed the big budgets for 1987's A Momentary Lapse Of Reason,

Record companies realised you designing its ambitious cover of "700 beds
on a beach", and has more recently pro

could get a cover for £2,"
into the same building as
Hipgnosis. "They were actu
ally terribly nice and polite
when you saw them in the
corridor," says Po. "Though
I remember seeing Lydon
wearing his 'I Flate Pink
Floyd' T-shirt and I said,
'Are you fucking having a go
at us?'. He said, 'Yes, you and
all that other lot.' Because
we were forever playing stuff
like Crosby, Stills, Nash &
Young to drown out their
horrible racket."
Nevertheless, the impact
of punk quickly made itself
duced album covers for the likes of
AUBREY 'PO' POWELL The Mars Volta, Audioslave and Muse.
Po's most recent project
involved designing The Who's
elaborate stage sets.
us and thenr Waters and Gilmour with Aubrey Powell
"his pic certre) and Storm Thorgerson (above, centre) And the origins of their old
ring the Dark Side Of The Moon tour, 1974.
company's exotic-sounding
name? "Hipgnosis was a word
we saw written in pen on the
door of our old flat in Egerton
Court," explains Po. "At first
we were angry someone had
scrawled on the door. But we
iked the sound of the word —
and the combination of 'hip'
and 'gnostic'." The giulty
graffiti artist was never found,
but as Po says, "Over the
years, we've always had the
feeling it was Syd Barrett."

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 49

THE OUTTAKES L THE MADCAP LAUGHS W*4
SYD BARRETT ¥%J

5 cb cD cfc cb

Lonq Gone
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦MM^^^^♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦■♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦+++<
+.++«
+.»++»++.+++»+++++.4
ACCORDING TO PHOTOGRAPHER MICK ROCK, THERE WERE PLENTY OF PEOPLE WEIRDER THAN HIS
FRIEND SYD BARRETT. AND THE PICTURE ON THE COVER OF HIS FIRST SOLO ALBUM, THE MADCAP
LAUGHS, WAS NOTTHE ONE HE OR SYD WANTED. BY MARK BLAKE

beyond Barrett's travails with Pink Floyd and his

year studying at Cambridge University,"
recalls photographer Mick Rock. "It was
1966, and The Pink Floyd were playing
the Cambridge Art School's Christmas
1 ORIGINALLY MET
Party." Invited SYD
back Barrett
to Syd's in my first
mother's
house after the show by mutual friends, Rock
found himself smoking dope with the Floyd's
frontman and pondering the merits of Arthur C
Clarke's science fiction novel Childhood's End.
A friendship developed that would endure
the bare boards orange and purple, neglecting
subsequent split from the band in 1968.
Barrett recorded his first solo album, 77ie
Madcap Laughs, in 1969, by which time Rock
had taken up photography and was working with
Hipgnosis, the design company founded by Syd's
Cambridge peers Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey
'Po' Powell. Rock visited Syd at the flat he shared
with aspiring artist Duggie Fields in Earls Court.
In anticipation of the shoot, Syd had cleared most
of the furniture out of his bedroom and painted

"I took an acid trip with Syd to sweep them first, which meant that cigarette
ends and dust ended up coated to the wood.
Tales of Syd's odd behaviour were widespread,

two weeks before we did routinely blamed on his consumption of LSD, the
pressures of pop stardom and an encroaching

the Madcap shoot. MICK ROCK

mental illness. "No one knows for sure what
caused Syd's problems," insists Mick. "But there

were plenty of people around who were much

weirder than Syd. Acid almost normalised him.
I took a trip with him two weeks before we did
the Madcap shoot, and he was fine. We laughed
a lot, smoked some hash, listened to music.
On the day of the shoot, Syd was quite jolly."

ALSO PRESENT, AND with her bare bottom

immortalised on the back cover of The Madcap
Laughs, was Syd's female companion, known
as Iggy The Eskimo on account of her Innuit
appearance. "Was she a real Eskimo? Who
knows?" avers Rock. "She wasn't officially Syd's
girlfriend. These were hippy days, and she was
kinda passing through. There was no doubt they
were having a sexual liaison, though."

50 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 Floored genius:
outtakesfrom
the Madcap...
shoot, including
more of the
shy "Eskimo"
and (top) the
rejected cover.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 51

THE OUTTAKE! THE MADCAP LAUGI
SYD BARRE
"Syd was often smiling and laughing
in the pictures I took of him.
MICK ROCK
» Syd posed in his best Granny Takes A Trip
shirt, stripped to the waist and wearing flatmate
Duggie's coat. Rock also took photos of him on
the street outside, standing beside his car, which
ended up on the back cover of his second, and
final, solo album, Barrett. However, the picture
that ended up on the Madcap... sleeve was not
the one Rock or Barrett wanted for the front cover.
"The decision of which picture to use was
made by Storm. He was the art director. If it had
been left to me and Syd, it would have been the
one with Syd's feet. But who was I at the time?
I was a junior, still at college. I don't know if I even
got paid. I think I might have got about £25 that
Storm paid me out of the goodness of his heart."
Mick's friendship with Syd meant that even
when Barrett ducked out of the music business
52 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
and went back to live in
Cambridge, he would still
appear unannounced at
Mick and his then-wife
Sheila's flat in Shepherds
Bush. "He'd come in, have
a cup of tea, smoke a joint, then disappear for
another three months". In 1971, Rock
conducted Syd's last interview, for Rolling Stone,
as well as photographing his friend in the back
garden of his mother's house in Cambridge.
"He and I always had a different relationship,"
says Mick. "I hadn't grown up in Cambridge with
him, like Storm and Po had. I came to know him
later, and I think he knew I was very empathetic
towards him. Syd was often smiling and laughing
in the pictures I took of him."
As for the whereabouts of the mysterious Iggy
The Eskimo? "Last I heard, she'd married a
banker," says Mick. "Maybe she'd had enough of
rock'n'roll, like Syd. She's certainly never popped
up since. It would be interesting to see her again
after all these years."
 See Syd play:
(clockwise from
above) Barrett
plus wheels
outside his
Earls Court
flat; Madcap's
inner gatefold,
designed
by Storm
Thorgerson; with
Mick Rock; with
Iggy The Eskimo
(centre) and
unknown hippy.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 53

 ♦
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BLAKEY

Redskin Romp ANightAtBirdland

CHARLIE BARNET & HIS ORCHESTRA & The Jazz Messenger s ART BLAKEY
RCA-VICTOR, 1954 HORACE SILVER BLUE NOTE, 1954

BLUE NOTE, 1954

Illustration Jim Flora
Jim Flora was one of the most original
and playful commercial artists of the '50s.
His signature was surreal animation with
psychedelic hieroglyphics and strange
characters: saxophone-playing paratroopers,
five-armed drummers, dancing Mayans. Flora's
art appeared on jazz, classical and novelty LPs
by major labels, including this concept title
by trumpeter Charlie Bamet's big band.
What it sounds like Famed swing trumpeter
returns to his breakthrough-hit Cherokee, plus
other songs with Wild West themes.
Design Reid Miles Photograph Francis Wolff
Choosing the best covers created by Reid Miles
- the designer maestro behind the enduring
look of Blue Note Records - is a challenge.
Almost every LP he designed was remarkable,
often using photos taken by label co-founder
Francis Wolff to great effect. The original
Messengers album is the first of three Blue
Note titles on this list, with its image of Silver
counting off the beat for non-English-speaking
percussionist Sabu Martinez; a timeless in-the-
moment shot from Rudy van Gelder's studio.
What it sounds like Plenty of finger-poppin'
rhythms with the cool feel of modem jazz.
Design Reid Miles Photograph Francis Wolff
From the outset, designer Reid Miles's
signature elements were way ahead of their
time: cracked, mosaic-like arrangement of
images; big typefaces and bold hues; large,
empty fields of colour. Miles was a visionary.
It helped that most of his work was wrapped
around music by the hottest improvisers of
the day. The small-group Blue Note sound
still defines acoustic mainstream jazz.
What it sounds like Defined the classic Blue
Note mix of a ballad, a blues and then a bebop
standard or two.

■ "'• '''■ '

Concert By The Sea In The Wee Small Hours Vol. 2 Bines & Roots
ERROLLGARNER FRANK SINATRA SONNY ROLUNS CHARLIE MINGUS
COLUMBIA, 1955 CAPITOL, 1954 BLUE NOTE, 1957 ATLANTIC, 1959

Design Uncredited
Forwhite jazz fans in the 1950s, before there
was Brubeck or Peterson there was Garner (not
that black America was any less hip to him.)
Garner's full, sweeping use of the keyboard
made even piano maestro ArtTatum a fan. This
was his pop breakthrough, an entertaining,
enthusiastic trio date from 1955 that's as fresh
and startling as the cool breezes from the Pacific
shoreline caught on the cover.
What it sounds like One of those rare jazz
concerts when it all came together - humour,
musical invention and incredible dialogue
between players.
Design Uncredited
The mature arrival of the number-one modern-
day balladeer: from smooth and dreamy to
artful melancholy. This is also the album and
image that relaunched Sinatra's career in
1955. The cover painting froze him in the
late-night pose that forever became him:
skinny-tie loose and hat pushed back,
beneath a lamppost, lit cigarette in hand,
the man alone with his late-night blues.
What it sounds like Gentle, world-weary
renditions of standards and the original title
track, lifted by Nelson Riddle's easy-stated
arrangements.
Design Harold Feinstein
Photograph Francis Wolff
The Blue Note magic at its most elegant
and simple. Rollins, blue-hued, staring
off into space, enjoyinga smoke in a
relaxed, between-sets pose. It's the type
of image that young saxophonists study
intently to figure out how to look onstage,
that generates scores of posters and
T-shirts, and that served as a model for
a Joe Jackson album cover.
What it sounds like Rollins at his early best,
rhythmically smooth and ceaselessly inventive.
Photograph Lee Friedlander
Friedlander's portraits of Atlantic Records
heroes - Ray, Ornette, Aretha - were
startling in their clarity and close-up feel.
Could he have made Mingus seem more
Christ-like - eyes ecstatically closed,
bass-neck like part of his cross? A martyr's
role was one the bassist seemed comfortable
with in real life, a perfect complement to
the music on this groundbreaking album.
What it sounds like Spirituals meet ragtime,
and African rhythms meet modern jazz.

54 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

♦♦
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Design Uncredited
Commodore Records in New York City was
the first of many: the first collectors label
set up to reissue great jazz performances.
And it was the first to be created by a
music fan with no professional experience
- Milt Gabler, who eventually produced new
music with the hottest swing soloists of the
'30s and '40s. This image captures that
indie spirit beautifully, and it comes from
Gabler's coup of the century: recording
Billie Holiday in 1938 while she was still
signed to Columbia Records and getting
Strange Fruit, Fine And Mellow and My Old
Flame out of the deal.
What it sounds like Billie in full flower,
with soulful support from the best swing
men of the day.

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MOJO Greatest Album Covers 55

 "
rJunior Mance Trio ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM:
WAVE
At The Vilage Vanguard

Wave Road Song

JUNIOR MANCE TRIO ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM WES MONTGOMERY
JAZZLAND, 1961 A&M/CTI, 1967 A&M/CTI, 1968

Design Ken Deardoff
The trend with jazz LP covers at the close of
the 1950s was modern art: canvasses that
were well known or new, as long as they were
modem. Think of Coltrane Plays The Blues,
Omette's Free Jazz or Brubeck's Time Out.
The image behind Junior Mance is actually
the famous back-wall mural at New York
City's Village Vanguard - now sadly faded
and mostly dismantled.
What it sounds like Swinging originals such
as Smokey Blues and snappy, smart covers,
including Count Basie's 9:20 Special.
Design Sam Antupit Photograph Pete Turner
Many of Pete Turner's most impenetrable
photos - a black sphere on a white wall, a
disembodied eyeball in a can of peaches -
were first magazine or advertising assignments
that found later use when chosen by producer
Creed Taylor for many of his hit-producing
albums. This one from 1967 - Taylor's first
of two classics with the Brazilian samba-smith
Jobim - eschewed obvious water imagery for
a dry landscape with the suggestion of a wave
in a lone giraffe's gallop.
What it sounds like The bossa nova king at
his mid-'60s best, with two acknowledged
classics and several overlooked samba gems.
Design Sam Antupit Photograph Pete Turner
A white picket fence at dusk, winding off into
the distance, brake lights about to disappear
over the crest of a hill - and that rich shade of
indigo that paints the sky as the day draws to
a close. The cover sang sadly of the road -
though no road is visible - and features one of
Pete Turner's most familiar images. Sadly, this
was Montgomery's last release before dying
from a heart attack at the age of 43.
What it sounds like The guitar great at the
crest of his crossover to the pop side; includes
covers of Yesterday and Scarborough Fair.

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Underground
THELONIOUS MONK
COLUMBIA, 1967

Design Horn-Griner Studio

The legendary Monk as freedom fighter,
at battered upright, surrounded by guns
and grenades? In 1967, with a more
confrontational political spirit in the air,
the connection between active protest
and creative eccentricity was not that far
fetched. Even the liner notes propagated a
fictional account of the pianist's years with
the French Resistance. Of course, by then
Monk's music was also a lot more familiar
than 20 years previously, but the image did
attract younger listeners. It also won a
Grammy for Best Album Cover as well,
pipping Sgt Pepper among others.
What it sounds like Monk's last great
quartet with his last great tunes, including
tmmntHtt»t»tHftfffmtntnmtt>»>ttttHfHff»»tt»t»ttt4tttHHtitnittt)mtt»mff4 Ugly Beauty and Green Chimneys.

56 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

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Once Upon A Time Heavy Weather

EARL HINES IMPULSE, 1965 WEATHER REPORT COLUMBIA, 1977

Photograph Chuck Stewart Design Nancy Donald Art Lou Beach

Chuck Stewart's photographs stand as some of Beach's collage-like images grace albums by
the most memorable of the 1950s and '60s: The Neville Brothers, Doug Kershaw and War.
Eric Dolphy in profile, holding his bass clarinet This is his finest: a gargantuan rainhat bringing
like a rifle; John and Alice Coltrane, at ease and lightning to a soggy, downtown scene. Hits
separately in thought; the ebullient (and in such as Teen Town and a stellar line-up (of
1965, recently rediscovered) Earl Hines, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, keyboardist Joe
keyboard reflected in shades. A modem-day Zawinul, percussionists Alex Acuna and
fable was printed on the cover (penned by its Manolo Badrena, and bassist Jaco Pastorius)
producer Bob Thiele), next to the photo. opened this music to a new generation of fans.
What it sounds like Small-orchestra jazz What it sounds like Fast, freewheeling,
using Duke Ellington's sidemen, resounding full of sparkling spontaneity and top-drawer
with the jump and joy of the late '30s. compositions.
Bitches Brew
MILES DAVIS Columbia, 1970
Illustration Abdul Mati Klarwein
Design John Berg
The startlingly sexual, densely detailed and
Afrocentric illustrations of Abdul Mati Klarwein
are well known in rock and jazz circles-
Santana's Abraxas, Miles Davis's Live-Evil.
Here on Bitches Brew, elements such as the
intertwining black and white women's heads
and fingers, the couple embracing on a beach,
all implied a hybrid of sorts. And musically, the
album proved the most revolutionary in jazz-
propelling the genre into the rock world.
What it sounds like Layers of acoustic and
electric improvisation; James Brown grooves;
psychedelic Jimi Hendrix-blues; and ghostly,
lyrical solos.

Odyssey Conjure
JAMES ULMER COLUMBIA. 1983 KIP HANRAHAN AMERICAN CLAVE, 1983
KEITH JARRETT Design Audrey Satterwhite Design Kip Hanrahan
THE KOLN CONCERT Photograph David Gahr Since the '80s, producer Hanrahan has kept
What a remarkable contrast: the deep, his imprint American Clave going through
brooding, Middle-Eastern textures of Ulmer's individual sweat and determination. With an
guitar/violin/drums trio, and Gahr's jocular ear that favoured mixing Latin percussion,
portrait of the guitarist on the cover. Gahr- still R&B songwriters and avant-garde jazz soloists
- and with an eye for dark, often silver-tinted
snapping away today at 84 - is the man whose
camera neverfailed to produce iconic images, designs that glistened and glowed (often by
from Janis Joplin and John Lennonto Miles the producer himself) - his output includes
Davis and Mississippi John Hurt. Gahr, Ulmer some of the most distinctive jazz LPs from the
and this album all merit serious reappraisal dusk of the vinyl era.
and celebration. What it sounds like Shades of Allen
What it sounds like Deliciously distorted Toussaint and Taj Mahal in an inspired,
blues guitar, amplified violin and crisp, open melodic mix of rootsy flavours and
drum grooves. literary lyrics.

"

The Kola Concert

KEITH JARRETT ECM, 1975

Design Barbara Wojirsch
Simple and elegant. White text against
washed-out colours, greys and blacks. Such
has been the signature style of Munich's ECM
label since the early 1970s, making theirs one
of the most distinct, consistent cover styles in
the business, as well as the most influential.
Jarrett's solo performance was a huge
bestseller, in numbers beyond any jazz LP
before, becoming a leading 'make-out album'
for the rock crowd.
What it sounds like Searching, looping
lyricism and improvisation, created on
the spot, and revealing of Jarrett's deep,
classical roots.
That's The Way I Feel Now
VARIOUS ARTISTS ASM, 1984
Designer M&Co
In '80s NYC, the design firm on the cutting edge
was M&Co. In '84, they created a colourful and
playful double LP for producer Hal Winner's first
big-label project - a Thelonious Monk tribute
that drew its music from an unlikely range -
including Joe Jackson and Steely Dan's Donald
Fagen. M&Co chief TiborKalman later took over
the controversial campaigns of Benetton.
What it sounds like Rock and jazz world
veterans take turns interpreting Thelonious
Monk magic in a variety of styles.
night Of The Blue Jay
PAUL MOTIAN & THE ELECTRIC
BEBOP BAND WINTER & WINTER, 1998
Design Steve Byram Illustration Lesley Schiff
A great album on a German record label that
consistently seeks to create the most inspired
and highest quality jazz covers. Not easy with
the limited canvas of CD covers - and with the
advent of mp3 files and other art-less delivery
systems. The message may simply be to catch
these CDs while you can; future jazz may prove
to be woefully free of design and detail.
What it sounds like Bebop excitement with
twin tenors and electric guitars.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 57

THE THEMES
MASKS & MAKEUP
Outta Season
IKE AND TINA TURNER
BLUE THUMB, 1969

Design Amos and Andy

Taking their lead from the then recently issued
Melvin Van Peebles film Watermelon Man,
where the lead character goes from being
white to black, here Ike and Tina do the reverse
with stunning and unsettling consequences.
Even the designers' nom de sleeve is ironic,
as Amos 'N' Andy was the long-running show
where white performers took blackface.

Face
DancesPEELING AWAY THE WARPAINT, LIGHTNING FLASHES
AND FISH HEADS TO EXPOSE ROCK STARS IN
DISGUISE. BY DARYL EASLEA

Aladdin Sane
DAVID BOWIE
RCA, 1973

Design Duffy and Celia Philo/

Duffy Design Concepts
Aladdin Sane was both an extension of Bowie's
Ziggy Stardust character and a representation
of his "idea of rock-and-roll America". Bowie
was happy onstage but disoriented by the
madness of his new-found success, and here
the schizophrenia of his current situation was
married with the undercurrent of his brother
Terry's mental condition. On top of all the
glitter, the lightning splits his personality.

Trout Mask Replica

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & HIS MAGIC BAND
REPRISE, 1969

Design Cal Schenkel

Photograph Ed Caraeff/Cal Schenkel
The exterior is just like the music inside -
hilarious, unnerving, an amalgamation of
everything you know and everything you don't.
Taken from the session at Cal Schenkel's
studio on Melrose and La Brea in LA in 1969,
we find the Captain making the lyric to Old Fart
At Play come to life, with a rainbow trout head
covering his face. Schenkel was Frank Zappa's
'art engineer', which explains a lot.

58 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 They Only Come Out At Night
THE EDGAR WINTER GROUP EPIC, 1973

Design John Berg

This disconcerting portrait of Edgar Winter was
the brainchild of CBS art director John Berg,
the man who also designed Bitches Brew
and Born To Run. The sleeve - featuring the
glam-zombified Winter looking like an updated
version of Thomas Edison's 1910 take on
Frankenstein (the album's Number 1 US/Top
10 UK hit) - prepared the listener for the hard-
rocking frenetic chaos of the music inside,
once described as The Faces meets Kiss.

The Joker
THE STEVE MILLER BAND CAPITOL, 1973

Design John Hoernle Photograph Norman Seeff

As the song goes: "Some people call me the
space cowboy/Some call me the gangster of
love." The multiple personalities of Miller are
here, shrouded beneath his garish, green
and white mask. Norman Seeff was hot after
designing the Stones' Exi'fe On Main Street,
and went on to take hundreds of sleeve portraits,
from Carly Simon's saucy Playing Possum to Van
Morrison's frankly not saucy Into The Music.

Touch
EURYTHMICS RCA, 1983

Design Laurence Stevens

Photograph Peter Ashworth
One of the most iconic images of the '80s, the
photo began life as a Face magazine photo-
shoot earlier in 1983. Immediately recognising
a striking portrait when they saw one, Dave
Stewart and Annie Lennox made it the cover
art for their third album. With Lennox's
shocking hair and leather eye mask hinting at
all sorts of deviant behaviour, it played perfectly
on the gender furore that surrounded her then.

Kiss
KISS CASABLANCA, 1974

Design Lockart/Mitchell Kanner

Photograph Joel Brodsky
For the ultimate in painted faces, look no
further than Kiss. Issued at the height of 70s
excess, the group found the perfect gimmick
for flashy bubblegum tunes that may not have
garnered a second hearing otherwise. San
Francisco-based Brodsky, the man who gave
the world the most iconic shots of Jim
Morrison, brought the photo to life.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 59

THE OUTTAKES ALL THINGS MUST PASS
GEORGE HARRISON
u m u w u ■

Mother IN MELLOW MOOD AFTER MOVING TO

THE COUNTRY, GEORGE HARRISON WAS
HAPPY TO POSE WITH THE GNOMES FOR
BARRY FEINSTEIN'S FAMOUS COVER PIC.
BYMARKPAYTRESS
♦♦♦
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•

of fun there for those two weeks," says Feinstein.

fantastic!" says Barry Feinstein, recalling
his two-week stay at Friar Park, George
Harrison's late 19th-century neo-gothic
mansion. The photographer, who first met
IT WAS Harrison
GORGEOUS!
in LondonIt's
during
a castle!
the Beatles
It was
days, had been invited to stay while he shot the
cover for All Things Must Pass, Harrison's first
bona fide solo album. "I remember having a lot
"I don't think we got round to taking any shots
until the last few days of my stay there."
It was 1970, at the tail-end of the summer.
Newly liberated from The Beatles, whose break
up had officially been announced in April, George
Harrison launched straight into work on the
album. "Everybody needs space to grow," he had
said of the split; and he positively revelled in his
new-found freedom.

"I had a lot of fun there for two

Work on the album had gone
so well that it was looking likely
to emerge as a triple set.

weeks. I didn't take any shots until Harrision had moved into a
120-room abandoned convent

the last few days of my stay. house in March, and his new
BARRY FEINSTEIN home, situated on the fringes
of Henley-on-Thames and set

GEORGE HARRISON
ALL THINGS MUST PASS

in 40 acres of lake- and woodland-enriched

grounds, had done wonders for his state of mind.
"George was very easygoing, very friendly,"
Feinstein recalls. "He wasn't the lord ofthe
manor at all. Hewasjustoneofthe boys. We
just hung out, talked. Sometimes we went into
London to eat and meet other people. But we
didn't do banquets or anything like that."
When Harrison was elsewhere, probably at
Abbey Road completing the album, there was
always Apple publicist Derek Taylor to keep »

60 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 61
"George wasn't lord of the manor at
all. I went through the place looking
for locations and he followed.,,
Here, there » the photographer amused. "The entire stay was
and every
where: delightful," Feinstein glows.
Harrison
photographed
in various SESSIONS HAD BEGUN in May, and Harrison
locations had enlisted help from an all-star cast that
around Friar
Park, 1970. included Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Badfinger, Billy
Preston, a young Phil Collins and 'Wall of Sound'
producer Phil Spector. For the photo sessions,
though, he opted for a low-key approach.
"That's just how he was," remembers
Feinstein. There was no pretence. "I went through
the place looking for locations, and George
followed. We took some pictures down in the
caves under the house, and some on the stairwell
in front of the stained glass window."
One photo from the latter session ended up on
the 36in x 24in poster that came as part of the
album's elaborate packaging. But best of all was
the emblematic cover shot, featuring the ex-
Beatle in wellies and farmer's hat surrounded by
a gaggle of gnomes. It remains
the definitive 'rock star in
retreat' photograph. "Those
gnomes had been stolen
from Friar Park years ago, and
George had recently had them
returned," says Feinstein. "I
saw them laid out on the lawn
and knew that would make a
great cover shot. So we did it. George simply took
my word for what I thought was good."
While Feinstein remembers shooting in both
colour and black and white at the sessions, he
and Harrison opted for the more ascetic
monochrome look on the finished packaging.
Thirty years later, while overseeing the CD reissue,
Harrison changed his mind and slapped a
colourised version on the cover. Inside,
computer-enhanced takes on the artwork
disturbed the original mood of rustic bliss with
towerblocks and flyovers, an obvious commentary
on the encroaching urbanisation that is fast
destroying the countryside.
"George was a spiritual man who loved the ;
quiet of the place," Feinstein affirms. "He used
to go off and pray and meditate all the time. He '
was just very, very happy at that time in his life,
l i k e a m a n u n b u r d e n e d . " '■
MOJO Greatest Album Covers 63
THE STORIES

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO
THINK OF PROG-ROCK
GIANTS YES WITHOUT
VISUALISING THE ALIEN
LANDSCAPES AND EXOTIC
CREATURES OF ARTIST
ROGER DEAN. MARK BLAKE
GETS LOST IN SPACE.
nrooDer
OGER DEAN'S GLITTERING career began with a
chair. The brains behind the logos and artwork of Yes and a
host of '70s rock bands landed his first break by creating a
foam seat diat moulded itself to the body of the sitter. Dean
had designed the piece while studying at the Royal College
of Art. It led to a commission to design similar seating for Ronnie
Scott's prestigious jazz club in London's Frith Street.
As the son of a British Army engineer, Dean spent his nomadic
childhood in England, Hong Kong, Greece and Cyprus. Graduating
from art college in 1968, he lived for a while in a flat above design
team Hipgnosis's Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell in Kensing
ton. It was the ideal location. London in die late '60s was a hothouse
of musical talent, and Dean was perfectly placed to make contact widi
aspiring rock bands looking for striking cover designs.
Roger and his designer brodier, Martyn, created their first piece
for the long-gone rock band Gun in 1968, delivering a garish vision
of hell — complete with screaming demons and certainly worthy of
Hieronymous Bosch — for the group's debut album. The Gun album
may not have made them superstars, but Dean's career in album
cover design was now underway.
"Yes were looking for images that reflected the music," explained
Dean. Hired by die band, he created a design for their next album,
Fragile, comprising a disintegrating planet and a rickety, airborne flying
machine. Dean's image attempted to tell the "story of a world that
was breaking up". In reality, with Yes having recendy undergone line
up changes, the band was in a similarly parlous condition. "The tide
of Fragile reflected the state they were in," said the designer.
Dean would go on to continue his 'Noah's Ark' story of a broken
planet on die cover of Yes's next album, 1972's Close To The Edge, which
contained the first use of the now iconic Yes logo. "I first designed it
before I did the cover for Fragile," he explained, "but it wasn't finished
in time to go on the album cover."
Dean's elaborate, eerie creation for Yes's 1973 concept album, Tales
From Topographic Oceans, took a more "romantic and poetic approach".
The sleeve (see page 71) was much lauded by fans, yet Dean is fonder
of the minimally coloured illustration for its follow-up, 197 S 's Relayer,
"even though it took somewhere in the region of S00 hours".
By now, Dean and his brother Martyn had extended their relation
ship with Yes beyond simply designing their record sleeves. In 1974,
Yes embarked on a world tour for which die brothers had designed die
stage sets, based on Roger's work on Tales From Topo

1 first designed the Yes logo graphic Oceans. In a then unprecedented move, Dean
had also created customised tour merchandise for the
band. Previously, in the absence of any merchandising
before I did Fragile, but it companies, tour promoters made their own arrange
ments. Instead, Dean found himself co-ordinating die
wasn't finished in time," ROGER DEAN promotion and sale of posters, programmes and
T-shirts bearing his logo and imagery throughout the
While juggling album artwork US. Against all expectations, the venture was a suc
commissions with furniture design, cess. "It was the first time ever diat a rock band had
Dean made contact widi the British toured North America where the merchandising had
been pulled out as a cohesive thing," he explained. By
progressive rock band Yes in 1971.
His design for die African rock band the following year, however, Yes had undergone fur
Osibisa's debut album — an exotic ther line-up changes, and Dean found that his services
vista brightened up by hovering were no longer required when the band reconvened
for 1977's Going For The One.
winged elephants — had come to
Yes's attention. The band's heady By now, though, Dean's artwork had graced covers
mix of jazz, blues, classical and hard by heavy rockers Uriah Heep and Budgie and prog-
rock had been poorly represented rockers Gende Giant and Greenslade. The sleeves all
by die dimly lit group photo on their displayed his penchant for otherworldly landscapes,
last record, 197 l's The Yes Album. mythical creatures and painstaking detail. Meanwhile,

64 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 65
THE STORIES

nca
,c•J

d .

V%'. •o

£0'

■ Wflr
ete'
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,&
fi f e '1 M '.'-

' ^ ^ ^ fl r ^ O T E "

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(Clockwise from
top) Image from
the booklet in Yes's
Fragile (1972);
Anderson Bruford
;*»n Wakeman Howe
(1989); front and
back of Greenslade's
Bedside Manners Are
Extra (1973); Dave
Greenslade's Cactus
Choir (1976); Gentle
Giant's Octopus
(1972); back cover of
Yes's Relayer (1974);
Asia's Asia (1982).
^ * (Opposite, top)
Uriah Heep's The
Magician's Birthday
■8*flfp (1972).
(Opposite, bottom)
Roger Dean, still
creating fantastical
worlds in his studio.

66 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

his striking mirror-image naked girls logo for Virgin Records could
now be seen adorning record bags, labels and promotional T-shirts.
Nevertheless, the split from Yes came as a surprise. "[Yes vocalist]
Jon Anderson wanted a particular approach and I felt that it wouldn't
work for me," said Dean. "So they went to Storm Thorgerson at
Hipgnosis, but he didn't go with Jon's idea in the end either." The
final cover of Going For The One, courtesy of Hipgnosis, sparked con
troversy by featuring a naked male model from behind. At first,
rumours circulated that it was Jon Anderson ("Itwasn't," says Dean),
1981 's Drama. Gone were Hipgnosis's squashed vegetables and bare
male buttocks, to be replaced by more familiar Dean motifs: feline
beasts, glaciers, alien plant life...
A year later, Yes guitarist Steve Howe had broken away to form a
new band, Asia, the supergroup with former members of King Crim
son, ELP and Buggies. Despite his initial insistence that the group's
self-tided debut album cover should not "look anything like Yes",
Dean was soon hired. "They weren't getting what they needed and
weren't happy," said Roger. "They had all kinds of people doing cover

tt Going For The One sto rted ideas for them." Dean fashioned a sharper
logo that scrupulously avoided the soft,
rounded look of the Yes logo and painted a

rumours that Yes may have had dragon rearing up from the ocean. "It was
deliberately spikier than anything we'd

a gay element, Not true, done for Yes," he explained. The artwork
ROGER DEAN was voted the second most successful album
cover design of all time by readers of Rolling
but the offending rear led to jeans being 'painted' on to promotional Stone magazine, only missing out to The Beades' Sgt Pepper.
posters advertising the album in the prudish US. "It also started Dean's relationship with Yes and its various breakaway factions
rumours that the band may have a gay element. Not true." endured throughout the 1980s, '90s and beyond. Away from the
Hipgnosis were retained for the tomato-splattered cover of Yes's world of album art, Dean has thrown himself into numerous projects:
next album, 1978's cring- producing artwork for the com
i n g l y t i t l e d To r m a t o . puter games software company,
Meanwhile Roger had set up Psygnosis; staging countless
a publishing company in exhibitions of his art and furni
partnership with his Dutch ture; and even designing an
printers and produced the eco-friendly village.
beautiful coffee-table record In the meantime, the art he
cover art books Views and created for Yes has endured. The
Album Cover Album. As a floating islands he created for
sign that there were no hard 1973's Yessongs were the inspira
feelings between himself tion behind Jamie Hewletts's
and "fes's new design team, creations in the video for Gorillaz'
die Hipgnosis team collabo Feel Good Inc, while the art direc
rated on the second of the tor of the Star Wars films
two books. admitted to Dean that his album
Dean reunited with Yes, covers had been influential on the
when the band, having un early films. As their creator read
dergone yet another line-up ily admits: "It feels good to have
change, reappeared with had diat much impact."

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 67

 A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF SCYTHE-WIELDING GERMANS, MAYAN
TEMPLES AND BLOWJOB-HUNGRY ALIENS. BY MIKE BARNES
♦
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1/
i ^ ^ A
* « * ' *
In The Court Of
The Crimson King
KING CRIMSON
ISLAND, 1969
Design Barry Godber
Artist Barry Godber met future King Crimson
lyricist Pete Sinfield when both worked as
computer programmers. Once the group's debut
was recorded, Sinfield asked Godber to paint
something for the sleeve. Ostensibly a self-
portrait painted using a mirror, it captured the
dread and paranoia that pervaded Crimson's
music, although one group member reacted to
the cover with equal horror. Godber died in 1970,
shortly after leaving us this post-psychedelic
update of Edvard Munch's The Scream.
What it sounds like Epic musical melodrama
and a foundation stone for 70s prog rock.
Design Hipgnosis
Formed by ex-Rebel Rouser Cliff Bennett and
future Uriah Heep founder Ken Hensley in 1969,
Toe Fat are notable for having the most hideous
group name and album cover of the entire prog
era. Designers Hipgnosis were striving to illustrate
a future where sensory organs were redundant
and humans communicated telepathically, but
they produced an image of such enduring
grotesquery that they have since stated: "Why
the client ever accepted it is beyond us."
What it sounds like Honking, heavy,
progressive blues-rock.
68 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
Only One
VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR
CHARISMA, 1970
Design Paul Whitehead
Bandleader Peter Hammill chose Charisma
Records' artist-in-residence Paul Whitehead's
painting Birthday for the cover of VDGG's third
album. Whitehead's work was inspired by
surrealist Giorgio De Chirico and Victorian
children's book illustrator Arthur Rackham.
"This is my memory of birth," he explains now.
"I'm a Libra, and the device floating through
space is a pair of scales - the symbol for Libra.
The feet are descending towards London,
which is where I was bom."
What it sounds like Complex songs in which
a gothic architectural structure is favoured over
prog-rock trickery.
A Question Of Balance
THE MOODY BLUES
THRESHOLD, 1970
Design Phil Travers
Phil Travers created a number of cover paintings
for The Moody Blues, most of which reflected
the group's positive-thinking image. A Question
Of Balance is the odd one out. Depicting holiday-
makers in deckchairs dwarfed by an overhead
tableau of biblical turmoil - including what
appears to be Albert Einstein. The figure with
the gun was a friend of the artist, but he was
unhappy with his portrayal in this context and
was disguised with a pith helmet on the original
album, later 'removed' for this CD reissue.
What it sounds like Melodic, Mellotron-tinged
symphonic pop.
Yeti
AMON DUULII
LIBERTY, 1970
Design Falk Rogner
Amon Duul N's reputation as the furthest out
of Krautrock groups was enhanced by their
keyboard player Falk Rogner's extraordinary
sleeve artwork, created by photographing
multiple slide projections. Yefj's front cover
features the image most closely associated
with the band: percussionist Wolfgang Kriske,
from sister band Amon Duul, knee deep in
cosmic miasma, grimly wielding a scythe and
cast in the role of the German folklore figure
Der Schnitter, aka The Harvester.
What it sounds like Garage-rock racket,
brooding instrumentals and cosmic freakouts.
In The Land Of Grey And Pink
CARAVAN
DERAM,1971
Design Joe McGillicudy, Anne Marie Anderson
In the early 70s, poster maps of Middle Earth
were the prerequisite for any hip teen's bedroom
wall, and for Caravan's third album cartoonist
Anne Marie Anderson's illustration nodded
towards both JRR Tolkein's fantasy world
and traditional oriental landscape painting.
Anderson's intricate landscape gave the
listeners somewhere to lose themselves
while navigating the twists and turns of the
Canterbury band's intricate music.
What it sounds like English folk whimsy meets
jazz-rock noodling.
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♦

Ummagumma
PINK FLOYD harvest, 1959
Design Hipgnosis
Visually, Ummagumma is a deliberate
meeting of worlds. Pink Floyd, then the
hippest band in underground rock, are the
hairies introducing some infinite-regression
weirdness into bourgeois normality.
Photographed by Hipgnosis's Aubrey 'Po'
Powell, the French windows belonged to a
house owned by the father of Po's business
partner Storm Thorgerson's fiancee. The
Gig) soundtrack album was placed in shot
"simply to fill up the space", according to
Powell, while the band's name was spelt
out in letters borrowed from a department
store in Cambridge for whom the designer
had once worked as a window dresser.
Floyd's then new vocalist and guitarist
David Gilmourwas given the lead role on
account of "being the prettiest". Roadies
Alan Styles and Peter Watts (father of
actress Naomi) were pictured posing with
the band's kit on the back cover.
Hipgnosis had formed a year earlier, and
as Thorgerson now recalls, "Ummagumma
was the sleeve on which we felt like we
were finally getting somewhere." And the
curious title? According to myth, a slang
expression for sex invented by one of Floyd
and Hipgnosis's racy Cambridge pals.
What it sounds like Two LPs' worth of live
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MOJO Greatest Album Covers 69
 WwtmM Mvmitk - £ JttinwdC (tduextia&i..-.

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GENESIS JETHROTULL GONG
CHARISMA, 1971 CHRYSAUS, 1972 VIRGIN, 1973

Design Paul Whitehead
When Genesis were rehearsing this album
at their country retreat, Paul Whitehead was
invited down for a brainstorming session.
The band wanted a cover image to match the
sinister fairytale element of songs such as
The Musical Box and The Return Of The Giant
Hogweed. Nursery Cryme's artwork melded
storybook fantasy with ultra-violence - note
the croquet-playing Victorian schoolgirl using
dismembered heads as balls. Whitehead's
later work on Genesis's Foxtrot would inspire
Gabriel's between-song stories in concert.
What it sounds like Galloping keyboards and
lavish drumming framing melodic tales of
hermaphrodites and hogweed.
Design Roy Eldridge
Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson has insisted that he
wanted to make Thick As A Brick "the mother
of all concept albums", albeit one that was
"a bit of a spoof". The concept was taken to its
illogical extremes with the packaging: a fake
newspaper, complete with Python-esque news
stories written by the group, classified ads and
a crossword. Eldridge, the managing director of
Chrysalis, who had worked on local papers in
his youth, spent months putting it together.
What it sounds like A seamless suite of songs
and instrumental in tricky time signatures.
Design Daevid Allen, Maggie Thomas, Tom Fu
Gong's Radio Gnome trilogy, for which Daevid
Allen came up with an entire mythos of
characters, was the ultimate manifestation
of one strand of 1970s freak culture.
Musically dazzling, it is also extremely batty,
but endearingly so. The sleeve of this first
instalment shows Allen's vision in action:
two Pot Head Pixies from Planet Gong
broadcasting on Radio Gnome from within
a flying teapot, while on the backZero The
Hero spots another with his binoculars.
What it sounds like Catchy, idiosyncratic pop
cut with space-jazz explorations.

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Brain Salad Surgery i
EMERSON LAKE & PALMER
| MANTICORE, 1973

Design HR Giger
During ELP's 1973 European tour, a
promoter in Zurich took Keith Emerson to
visit the artist HR Giger. It was a few years
before Giger's nightmarish 'biomechanical'
visions would visually dominate Ridley
Scott's film Alien, and the keyboard player
was stunned by Giger's wall-to-ceiling
decor. Even the toilet had been customised
with arms that, as he later recalled,
"almost engulfed the sitter".
Emerson wanted to use Giger's artwork
for ELP's upcoming album, Whip Some
Skull On Ya, later changed to Brain Salad
Surgery- both slang terms for fellatio. The
group chose two paintings, a skull/helmet
- to which Giger added the ELP logo - that
opened up from the middle to reveal a
corpse-like woman inside. Nevertheless,
the band's oral fixation caused further
problems. The record company insisted
that a phallic object near the woman's
mouth be removed from the design. Giger
reluctantly agreed, and now only a faint
shaft of light remains.
What it sounds like A prog power trio in
exce/s/s, mixing classical covers with self-
penned visions of a dystopian future.
»t)Hmtit>nniii>nm>H»tt<

70 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 Tales Front
Topographic Oceans
YES ATLANTIC, 1973
Design Roger Dean
Yes's double album based on the Shastric
Scriptures led to well over 200 hours' work for
Dean, whose landscape includes depictions of
rock formations from Land's End and Yorkshire
and monoliths from Avebury and Stonehenge.
The group gave their input too, so we also get
a Mayan temple and ground markings from
Nazca for good measure.
What it sounds like Sprawling, esoteric prog
rock shot through with flashes of brilliance.
No Pussyfooting
FRIPP & ENO island/helt; 1973
Photograph Willie Christie
Eno had just left Roxy Music when he joined
King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp for a tape-
loop-based project that alienated many fans of
both camps. The duo's aloofness and their
music's repetitiveness are beautifully captured
in a glass and steel hall of mirrors by Roger
Waters' future brother-in-law Willie Christie. But
the image does reveal Fripp's penchant for
platform boots, that Eno was still a smoker and
a pack of cards from his notorious porn archive.
What it sounds like One-track-per-side proto-
ambient guitar and synth noodling.
The Lamb Lies Down
On Broadway
GENESIS
CHARISMA, 1974
Design Hipgnosis
Peter Gabriel has always harboured ambitions
to make a film version of The Lamb Lies Down
On Broadway's tale of Puerto Rican punk Rael
let loose in an Alice In Wonderland-style
netherworld. For the cover, Hipgnosis took
a cinematic tack, interpreting points in the
narrative photographically and then ordering
the stills in a comic-book format. There's a
whiff of Orson Wells in the collage of faces,
while the crashing-through-glass scene was a
one-chance shot involving five cameras. Like
the music itself, it was a far cry from the creepy
Victoriana of Genesis's early-'70s sleeves.
What it sounds like Four vinyl sides of brow-
furrowing rock and instrumental meandering.
TANGERINE DREAM virgin, 1974
Design Edgar Froese
Prior to forming Tangerine Dream in 1967,
Edgar Froese was a painter and sculptor. He was
attracted to music because it allowed him to
move away from the "limitations of concrete
form" into something "abstract and ethereal".
Froese's paintings had featured on the group's
sleeves before, but on this, their fifth album, his
billowing, nebulous images were the perfect
counterpart to the music within - even taking
the quintessential '70s typography into account.
What it sounds like Abstract, pulsating Moog
and Mellotron soundscapes.
The Dark Side Of The Moon
THE PINK FLOYD harvest, 1973
Design Hipgnosis
The image of a prism - refracting white light
into the colours of the spectrum, which run
across the inner gatefold into more optical
jiggery-pokery on the back cover - was hailed
Fourth Greatest Album Cover Ever by American
cable TV channel VH1 in 2003. Hipgnosis
founder Storm Thorgerson has reworked the
design for special anniversary CD and SACD
covers, but has never surpassed the original.
What it sounds like Resolutely grown-up rock
that tackles life, the universe and everything...
Space Ritual
HAWKWIND UNITED ARTISTS, 1973
Design Barney Bubbles
The front cover of this formidable live album,
with its goddess (inspired by Czech art nouveau
artist Alphonse Mucha) flanked by snarling
space cats, is impressive enough. But the
original folded out into a huge 32in x 24in mini
art gallery of cosmic op-art graphics, ancient
Egyptian and Balinese ceremonial images and
even the group onstage mid-ritual. Ideal for
rolling up the biggest spliffs, it remains the
ultimate armchair space traveller's companion.
What it sounds like Roaring stoner/space
rock with jet-streaming synths and sci-fi poetry.
Kutn is stranger & nan Hicnaru
ROBERT WYATT
VIRGIN, 1975
Design Alfreda Benge
During recording, Wyatt's partner and musical
collaborator, the artist Alfreda Benge, kept
doodling images of a birdman and cow-woman.
The finished artwork would also include visual
references to the album's Muddy Mouse/
Muddy Mouth song series. Benge says she may
have been subliminally influenced by Egyptian
deities Hathor and Thoth - the latter sporting a
pullover like the one she had knitted forWyatt.
What it sounds like Simple piano pieces and
fiery, jazz-inspired ensemble playing.
MOJO Greatest Album Covers 71
THE OUTTAKES L GP B>-4
GRAM PARSONS ¥%J

o cl> cD d> d>

That's All
GRAM PARSONS LOOKS TRULY RELAXED ON
THE COVER OF HIS FIRST SOLO ALBUM -
AND ON THIS OCCASION IT HAD NOTHING
TO DO WITH DRUGS, PHOTOGRAPHER
BARRY FEINSTEIN TELLS MARK PAYTRESS.

Parsons. A chance meeting with Rolling Stone

day," says Barry Feinstein, the
award-winning photographer
who also captured Dylan at
the height of his speed-fuelled
Q R A M W A S mid-'60s V E R Yglory,
u pand
beaJanis
t thJoplin
at
during her final, frazzled days. "I guess he was in
charge of his life and career."
Winter 1972/73, when the cover shoot for GP
took place, marked a period of renewal for Gram
Keith Richards in 1968, while in Britain with The
Byrds, had sparked a growing recklessness in
Parsons' personal life. By 1971, the charismatic
country rocker had developed an incapacitating
heroin habit and his career was in freefall.
After cleaning up during another trip to Britain
in 1972, Parsons returned to California, where he
met aspiring country singer Emmylou Harris,
bagged himself a new record deal and spent the
latter part of the year recording

"Gram was staying at the Chateau GP, his first solo album, with
much of Elvis Presley's touring
band behind him. "I went to

Marmont, so it was convenient some of those sessions," says

Feinstein, "and they were

and it looked good. BARRY FEINSTEIN

fabulous. Gram was a
fantastic musician."

LONG-TIME BYRDS photographer Feinstein had

Gram Parsons
with Emmy km Hattis
shot Parsons before. In 1969 he'd accompanied
the Nudie-suited Flying Burrito Brothers to Joshua
Tree for a stoned session for the band's Gilded
Palace Of Sin album. The location for GP was
rather more elegant.
"He asked me to do it, so I said, Let's shoot it
in the lobby of the Chateau Marmont," Feinstein
recalls. "I think Gram was staying there at the
time, so it was convenient and it looked good."
The scandal-ridden hotel, a haunt of Hollywood
high-lifers since the late '20s, was "too
glamorous for rock'n'rollers", Feinstein insists.
But the chic surroundings suited the quiet
confidence that the album, issued in February
1973, so gracefully exudes.
"Gram was very easy, very cooperative," the
photographer continues. "We had known each
other from the Burrito Brothers days, and that
always makes things easier." And it's that, rather
than anything more illicit, that explains the
obvious serenity of the shoot that, Feinstein adds,
"probably took no more than 20 minutes". Had
hanging out with The Rolling Stones on and off for
the past three years changed Gram at all?
"Difficult to answer that one," Feinstein admits.
For the inner gatefold shot, Parsons and the
photographer headed out to the valley, possibly
Topanga Canyon, probably on a different day.
"Not particularly memorable," Feinstein admits.
"We just found a hay truck and I snapped away."
Little over six months after the album's release,
Parsons was dead, and the GP sleeve slowly
began its long waltz into rock history.

72 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 Making hay:
overs from
the GP photo
sessions at
the Chateau
Marmont hotel
and Topanga
Canyon, 1972.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 73

THE THEMES
STARS & CARS

One For
The Road
FROM SUBMERGED
CADILLACS TO MYSTERIOUS
BLACK MARIAHS - A LAP OF
HONOUR IN THE COMPANY
OF ROCK STARS AND THEIR
FOUR-WHEELED FRIENDS.
BY DARYL EASLEA

Abbey Road Into The Purple Valley

THE BEATLES RYCOODER
APPLE, 1969 REPRISE, 1972

Design Paul McCartney/The Beatles Design Ed Thrasher

Photograph lain MacMillan
The vehicles in the background of one of the
most famous albums sleeves of all time were
at the centre of the 'Paul Is Dead' conspiracy
theory. Namely, the VW Beetle with the
registration LMW 281F ('Linda McCartney
Widow' and Paul would have been 28 if he'd
'lived') and the Black Mariah van, which would
have been at the scene of his 'death' in 1966.
This endearing collection of dustbowl ballads
and calypsos established Cooder as a
reputable trader of American musical heritage.
The heavily treated Hollywood backdrop sleeve
recreates 1930s escapist American art,
with Cooder and partner in a car heading
into the stormy unknown. Fortunately there
is a happy ending with all smiles and a bright
blue sky on the reverse.

On The Beach
NEIL YOUNG
REPRISE, 1974

Design Gary Burden for R Twerk & Co

Photograph Bob Seidermann
The album that encapsulates the death of
the American Dream in song finds a Cadillac,
the ultimate symbol of the mobility and status
that US capitalism brings, head down in the
sand on Young's beachfront of broken dreams.
With Rick Griffin's typography - itself once
the expression of hopeful, hippy symbolism
- looking down, the sleeve reflects the
_v ____ . _; ; , desperation of the music within.

74 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 Peter Gabriel
PETER GABRIEL
CHARISMA, 1977

Design Hipgnosis
The sense of detachment that seeps through
every facet of Peter Gabriel's 1977 solo debut
is, at times, overwhelming. This is carried
through into Hipgnosis's sleeve, a million
miles removed from the ornate trifles that
forever adorned his previous group Genesis's
records. An eyes-shut-tight Gabriel looms
behind an anonymous metallic blue car's
rain-sodden windscreen.

Two Sides Of The Moon

KEITH MOON POLYDOR, 1975

Design Tom Wilkes Concept Keith Moon

Photograph Jim McCrary
Touching on surf-pop, reggae, ballads and
rock'n'roll, this was Moon's dubious jaunt
through a few old numbers with some heavy
friends. The cover was shot on a Universal
Studios lot in a 1920s Rolls-Royce rumoured
to be owned by the Shah of Persia, and
featured Moon's chauffeur and compadre
Dougal Butler. And - depending on which
side of the inner sleeve was visible through
the die-cut cover - Keith's face or his arse.
Sleepless Nights
GRAM PARSONS & THE FLYING
BURRITO BROTHERS
MM, 1976

Design Roland Young

Photograph Jim McCrary
Emmylou Harris curated this 1976 collection
of outtakes and loose ends from her former
duet partner Parsons. It is the sleeve that
delights. Taken by McCrary - the man who shot
Carole King on her windowsill for Tapestry - it
finds Parsons looking out, leaning against his
Cadillac at a nondescript junction. For once it
captures his darker depths rather than the
angelic shots to which we are accustomed.

ABBA
ABBA CBS, 1975

Design Sten-Ake Magnusson

Photograph Ola Lager
Having spent years on the Swedish scene,
Abba became worldwide stars after winning
the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974. The
cover of their second UK release, ABBA,
reflected their new-found status, drinking
champagne in the back of a limousine. At the
time, this cover was fairly ironic, as their star
had momentarily begun to slip and the cars
they travelled in briefly became more modest.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 75

 THE STORIES

THE LATE BARNEY BUBBLES FIRST FASHIONED FAR-OUT IMAGES FOR HAWKWIND, BUT STILL THRIVED
IN THE ERA OF PUNK. MARK PAYTRESS TELLS A TALE MARKED BY GREATNESS AND TRAGEDY.

first saw Hawkwind he said everything turned into flames," says

spirit. He came of age during the late '60s, and was seem Hawkwind's saxophonist Nik Turner. That was Bubbles' way: total
ingly one of the lucky ones, eking out a living by pursuing the vision, no half measures, a man whose passions ran high and whose
passions that enriched his private life. Obsessed by art and troubles, when they were awakened, ran deep.
BARNEYmusic,
BUBBLESBubblesHAD a comical
designed namemagazines
underground and a beautiful
and be
came Hawkwind's in-house visualiser, creating the look forever
associated with the band. By the end of the '70s, his mischievous style, 1942, Barney assumed his alter ego during 1967's Summer Of
which drew freely from high art and the suburban sitting room, had BORN
Love
COLIN
when FULCHER
he worked the
in Whitton,
psychedelicsouth-west
light shows.
London,
A trained
in
helped define the look of the British new wave. His logos graced the designer who'd cut his teeth working for the Conran Group, he
NME and labels such as Stiff and Radar. Records by Elvis Costello, Ian pilgrimaged to San Francisco before returning to London's hippy
Dury and The Damned danced in the racks thanks to his irreverent, central - Ladbroke Grove. Working from a shared office at 307
artful style. He designed books, and moved into video, shooting a re Portobello Road, he designed spreads for OZ and Friends magazines,
markable short for The Specials' Ghost Town that captured the urban and by 1971 had become an integral part of Hawkwind, the Grove's
night in all its blurry, isolated glory. And then, one day in November favourite 'people's band'.
"He came up with the ideas for the album

'Barney may have slept though covers," says Nik Turner. "The two-dimen
sional spaceship for In Search Of Space, the

I never saw him do so PHOTOGRAPHER BRIAN GRIFFIN

huge fold-out sleeve for Space Ritual. Robert
[Calvert, vocalist] usually came up with the
concepts, but Barney's graphics and imagery
198 3, he placed a bag over his head took it much further."
and suffocated himself. For their 1972 Space Ritual tour, Bubbles
"Barney was a perfectionist to had assumed the role of a psychedelicised
the point that he didn't actually Albert Speer, creating an onstage extrava
believe his artwork was any good,"
ganza utilising huge flags, customised
says Doug Smith, who managed equipment, strobe lights and symbols more
Hawkwind and worked closely often associated with the Romans or Nazi
with Bubbles throughout the '70s. Germany. "He was definitely inspired by the
"A genius, just mind-blowingly power of that imagery," adds Turner.
clever," adds photographer Brian While Bubbles' design work for Hawk
Griffin, a close friend who also wind is sometimes regarded as a prequel to
collaborated with Bubbles on his more widely seen work from the new
several projects. According to wave era, Rebecca and Mike regard it as inte
design duo Rebecca and Mike, on gral to his oeuvre. "Widi Hawkwind, he had
going researchers of Barney's life opportunity to realise what Wagner termed
and work, "He was someone who 'Gesamptkunstwerk', a total work of art,
would never compromise." The somediing that unites all forms: poetry, mu
complete artist. sic, painting, dance. That was what interested
"I dunno if he'd taken any
Barney, doing the whole lot, right down to
drugs or not, but when Barney the floor you stood on." »

76 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

2
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 CURTIS

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ttBarney was convinced that
all he was doing was ripping
everybody else o FORMER HAWKWIND MANAGER DOUG SMITH
» His immersion in his work, and the continued pursuit of inspira
tion through drugs, drink and taking off on lone hitchhiking
expeditions, meant that he often lived an anxious, knife-edge exist
ence. "He worked incredibly hard," says Griffin. "Barney may have
slept, though I never saw him do so."
Though art had given him a purpose, Bubbles habitually ignored
the business side of his endeavours. "You had to fight to get an invoice
out of him," recalls Doug Smith, "but when one finally did arrive it
was fabulous, beautifully handwritten. You'd say, 'Is that enough,
Barnev?' He didn't think he quite deserved it."
N 1976, DAVE Robinson and Jake Riviera set up Stiff Records,
one of the country's first independent labels, and a regular outlet for
Bubbles' work over die next few years. Drawing on the cleaner lines
of 20th-century art movements such as cubism, constructivism and
the Bauhaus, kitsch colours and Dada-inspired deliberate 'mistakes'
(the colour strip down the side of Costello's This Year's Model, for
example), Barney helped shape the look of the era.
Inevitably, perhaps, he struck up a friendship with fellow art school
renegade Ian Dury, who inspired one of his best-loved sleeves. "He
really loved Ian," says Brian Griffin. "So when Stiff wanted a sleeve
photo of Muffin The Mule, and we ran out of time, Barney did the
illustration himself. Pure genius."
Another favourite, according to Doug Smith, is the Jackson Pollock
pastiche for rockabilly combo Whirlwind's Blowin' Up A Storm 1 Oin LP
But Barney was unsettled by the era's penchant for the knowing hom
age. "He was convinced that all he was doing was ripping everybody
THE STORIES
else off," Smidi says. "I wish he was alive today,
because our culture thrives so much on that idea
that nobody thinks about it any more."
Insecure about his design work, Barney
made tentative moves into other fields. He shot
several pop videos and made a less celebrated
though illuminating move into recording with
the anonymous Imperial Pompadours. "He
wanted to make an album graphically," remembers Nik Turner, who
worked on Ersatz with Bubbles. "One side consisted of these im
promptu versions of garage rock covers, with the bass played with
drumsticks and suchlike. The other side was about die life of Hider
that also worked in Wagner, King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Eva Braun.
He also devised an elaborate stage show for it. The whole thing was
very militant, very anti-music-biz."
By 1982, when die album slipped quiedy into the racks, Barney was
struggling. The regular oudets for his work were drying up. He was
underpaid for the work he was still doing, and a love affair crumbled
around him. "I used to do diis magazine with him called Y," recalls
Brian Griffin. "And one day we had this argument about die rude words
in the text. It was the only argument we ever had. I went round to see
him and patch it up, and he'd lacerated his face witii a razorblade."
Nik Turner also witnessed a more desperate Barney around this
time. "I got a call from his girlfriend, who said, 'Come round and help
us. Barney's threatening everyone with a knife.' I did and he said,
'Look, I'll kill you too.' Then he threw the knife on the ground. He
was having a nervous breakdown. Soon afterwards, he committed
himself to a hospital."
But Barney never recovered. "He phoned me up on the morning
he committed suicide," Griffin remembers. "He said, 'Beej, I really
feel terrible.' I recall him being worried about his VAT. I said, 'Don't
worry, after I've finished shooting this Echo & The Bunnymen video
I'll come straight over.' I finished early, mid-afternoon, and I phoned
up. But it was too late. His sister came to the phone and said,
'Barney's killed himself.'"
MOJO Greatest Album Covers 79
 THE OUTTAKES K BORN TO RUN W^4
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN ¥ C/

^ cfc CI?

Cover Me
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♦- ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦+4»+»+

PHOTOGRAPHER ERIC MEOLA WANTED TO CAPTURE THE REAL BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR THE SLEEVE
OF BORN TO RUN. IT TURNED OUT THAT MEANT FUN, RELAXED AND ANGRY BRUCE. BY LOIS WILSON
«.»^+
«.4+*+»»++»+++»+t+++.t

Shortly after, the pair met again. "This time he

I «M m Eric Meola first met his
\ m M ■ musical hero, Bruce
^ IrI f "mr
I f S p^w-hen
r i n g s t e e nphotographer
, they were
M Bf both sheltering from a
.■l jWL storm: "I'd gone to Central
Park to see Bruce perform and it started to rain,
so I ran under the awning of the Plaza Hotel and
by coincidence there he was. I plucked up the
courage to ask him about some lyrics on his
second album and we chatted for a while. This
was summer 74."
was playing Red Bank, New Jersey. I turned up
two hours early, he came in for the soundcheck
and we talked. By then he'd realised I was a
photographer, and I started taking pictures of him
and Clarence demons, his saxophonist. It was
much more relaxed in those days. You could walk
in almost anywhere and just start taking shots."
A self-taught lensman, Eric had first worked on
his university newspaper, snapping the likes of
jazz pianist Dave Brubeck as he passed through
the Syracuse, New York campus. After an
18-month spell assisting

"Often they7 d break up laughing photographer Pete Turner, he

began working for Life, Esquire

at the sheer goofiness of the thing, and Time magazines. It was for
the latter that he took 1972's
Coca Kid, a thought-provoking
I just had to shoot quickly. ERIC MEOLA
social commentary that
juxtaposed the First and the
Third World and tugged at the
heart. And this ability to capture pure emotion
through a singular striking image made him the
lensman of choice for Bruce Springsteen's third
LR 1975's Born To Run - an album that would
catapult Springsteen into the US Top 5.

"I WANTED TO help establish who Bruce was,"

says Eric, describing the shoot. "In my mind, the
assignment was to visually communicate what
the music was about. I wanted to recreate the
energy Bruce and his band had on stage - at that
point in time he and Clarence were really playing
off each other visually. But I didn't want to use a
traditional live shot. Using black and white and
a white backdrop meant there were no visual
distractions. The eye went straight to Bruce, to
his movements and shape.
"I was aware that what was very easy to do
onstage could be a little awkward to enact in
a studio, though, and often they'd break up
laughing at the sheer goofiness of the thing. I just
had to shoot quickly so when it worked it worked.
The pictures cover lots of emotions: there's
laughter and anger, and lots of changes of
positions too."
It was the sleeve designer, John Berg, who
picked the final shot. "Bruce wanted to use a
picture of him on his own under a fire escape -
as John Berg put it, 'the serious artist look'. But
the genius of the cover is that it makes you think.
Because the cover folds around, you don't know
what Bruce is looking at, what he's smiling at and
who he's leaning on, so it's a real surprise to open
it up and see it is Clarence."

80 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 81
 ♦+♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦
♦.+♦
».»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
^ ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
♦. ♦♦
^»f"*

WHEN THEY RIPPED IT UP AND STARTED AGAIN WITH SHOCKING HEADLINES,

SUICIDE HOTSPOTS AND MONGOLIAN MILITIA WOMEN. BY PAT GILBERT

NEVER MIND
THE BOLLOCKS
HERE'S THE

VSTT-.

Never Mind The Bollocks The Clash Damned Damned Damned

SEX PISTOLS THE CLASH THE DAMNED
VIRGIN, 1977 CBS, 1977 STIFF 1977

Design Jamie Reid
A friend of Malcolm McLaren's from art school,
Jamie Reid devised the infamous 'blackmail'
lettering and Situationist-inspired graphics
that gave the Pistols' sleeves and posters
their provocative edge. The deliberately ugly
artwork for. ..Bollocks underlined punk's anti-
commercial posturing while turning the jumbled
newspaper fonts of the Sex Pistols logo into
the new wave's most potent trademark. An
earlier version, with the title "God Save Sex
Pistols", was designed in day-go yellow and
dark red but then scrapped.
What it sounds like Polished but apocalyptic
rock'n'roll that spews fuck-off attitude.
Design The Clash & Bernie Rhodes
The sleeve of Strummer & co's debut
mimicked the Ramones' first album -
band looking mean and moody against
brick wall - but added urban guerrilla chic,
with the group's logo in day-glo orange
against an army-green backing and an
image of the Notting Hill riots (on the flip).
The group photo was taken by American
photographer Kate Simon just after Mick
Jones had savagely cropped his tresses
for the Anarchy tour.
What it sounds like A revolution on the streets
of Britain, cheer-led by yobbish art students on
sulphate with a Who and Kinks fixation.
Photograph Peter Kodick Gravelle
Photographer Peter Kodick Gravelle, a Stiff
Records and punk scenester, had the idea
of letting The Damned loose with a bottle
of shaving foam for their first album shoot.
Abetted by Snatch frontwomen Judy Nylon
and Patti Palladin, the session resulted in an
appropriately anarchic and playful portrait,
lent a disturbing undertow by Dave Vanian's
appearance of having been garrotted and the
group's lack of direct eye contact. Early
pressings carried a deliberately 'erroneous' pic
of Eddie & The Hot Rods on the back sleeve.
What it sounds like Rabid, Stooges-style punk
gone gloriously awry and Hammer horror vocals.

^THIE -lEIEIJhXli <■>!■ i Nl= :>vmm.>

Road lb Ruin Fulham Fallout 999 The Feeding Of The 5000

RAMONES THE LURKERS 999 CRASS
SIRE, 1978 BEGGARS BANQUET, 1978 UNRED ARTISTS, 1978 CRASS,1978

Illustration John Holmstrom
Design Gus MacDonald
As the Ramones' records became ever more
bubblegum, it seemed only appropriate that the
sleeve of their fourth studio album rendered
them as colourful cartoon characters. The
illustrator was Punk fanzine co-founder and early
Ramones champion John Holmstrom, who'd
studied cartoon drawing at the School of Visual
Arts in New York. If you accept that where the
Brudders went, UK punks quickly followed, then
the animated sequences in the Pistols' The
Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle make perfect sense.
What it sounds like A cleaner, poppier version
of the group's earlier albums.
Painting Chuck Loyola
Formed in Ickenham, M ddlesex, The Lurkers
became the first group to release a record on
Beggars Banquet (August 1977's corking
Shadow 7in) - thanks tc the fact that they
rehearsed in the basement of the Fulham record
shop that started the label. Their debut album
was issued in a lavish gstefold, with the band
painted in oils against a moody mountainous
terrain, lending a distinctively pre-punk feel to the
package. The mysterious "Chuck Loyola" - from
a character in Joyce's Ul/sses - also painted the
cover of Dire Straits' eponymous debut LR
What it sounds like Pub rock mangled by
grubby, four-chord street urchins.
Design United Artists
As new wave talents went, 999's credentials
were pretty solid: Pablo Labritain (alias Paul
Buck) was Joe Strummer's old school pal and
drummed with the embryo Clash, while singer
Nick Cash was an alumni of Ian Duty's pub-funk
magi Kilburn &The High Roads. The front cover
of their major-label debut underscored their
premium new wave status, being a carefully
choreographed pop art celebration of peroxide
hair, jubilant day-glo punk-wear and "I'm hard,
me" expressions. A classic.
What it sounds like A power-pop act growing
up on a psychotic South Coast naval estate
writing angular punk jewels about 70s violence.
Design Gee Vaucher
Pioneering anarcho-punks Crass wanted to own
and control every aspect of their work, artwork
included. Gee, one of the Crass commune, was
co-opted to create their record sleeves - in the
case of their albums, poster-sized artworks that
folded around the vinyl. Gee's cover 'collages'
were, in fact, finely rendered gouache paintings,
which makes her assemblage of images (here
a levitating girl, a derelict terraced house, a
chicken, soldier, etc) even more extraordinary,
and fascinating to decode.
What it sounds like Nosebleed punk guitars,
shouty vocals, super-fast songs and a torrent of
political spiel.

82 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 Photograph Toshi
As the most louche, degenerate and death-
prone act in early '70s New York, arriving at
the perfect New York Dolls album sleeve
was always going to be a toughie. The initial
shoot, at Mercury's behest, took place
amid some tatty moose heads at an
antiques store on Third Avenue, but the
group weren't keen on the results and
demanded another session. Mercury
reluctantly gave them another $900, with
which guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, taking
advice from pals in the rag trade, recruited
Vogue photographer Toshi, who turned
up at the rendezvous outside Gem Spa
tobacconists in St Marks Place with his
makeup artist Dave O'Grady. They plastered
the band with lippy, eye-liner and blusher,
much to the discomfort of drummer and
ex-gang member Jerry Nolan, and then
plonked them on a sofa found in the street.
Apparently, the Lucky Strikes cigarette
packet (on the floor) is torn in a coded gay
manner - which you'd think was hardly
necessary given the Max Factor overload
and Sylvain's roller-skates. The sleeve was
banned in Spain.
What it sounds like Trashy, Stonesy punk,
with undercurrents of B-movie schlock and
general Lower East Side deviancy.
H(M»>M t HXHttlHXH HM>HHH»H*H»

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 83

 WWW- • J~-* JJMMIIWJIP!

A Different Kind Of Tension Germ Free Adolescents At The Chelsea Night Club
BUZZCOCKS X-RAY SPEX THE MEMBERS
UNRED ARTISTS, 1979 UNITED ARTISTS, 1979 VIRGIN, 1979

Design Malcolm Garrett
The Buzzers' modernist graphics and
logo were by Malcolm Garrett, who began
working with the group in 1977 during his
second year studying graphic design at
Manchester Poly. (He shared a room with
Peter Saville, soon to become synonymous
with Factory Records' minimalist sleeves.)
At least three different versions of this
sleeve exist as Garrett experimented with
the triangular shapes and coloured circles.
The spine carried the message "This is only
the third album", suggesting the group's
journey since their 1977 self-made Spiral
Scratch EP had been long and fretful.
What it sounds like The classic Buzzcocks
gone all choppy and existential.
Design Cooke Key. Photograph Trevor Key
Poly Styrene (alias Marion Elliott) had
released an obscure reggae-flavoured
single in 1976 (Silly Billy), so clearly had
pre-punk ambitions. But with teeth-braces
and anti-sex-symbol swagger, plus shit-hot
Pistols riffs and dirty sax, she quickly became
a new wave heroine. The shimmering, fragile
ballad that gave the LP its title inspired the
'test tube' sleeve artwork - somewhat
contrived, sure, but crucial to a dark pop
album with songs such as Genetic
Engineering, provocatively counted in
in German.
What it sounds like Effervescent pop
art punk, with croaky girlie vocals and evil
Hawkwind intent.
Design Malcolm Garrett
Following his work with the Buzzcocks,
Garrett's stylish, colourful graphics gained
a premium among art-conscious new wavers
seeking something beyond brick walls, police
cars and graffiti. These included Surrey
suburbanites The Members, who scored
a February 1979 hit with The Sound Of The
Suburbs before unleashing this much-
underrated album a few months later.
Garrett's jazzy, cocktail bar imagery was, of
course, an ironic comment on London clubs
where, as the title track sneers, half a lager
"costs 60p". A lot of money in them days.
What it sounds like Angry geezers from
Camberley making musically adept punk
music, with a dash of clumpy white reggae.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦»>»♦»»»»»♦»»♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦■«♦♦♦♦»»♦♦»♦»♦»»♦»»»»»»»»♦♦♦»♦»♦♦»♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

Patti Smith Horses

Horses
PATTI SMITH
ARISTA, 1975

Photograph Robert Mapplethorpe

One day in late August 1975, Patti Smith
slept through her alarm and didn't wake till
late afternoon. Not particularly noteworthy
perhaps, if it weren't for the fact that the
New York punk poetess was due to be
photographed that day for the cover of one
of the defining albums of its era. Patti finally
made it over to the apartment of art
collector Sam Wagstaff as the evening light
began to fade; seizing the moment, her
friend Robert Mapplethorpe hastily shot her
in grainy black and white against a bare
white wall. Smith had been wearing what
she called her "Baudelaire dress" - black
suit and white shirt - but Mapplethorpe
asked her to remove the jacket, which she
casually slung over her shoulder. The
simplicity, even artlessness, of the resulting
monochrome image was ultra-powerful:
a female icon whose unwillingness to
impress made her even more impressive.
What it sounds like Simple, elegant
garage rock with a clarity, forcefulness and
♦♦♦♦»»»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»«♦»>»»>»»»»»♦♦»♦<♦♦»♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦■>♦♦♦♦♦»»♦♦♦»♦<»>>»»<»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ Bohemian tilt that elevated it to high art.

84 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 That's Life The Crack
SHAM 69 POLYDOR, 1978 THE RUTS VIRGIN, 1979

Design Jimmy Pursey Painting John Howard

Sham's second LP was a concept album about
a teenager in a dead-end job - kind of like
Quadrophenia for boys who couldn't read or
write, but all the more glorious for that. The
sleeve, created by lead singer Pursey, was
late-period punk art, featuring a collage of
buzzwords cut out from newspapers ("gossip",
"rebel", "terror", "the pill", etc), transmitting
the message that life in the bus lane at the fag
end of punk was a tabloid nightmare.
What it sounds like Football hooligans playing
pub rock after a punch-up and 15 pints of lager.
Rattus Norvegicus
THE STRANGLERS UNITED ARTISTS, 1977
The sleeve of The Beatles' Sgt Pepper had
originally been conceived as the ultimate
gathering of the 20th century's great and good.
At The Ruts' punk shindig, The Damned, Jimmy
Pursey, John Peel (wielding a Mars bar?!), Pete
& Dud and Jimi Hendrix parted the night away
with the group at an opulent private members'
club. The mannered '30s painting style
suggested Edward Hopper; the originality of the
design underscored The Ruts' majesty.
What it sounds like The Clash infiltrated by
virtuoso musos playing snappy political punk.

Design Paul Henry

UA's art director Paul Henry originally planned
to use a pic of a brown rat (Rattus norvegicus)
on the cover of the Surrey punks' debut, but his
bosses wanted a group photo. The band were
heavily made up for a shoot at an antiques
shop in Blackheath and reassured that, should
they appear too foppish, the negatives would
be re-touched. When bassist JJ Burnel later
complained about the rouge on his cheeks
nothing was done. Naturally, he went ballistic.
The rat image eventually made the back cover.
What it sounds like A gang of lusty thugs
mashing up The Doors, Kinks and Faust.

20 Jazz Funk Greats

THROBBING GRISTLE industrial, 1979 JOY DIVISION FACTORY 1980

Design Throbbing Gristle Design Peter Saville

Throbbing Gristle pioneered industrial music and
revelled in taboo-breaking songs about fascism,
mutilation, anal sex and death. It was only
appropriate, then, that the artwork for their third
LP should be a perversely cheesy affairthat
recreated the kind of sun-kissed group photos
beloved of naff '70s budget compilations. Look
closely and you'll see that the pic relates to one
of the album tracks, Beachy Head, the top
suicide spot (note the abandoned Range Rover).
What it sounds like Stark electro-funk, dark
dance-pop, avant-garde noise experiments...
probably their most accessible moment.
Saville was to become Factory Records'
in-house art director, establishing a bent
for austere, enigmatic designs. Closer, Joy
Division's second and final studio album, was
released a few weeks after singer Ian Curtis
had taken his own life in May 1980, lending
an eerie resonance to Saville's already-
completed artwork, which depicts a statue of
the entombed body of Christ (in a cemetery in
Genoa). The image was framed in a typically
stark, classical off-white sleeve.
What it sounds like Bleak, stately cold funk -
a hypnotic funeral dirge on a winter's morning.

II I'll its BLACK FLAG

London Calling
THE CLASH CBS, 1979

Photograph Pennie Smith Design Ray Lowry

NME cartoonist Ray Lowry was invited along as
a "war artist" on The Clash's September '79
US tour. By then the group were road-testing
their soon-to-be-released 2-LP masterpiece,
which added soul, reggae, disco, ska and funk
to the punk rock swagger. Lowry had bought an
old copy of Elvis's first album during the tour,
which he kept at the foot of his bed; when
asked to create the artwork for the album in
San Francisco, he pastiched Presley's LP using
the now legendary Pennie Smith shot of Paul
Simonon smashing his bass in New York.
What it sounds like Thick, soulful grooves
celebrating the best of US black music - with
a Ladbroke Grove rude boy twist.
Playing With A Different Sex
AU PAIRS HUMAN, 1981
Design Martin/Rocking Russian
Scratchy post-punk feminists the Au Pairs had
an eye for striking sleeves with a sharp political
bent. Their first and best-known album carried
a colour photo of militia women from Inner
Mongolia carrying out weapons training while
dressed in traditional garb. The shot was taken
in 1979 by Eve Arnold, the legendary Magnum
photographer famous for her intimate black-and-
white portraits of Marilyn Monroe in the '50s.
What it sounds like Tight, angular white funk,
with scrubbing punk guitars.
My war
BLACK FLAG SST, 1984
Design Raymond Pettibon
Raymond Pettibon originally played bass in
elder brother Greg Ginn's band Panic, later to
rename themselves Black Flag. Pettibon (who
changed his surname to avoid being referred to
as "Ray Ginn" - as in Ronald Reagan) crafted
many of the band's bold, cartoonist! sleeves,
most with a political cant. My War, with its
boxing-glove-puppet caricature of Reagan
holding a knife, is among his most striking.
What it sounds like Raw, full-tilt US hardcore
punk and three tracks of slow, grinding metal.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 85

THE STORIES
JAMIE REID
»■»■»♦»■»♦»»»»»■»♦■»»▶»•»■»■§■»»♦»»»»■»»»■»•»»»»»»♦» K»->i-»-»-r»-w»»»»-»'»>»»»»»n-»-»>»>
A RADICAL ART STUDENT ]LN THE '60S, IT WOULD
BE ALMOST 10 YEARS UNTIL JAMIE REID
CHANNELLED HIS ENERGY AND IDEAS INTO
SUBVERSIVE ARTWORK FOR THE SEX PISTOLS.
IT WAS WORTH THE WMT, SAYS PAT GILBERT.
T WAS PERFECT timing," explains Jamie Reid, the man who
outraged the nation in 1977 by sticking a safety pin through Her
Majesty's lip. "That first generation of kids was coming out of
school, particulai'ly working-class kids, who'd been given loads of
promises but had nothing to do. We did our own artwork, produced
our own music — the whole thing was inspirational."
In the 30 years since punk exploded, Jamie Reid's reputation as a
titan of graphic design has continued to grow As the brains behind the
Sex Pistols' recoi'd sleeves and posters, most famously the Never Mind
The Bo/locks cover, he took the group's subversive zeal and DIY spirit
and used it to create a whole new strand of art.
Reid's visual tics — 'ransom note' lettering, subversive collages, felt-
tip writing, torn edges, and Situationist-style slogans - quickly came
to dominate punk graphics. Just as anyone playing three chords could
form their own punk group, thanks to Reid, anyone with some
scissors and glue could now design their own record covers.
It was all about that xdo-it-yourselt
fuck all that fucking corporate
glam-rock'shit *—■.
Born in 1947, Jamie MacGregor Reid's radical bent emerged
in 1968, while studying at Croydon Art School. Inspired by that
year's student uprisings in Paris, he and friend Malcolm McLaren
organised a sit-in at die school's South Norwood campus, issu
ing the board of governors with a list of impossible; demands.
Because of the protest, he lost his place at St Martins the follow
ing year, and saw out the '60s, he claims, "playing semi-pro
football". But politics was never far away. In 1970 he co-founded
the Suburban Press, a radical community news-sheet, for which
he designed bumper stickers bearing legends such as "This store
welcomes shoplifters" and "Save petrol - burn cars".
By the time Malcolm McLaren got in touch again, in March
1976, Jamie was living in Lewis in die Outer Hebrides widi a girlfriend.
McLaren wanted him to return to London to create the visuals for an
anarchic young group he was managing: the Sex Pistols. Reid jumped
at the chance to apply his agit-prop ideas to a rock band. Heavily influ
enced by the Situationist movement in '60s Europe, he began
experimenting with provocative images, such as die 'ransom note'
lettering that formed the gj-oup's logo and die tattered Union Flag held
86 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
Ise
together with safety pins, used on the sleeve of Anarchy In The UK.
Famously, his original sleeve design for the God Save The Queen
single, released in 1977 at die height of the Jubilee celebrations, was a
defaced image of the Queen, a safety pin piercing her bottom lip.
It was rejected as too offensive by Virgin, as was another version that
had swastikas in Lizzy's eyes. All of which led to the eventual sleeve: the
Queen with her mouth and eyes 'ripped away' to reveal the song title
and band name in that ransom-note style. "It was all about that 'do-it-
yourself, fuck all diat fucking corporate glam-rock' shit that was going
on," rants Jamie. "The real ideas come from the streets."
Reid's input into punk didn't stop with his bold designs. Steve
'Roadent' Connolly, a roadie for The Clash and Pistols, recalls that
"everything we learned about the Situationists came from getting
pissed in the pub with Jamie Reid". It was, apparendy, Jamie's wish
that die Pistols should, with Situationist impishness, top the charts
and then vanish forever. He also mooted the tactic of not turning up
for gigs to create confusion and chaos.
in 1978, Reid came into his own,
A F T E Rdesigning
T H E Pthe
I S TO L S fpop
twisted e l l art
a pim
art
agery for The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle
film, including the fabulous "Rotten burg
ers", the Sid Vicious doll and the now
legendary "Fuck Forever" poster.
The art world was, it seems, reassuringly
quick to recognise the power and original
ity of Reid's work. Even before the Pistols
had taken off, the London art dealer Robert
Fraser was sneakily peeling Jamie's posters
off the walls of Soho's back streets. Fraser
introduced the artist to the Victoria &
Albert Museum (who in 1981 acquired a
collection of his work) and also paid £ 1,000
for a collection of his Pistols artwork before
punk's corpse had even grown cold.
Today, Reid - a Druid, like his father - is still involved at the junc
tion where art, political protest and spiritual enlightenment meet.
Never one to dwell on the past, he was reportedly amused when
Babyshambles tided their summer 2005 single Fuck Forever, but was
less impressed with Primal Scream's distortion of his "Never trust
a hippie" quip to "Kill all hippies". "Hippie... has moved on," he
explains. "That's just sadly nostalgic."
 Revolting in style:
various Sex Pistols
posters and sleeve
designs by Jamie
Reid (opposite page).

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 87

THE OUTTAKES THIS YEAR'S MODEL
ELVIS COSTELLO
i u m u m u f
$ cfc d> d?

ELVIS COSTELLO THOUGHT HE WASN'T LOOKING MOODY

♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦
ENOUGH FOR THE COVER OF HIS SECOND ALBUM.
BUT THEN HE FOUND PHOTOGRAPHER CHRIS GABRIN'S

♦♦
♦♦
COPY OF HOTEL CALIFORNIA... BY PAT GILBERT
♦
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♦♦♦
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♦♦♦
♦♦♦ ^♦
^_ ♦
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♦♦♦^♦
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♦♦♦
♦♦♦
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♦♦♦■♦
♦ ♦■♦
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♦♦♦
♦♦
Little
♦
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♦♦♦■♦
♦ •' ■♦

rnggers
r|FM HE FIRST TIME Chris Gabrin
Amet Elvis Costello, in summer
j 1976, the singer was introduced
j | as "Declan" and hardly looked
j ! the raw material of rock'n'roll
-Jjm. greatness. "My studio was in
Camden atthetime," explains Gabrin. "It was
in a very industrial area, and wasn't easy to
find. Elvis had been caught in a thunderstorm,
and came into the studio looking completely
bedraggled, guitar case slung over his shoulder.
I stuck him against a white backdrop and took
some shots. They came out looking really good.
[Manager] Jake Riveria loved them."
Born in Leicester, Gabrin spent several years
of his childhood in Argentina, before ending
up as an art-school student in Bournemouth.
He arrived in London in the early 70s, when
hippydom was at its height, gravitating towards
the then tatty but inspiringly bohemian Notting
Hill. Through a band called Help Yourself, who
shared his flat, he met Dave Robinson, a young
music enthusiast with

"I set Elvis up as a mirror image of ambitions to run his own label.
While Chris stage-managed
bands at the Roundhouse to

myself, the photographer. CHRIS GABRIN

finance his studio in St Pancras
Way, Robinson and friend Jake
Riviera laid the foundations
for pioneering indie label Stiff Records, signing
mates Nick Lowe and Ian Dury.
In 1976, Gabrin suddenly found himself as
first-choice lensman for London's most exciting
new record label. Heavily influenced by the high-
contrast black-and-white photography of what
he calls the "Holy Trinity" (David Bailey, David
Hamilton and Irving Penn) as well as Bill Brandt
and Don McCullin, he began shooting Stiff's
record sleeves and posters, quickly branching out
to work with other punk and pub rock artists. After
missing out on shooting Costello's first album
cover (he was managing Mick Green's re-formed
Pirates atthetime), in early 1978 he received a
call from Jake Riviera outlining the brief for Elvis's
second long-player, This Year's Model.

"THE IDEA WAS that the person buying the

record was 'this year's model', and Elvis was
taking a photo of them," he explains. "I set him
up as a mirror image of myself-the same type
of Hasselblad and tripod. I started being much
more flamboyant than I'd normally be, and he'd
copy my movements. He was really becoming
a photographer."
Adding to the creative vibe that day was the
soundtrack to the session - The Eagles' Hotel
California album. "Elvis picked it out of my
collection," laughs Gabrin, who moved into video-
making in the '80s, making promos for The
Stranglers, Madness, Culture Club and Heaven
17. "I said to him, 'I didn't think The Eagles were
yourthing.' He said, 'No, I bloody hate them, but
I want to look in a really bad mood.'"

88 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

M903 8

Say cheesy:
kitsch floral
furnishings
and an Eagles
soundtrack
create the
right mood
during
sessions for
the front and
back covers
of This Vear's
Model.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 89

THE STORIES

"That's Me In
The Cornet"
PLIED WITH DRINK, SET ON FIRE, DUNKED IN A SWIMMING POOL... MARTIN ASTON RECOUNTS AMAZING
TALES FROM 13 FORMER ALBUM COVER MODELS - AND THEN TRIES TO TRACK DOWN THREE MORE.

♦
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»♦♦
♦♦

Sally Grossman in... /STEREO

Bringing It All
Back Home
Bob Dylan
BOB DYLAN
(1965)

"I USED TO tease Bob about that cover

because people just referred to me in
relation to the photo," laughs Sally Bringing It All BackHome
Grossman, the cover's model. "And for a
while I thought, Will this be the only thing
in my life that happens? It doesn't disturb
me any more, but it was so overwhelming
atthetime."
The photo was taken by Daniel Kramer
(who also shot the cover for Dylan's
Highway 61 Revisited) at the home of Sally
and her late husband Albert, Dylan's
manager. CBS had requested a female on
the cover, and Dylan, a houseguest that
week, asked Sally. "I was handy, I guess,"
she says. "The chaise we were sitting on
was a present from Mary Travers [of
winsome folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary], and

the array of things around us was just stuff ♦»«t»I»♦♦■▶♦♦♦♦♦♦♦«♦♦♦♦♦«♦♦

Bob assembled, things he iiked, including
our Persian cat. We just sat there for hours
while the photographer snapped. Bob
was pretty easy-going - he was into the
symbolism of all those gathered objects."
The sleeve even carried a whiff of
controversy: "I remember being in London,
standing in a crowd, and overhearing a
conversation where someone was saying it
.> was Bob Dylan in drag in the photo! I think
Sally-"I didn't officially work but I was
we both had sharp angles to our faces. But
"I overheard that rumour went everywhere."
After severing ties with Dylan, Albert
always there" - and she was able to pick
up the reins when Albert died in 1976.
"I thought I should continue what he'd
someone say Grossman added The Band, Janis Joplin
and Todd Rundgren to his roster, but
started. We've been lucky - we've had the
best of clients," among them R.E.M., Cher
it was Bob gradually shifted from management to
the record label and studio he started in
1970, a few miles outside Woodstock,
and Metallica. The label closed in 1984,
but five years later Sally opened The
Bearsville Theater. "I believe in music,"
Dylan in drag New York, both of which bore the name
Bearsville. Everywhere Albert went, so did
she explains, "and that's why I'm still

*♦*♦ >♦♦♦»♦«»«♦«.♦» in the photo!" (,♦ M »«♦♦♦♦»♦.♦» ♦.»♦»+♦» H working with it."

90 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

>))MM)»MM>> l»MI»tmt >MMttttHH»«ttm»H^Mtt»mHW»H
♦♦♦♦■♦
»♦
- ♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»»>.^4».
Mareora Goshen in...
Blind Faith bund faith (1969)

IS THERE A more famously controversial album stepped on, wearing her school uniform and carrying
cover in rock folklore? In 1969, this stunningly direct, her books. She was just gorgeous. I gave her my card
emotionally piercing image caused uproar with and begged her to call. She did, and I arranged a
enthusiasts and detractors alike. Imagine the furore presentation with her parents at their house in
today surrounding a portrayal of the naked torso of Mayfair. Her dad was a friend of Allen Ginsberg's, and
a pre-pubescentgirl holding a phallic object. they understood completely. But the girl was 13, and
The enigma of American photographer Bob too past the point of innocence. But her sister, who
Seidemann's photograph was deepened by the fact was 11, was going, 'Mummy, mummy, I'll do it!' She
that for years the girl's identity remained unknown. was the picture of innocence." With a shiny phallus in
Rumours circulated that it was Blind Faith drummer her hand? "Yeah, we weren't that thick not to realise
Ginger Baker's daughter or niece, on account of the that. It was definitely a potent image. It was made to
model's ginger hair. Completely untrue. grab the viewer by the psyche."
"I promised never to reveal the girl's name at the Seidemann called the picture Blind Faith,
time because it wasn't important who she was," says and Clapton named his band after it. Their record
Seidemann, from his San Francisco home. "But her company, Atlantic, were less enamoured. "They
name was Mareora Goshen, and she was distantly saw Blind Faith as the new Beatles, so expectations
related to both English and German royalty." were high, but when I presented the sleeve the Kari-Ann Muller in...
Seidemann had moved to San Francisco to be at atmosphere changed very quickly," Seidemann
the heart of the hippy movement, only to be deeply
disillusioned by the Vietnam War. In 1968, he flew to
London and crashed on the floor of his pal Eric
chuckles. "But Eric said, 'No cover, no record.' An
alternative cover was made after the first pressing of
750,000 for America. Record companies are dumb
Roxy Music
ROXY MUSIC
Clapton. A year later, the guitarist asked him to create beasts. But the band was killed by hype anyway." (1972)
a cover for an album by the as-yet-unnamed band When Seidemann first revealed the girl's identity
he'd just formed with Traffic singer Steve Winwood. in a magazine article in 1992, a British journalist "BRYAN FERRY SAW me doing a fashion show and
With what Seidemann conceived as "an artistic, subsequently contacted him to say that he'd tracked decided he wanted to use me," recalls Kari-Ann
political revolutionary act", he settled on a symbol for the girl down. "Twenty-four hours later, the phone Muller, whose '50s glamour-puss visage was the
the achievement of human creativity - a futuristic rang and it was her older sister, saying 'Mareora is pink'n'blue icing on the cake of Roxy Music's richly
model aeroplane. "It was the ♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦■♦ »♦
- «♦♦>«♦«»♦»♦♦♦ with me now, come speak to
her.' The next day, my wife
textured debut album. The model knew both Anthony
dawn of the space age," Price, Roxy's designer, and Karl Stoecker, who took
Seidemann recalls. The
carrier of this potent symbol
would be a young girl on the
"I said,'We and I drove up to Big Sur,
where she was visiting her
sister. I didn't recognise her!
the photograph, "so I said I'd do it because I thought
it would be fun - and for a meagre £20, as Roxy were
unknown at the time. It's ironic that it would be voted
cusp of womanhood.
"me model plane was
need a virgin', "We went down to a
platform overlooking the
the best record cover of the decade."
Kari-Ann and Anthony Price collaborated on the
made by an Irish jeweller at
the Royal College of Art; the and we had ocean and talked to each
other about how it had
image: "He did the hair and dress and left the rest to
me," she says. "I just got out there and did what I felt.
girl was another story. "I said
to Eric, 'We need a virgin', to admit we affected us. It was almost
25 years to the month that
How would I describe it? It's very glamorous, very sexy,
very... ice-creamy in
and we had to admit, we
didn't exactly know any. One
day, I was on the Tube when
knew none." we'd met. She lives in England
but still doesn't talk about it;
she's shy and would rather
a way. The colours
remind me of a
marshmallow, like
the doors opened and this girl be left alone." something delicious.
Fleshy, in a word."
Someone to be eaten?
"No!" she cries.
"I felt like I could eat
somebody up myself.
I felt strong enough
to take anyone on."
Sadly, the
assignment didn't have
the desired impact on
her career. Kari-Ann
landed bit parts in
the Joan Collins
trashflick The Bitch
♦■»
+♦ ♦-♦
» ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦■»■
and George
Lazenby's only
James Bond film,
"It's a very
On Her Majesty's
Secret Service, and
in 1974, after the
glamorous,
birth of her second
child, embarked
photo. Very
on "a gypsy life in
the country". On sexy, very... »
moving back to
London, keen to
act again, she
ice-creamy.
joined The Black
Theatre of Brixton,
where she met Chris Jagger (brother of Mick), now
her second husband. She had two more boys and
forged a new life as a kindergarten teacher and yoga
instructor. She joined the Deja Vu model agency "for
the glamorous over-40s, but unfortunately it didn't
catch on".
Despite feeling short-changed, Kari-Ann
admits the memory makes her smile. "It was
great watching Roxy Music being turned from
boys-next-door into superstars," she says. "And
the picture always seems to be flashing up on TV
for some reason."

♦
♦
»♦♦
♦♦
>♦♦
♦♦♦■»■»+» + «»+++4»»«M«4»« »♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦*M + »»»-»+++>++»»++*+++****'*- H~*M-M ▶♦
♦♦
+
•

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 91

THE STORIES

,♦»»,,,»«»♦♦»♦++4444+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++4 ♦♦♦»♦»»♦»♦♦♦♦»»♦♦♦ +++++++++++++

Amanda Lear in...

For Your
Pleasure
ROXY MUSIC (1973)

WAS HE OR wasn't she? In April Ashley's

Odyssey, the autobiography of the first
British transsexual to go public, Ashley
wrote about a certain "Peki d'Oslo,
otherwise Alain Tapp, later Amanda Lear".
In one of Lear's own trash-disco classics,
Fabulous Lover, Love Me, she purrs, "The
surgeon made me so well that you could
not tell that I was not somebody else",
while Roxy Music's PR, the late Simon
Puxley, agrees it was common knowledge
that she was once a he.
Not that Lear has ever confirmed it. She
claims she was told by her mentor, artist
Salvador Dali, to pretend she was once
a man. "It was a phoney publicity stunt in
order to sell records," she claimed. "No
one wanted a boring girl like any other. But
it was the time of The Rocky Horror Show,
and I was around, looking glamorous, and
people always dream, don't they? The lady
is a girl, and that's it."
Bom to an English-French father and
Asian-Russian mother, Lear was fashion
modelling for Ossie Clark when Bryan Ferry
caught a show. "Bryan and [Roxy designer]
Anthony Price thought I'd be the right girl
with the right attitude, because the girl
had to be way before her time. 1973 was
too early for the black-leather dominatrix
look, but I was right, probably because
I was very tall. They wanted a girl who
looked like a Hitchcock movie, a little bit
dangerous but arrogant at the same time.
I had to be able to carry off that ridiculous
shiny-dress look."
Lear had never heard of Roxy Music,
"but Bryan was very charming. He took me
out and offered me the job. but he never
mentioned the black panther." The shoot,
in an empty south London street, "was a my singing career, paid for my singing and farmhouse in the south of France: "I have Events took a tragic turn in 2000 when
bit frightening. They overdid the Valium for dancing lessons and my first demo. Elton a dog and two cats and olive trees. To you it a fire killed Malagnac and burned down
the animal, though, and it couldn't get up, John, Freddie Me-cury, they all said, 'You might look boring, but to me it is wonderful. their farmhouse. Lear has kept working;
poor thing. It was lying flat on its stomach. must sing.'" And so a camp Euro-disco It is a normal life. I cook for my husband. her 13th album, With Love, was released
When it came to it, they had to paint the queen was born. I go every day to the in France last year,
eyes open on the sleeve. I was looking Through the 1980s and '90s, Lear market. This is ++++++++++++4++++++4 +++++++++. and she was the
fierce though." reinvented hersel "as a TV celebrity on happiness. And voice of eccentric
The result impressed one David Bowie. various chat and panel shows in Italy and
"He fell in love with the girl on the sleeve. I France, while landingthe occasional TV/"They wanted
the rest-false
eyelashes and
fashion designer
Edna Mode in the
think he was a little disappointed when we
met because I looked nothing like that, but a girl who
film role and stoking her popularity on the
gay club circuit, a I the while living with her
makeup and going
on TV - is not.
Italian and French
versions of the film
he lived with me for a year. He originated husband Alain-Philippe Malagnac in a

♦ »M ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ * <*++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++,++++++++++.++++++++++.+++.+++++
looked likeIt is work." The Incredibles.

a Hitchcock ♦^♦^"♦^++++++++++++++++
♦♦♦+'♦♦
♦
;: ♦♦
+" ♦
♦" ♦H

Eveline Seelig and Constanze Lantermann in.

Country Life roxy music W4

"HA HA!" IS Eveline Seelig's first response
when reminded of the gleaming, risque
photo gracing Roxy Music's fourth album,
featuring herself (on the left) and her
lifelong friend Constanze Lantermann.
Their faces are bewitching, but one's eyes
can't help looking down, as both models
are in their bra and knickers.
"That picture was so accidental," says
Seelig. "We were on holiday at my parents'
house in Portugal, where a friend ran a bar
and disco, and we'd taken him some Roxy
Music albums to play. He saw them and
said, 'He's here -you must meet him,' and
introduced us to Bryan Ferry. He liked our
shoulders and our German outlook."
Lantermann picks up the story: 'And so
movie.'" end there. After
the record was
released, the story
♦+♦. ♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»«
ran that both heads had been superim
♦* . >■♦ r
»■♦M ♦ Cc
. rri'
moving back to
Cologne, getting
married and taking
her MA in art history, a subject she now
posed on the bodies and the heads were teaches at a polytechnic. Married with two
it was proposed, just for fun, to do this actually Ferry and Roxy saxophonist Andy daughters and living in Kassel, Lantermann
photo session. We didn't think it would is a psychotherapist. So how would she
Mackay in wigs.
actually be used. It was meant to be an "I have very special memories of that analyse the sleeve now? "Oh, I'd have to
ironic version of the magazine Country Life, record," says Lantermann. "Some songs, think about it. Impulsive behaviour,
with two ladies being surprised in a delicate such as The Thrill Of It All, were worked out perhaps, or lubestimmt, the lust principle."
situation. We didn't talk much about it; we on the piano at my parents' house, while Lantermann's daughters now know it's
just had to look weird and surprised." we also did the German translation for their mum on the sleeve, but what about
American record Bittersweet."
Seelig's pupils? "I've shown them a couple
retailers were equally After art school, of little films I did for a children's
surprised, claimirg it Seelig lived in programme and the album covers I've
could be interpreted London, working designed, but not Country Life. I'm not
that Seelig was in a graphic studio ashamed, but it's a private thing. But some
masturbating, so the (where she of my colleagues know, and it's funny,
album was released designed album because they're all very straight. If any
in the US in a green covers, including students did find out, it wouldn't cause
wrap. And the Can's compilation anything spectacular. They look at me
controversy didn't Cannibalism) before like I could be their mother!"

92 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 ++++++++++++++ ++4++4++4+++++++++++44+++++++++44+++++++++++++++++++

1+++++++++.
Danny Rodgers and Ronnie Rondell in.
Wish You Were Here PINK FLOYD "The wind
THE COVER TO Pink Royd's Wish You and living in Las Vegas. His CV is Matrix Reloaded for
that day my face and burn
Were Here was presented in a black shrink
wrapper, decorated with a Wish You Were
impressive: six years as Eric Estrada's
double throughout C.H.LPS., and stunts in
his son, a stunt co
ordinator himself. would whip my moustache,
so I'd have to lose
Here logo sticker. But behind the wrap lay
the album's true identity: a photograph of
two suited men shaking hands, one of
everything from The Waltons and Starsky &
Hutch to Titanic. "I'm golfing more these
days," he says now. "I'll do fight stunts
"Rememberthe big
freeway sequence?
I ended up taking my
the fire into the pose and be
put out. Once we
started the fire,
whom was on fire (or being 'burnt'
in a deal - geddit?). Every inch
when the odd film
comes up, but I
car on to the central
divider at 55mph my face." it took 20 minutes
and three
a Hipgnosis creation, the artwork can't be hitting and tore out the attempts to get
was inspired by the record's the ground any front end, then fell it right."
spiritual ghost, Pink Royd's former more. You just back on to the street. In the meantime, Rodgers remembers it well too. "The fire
frontman Syd Barrett. don't bounce cars were ramped and cannons rolled. And would be wrapping around Ronnie, but he
Suitably, rumours about back the same after lunch we did it again!" wouldn't let go my hand and put out the
the shoot were rife: that way any more." With over 40 years' experience in TV fire. He just hung right in there. I wasn't in
two days prior, scouting for Rodgers' and films, Rondell also worked as a stunt any danger. It was easy money for me."
venues, the car being driven sentiments are organiser and stuntman himself forthe Rondell clearly knew his limits, and
by Hipgnosis's Aubrey shared by Ronnie likes of Aaron Spelling (Charlie's Angels, has avoided serious injury. "But through
Powell caught fire (true), Rondell, the Hart To Hart, Dynasty) and Universal wear and tear I've had my hips replaced,
and that the model not on model set on Pictures (he was in almost all of Arnold a shoulder rebuilt and a spinal fusion. I
fire in the photo later died fire that day on the lot Schwarzenegger's movies)."For Wish You maintain my body like an old car-
in a fire (false). of Warner Brothers' Were Here there was no fire gel, so I had a something goes wrong, you fix it." These
Former Stunts Unlimited Hollywood studio. Now protective suit built under my clothes, and days, he relaxes by piloting his 26ft boat
staffer Danny Rodgers, now 70, he officially retired I wore a wig to protect my hair. We put on on the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri,
63, remains alive and in 2002 -though he rubber cement and lit it up. We had some where he lives. No boat rolls have been
kicking, though semi-retired did take a job on The wind that day that would whip the fire into undertaken as yet.

ttm wtm w ♦ *'

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 93
THE STORIES

commercial work and corporate

Peter Rowen in...
BOy and War U2 (i98o,1983)
Soy and War model Peter Rowen is the
younger brother of Derek Rowen (aka
Guggi), vocalist with avant-garde rockers
The Virgin Prunes, who as lads were
members of the Lypton Village gang in
Dublin, alongside the future U2.
Peter, now 32, thought little of being on
two world-famous album sleeves. "I had
already been on the cover for U2's Boy/Girl
and Stories For Boys singles," he explains.
"I was five when I did Soy and eight when
I did War, and it didn't make any difference
to my life, except it was a day off school."
He left school at 15 - "more like kicked
out". And after being seen by a Swedish
director in U2's Two Hearts Beat As One
video, he hired an agent and appeared in
a couple of commercials (one for Fanta),
had a few lines as the skateboarder in The
Commitments and as "a 16-year-old with
a big attitude problem" in The Snapper. Yet
skateboarding was his great love - "It's a
sport you can do by yourself" - and Rowen
landed sponsorship and several trophies
before giving up competitions to run Pete's
Skate Shop in Duolin.
Wanting out from behind the counter,
he took work as a n assistant photographer,
and has run his own freelance photography
business since 1996. "I generally do
photography. Ultimately, I'd like to do
portraiture, and maybe move to London."
Regarding his own boyhood portraits,
Rowen has had one memorable incident at
a black-tie event in Dublin. "I was shooting
this guy, who was looking at my Hasselblad
camera, and we started chatting. It turned
out to be Ian Findlay, who shot the cover
for War\ He turned his back on photogra
phy soon after that and is nowajudge."
Rowen has undertaken the occasional
music-related shoot, including U2 onstage
atSlane Castle for The Irish Times. "It was
such a big gig that they wouldn't have
known it was me. I don't have anything
to do with them; I bump into Bono here
and there, and we swap small talk, but
I wouldn't hang out with them. They're
a little bit too cool for me."

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Sean Bolton in...

Come On Pilgrim PIXIES (1987)

THE FINAL STAGE of Simon
Larbalestier's MA in photography at
London's Royal College of Art was an
exhibition in the summer of 1987.
Through a classmate, he was introduced
to Sean Bolton, who posed for a series
of staged, almost three-dimensional
images that revealed a totally shaved
head and, in contrast, an inordinately
hirsute back. "I was experimenting with
the themes of alienation and a sense of
loss," Larbalestier says now of the hair, the
pose and the fish nailed to a post. "The
image was evoked from reading Gustave
Flaubert's The Temptation Of St Anthony."
Egyptian A A A A JAAlAAAi InmAl
Christian saint T T T T ▼▼▼▼▼
was aiming for "decay and texture". No
wonder 4AD art director Vaughan Oliver
was smitten.
Having heard the Pixies' first demos,
Oliver had seen the print at Larbalestier's
show and suggested it to the band's
Charles Francis for the cover of the band's
debut. "Charles had said, 'I like nudes.
I like figurative work. I like darkness," and
then we drifted from ideas behind the
music to films we both liked, such as David
Lynch's, which I could hear in the music
anyway," says Oliver. "I could see Simon's
image of Sean would work on every level."
Bolton is currently a primary school
A A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A.
maths teacher in
▼▼▼ TTT TTttt~tt~ t t V

east London. "He

T II

Anthony is tempted
by many characters
and objects to
"It was about got in contact with
me a year ago,"
says Larbalestier.
stray from his
belief that isolation the themes "He asked me for
Vaughan Oliver's
is the truest form
of worship. of alienation email, because he
wanted to get some
Photographically
though, Larbalestier and a sense copies of Come On
Pilgrim for his son."
««»♦»♦♦♦n»♦»»■> of loss."
94 MOJO Greatest Album Covers HM.+ hM*-+* ■»»♦»«»♦■»■»»♦♦»«»<■»
 MttlMIMtttmtMMMIMIM tMltHHWMtMIIIW

Richard Davalos in...

Strangeways, Here We Come THE SMITHS asm)

"I'M IN AS much of a dilemma as to why meant to feature a still of Harvey Keitel minor fare in the likes of Kelly's Heroes
Morrissey chose me for the cover as you from Martin Scorsese's directorial debut, and TV series such as Hawaii Five-O,
are, but I was terribly flattered," says Who's That Knocking At My Door?, but Perry Mason and Murder She Wrote. He
Richard Davalos. Yet the fact that he was Keitel declined, so Davalos was a second says he typically played "heavy psychotics,
the co-star in Elia Kazan's 1955 film East choice. Yet his image makes sense in like 'good guy goes bananas'." Now 71,
Of Eden, playing the screen brother of context. In the original, uncropped photo, his last role was in the 1998 rom-com
James Dean, an acknowledged object of Dean sits below a standing Davalos, Between The Sheets.
Morrissey's affection, explains much. Yet whose downward glance appears to Yet Davalos isn't downbeat about his
why did the singer choose such a pale, encapsulate envy and longing - both low profile. "I've done films, TV, plays,
unfocused image? "It was taken by a staples of Morrissey's emotional makeup. directed and taught acting. But I never
fan on location," Davalos is also had the insatiable drive that it takes to though, after one of his Los Angeles shows.
Davalos remembers. a figure shrouded persevere. But I had other things that were "He didn't know me and I didn't know him,
"The picture was in secrecy, as more important, like my family and getting so we were just terribly polite to each other.
Jimmy, me and a girl,
but Morrissey cut the
"It was James his subsequent
career fell well
my head together, which is probably why
I've managed to survive as long as I have.
But I gave him a ring, because I was so
flattered that he had put me on the cover,
others out. I sent
him some other Dean, me and short of Hollywood
expectations.
That drive can be all-consuming. We all
know guys who glide through life, and
and he wanted to meet me."
He found Morrissey's show "fascinating.
photos that I thought
were funnier, like me
with a pompadour
a girl, but Mor Besides a major
part in 1967's
Cool Hand Luke
then, faced with the reality of who they are,
can't handle it. It happened to my part in
East Of Eden and in real life too."
I'd only ever seen The Doors once before,
who were great, but I don't really identify
with that sort of music; it's a bit frenetic for
hairdo, but he didn't
use them. Strange rissey cut the and a lead role in
the 1961 TV
Davalos's picture also features on the
US editions of The Smiths Best... Volume
my tastes." Had he ever played

others out." Strangeways... then? "I shouldn't admit it,

cover, wasn't it?" series The 1 and 2, taken from stills of East Of Eden, but no, not completely. I'll get into trouble
The cover of Americans, it's though Morrissey wasn't involved in either for saying that. But I have great admiration
Strangeways... was mainly been choice. Davalos did once meet the singer for what he does and has achieved."

MITHS
i, HERE WE COME

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 95

 DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS
STAX50
THE STYLE COUNCIL

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THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTH

THE BEAUTIFUL SOU III

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 THE STORIES

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ * ♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦>«»»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦■»■♦»»»»♦»»♦♦♦
»*>>♦♦»»»»*»»
♦

Casey Niccoli in...

Nothing's Shocking
JANE'S ADDICTION mm
IN 1988, ROCK music hadn't quite lost its ability to
shock. Los Angeles rock band Jane's Addiction blazed
a trail for alternative music and ideas throughout the
decade. The idea of creating a sculpture of life-sized
nude Siamese twins for Nothing's Shocking came from
the group's flamboyant frontman, Perry Farrell, who
was determined to create a provocative cover.
"The idea was very visually arresting," recalls Warner
Brothers art director Kim Biggs. The singer's then
girlfriend-cum-muse, Casey Niccoli, was the natural
candidate to model the figure. Farrell's original plan to
sculpt Niccoli out of clear glass and somehow light the
figures from within was scrapped when all involved
pointed out the near impossibility of the task. Instead,
he resorted to plaster. The figures were then doused in
gasoline and set on fire. It worked, but nine national
record chains in America refused to stock the album.
That's also Casey Niccoli, in miniature model form,
alongside Farrell and another female friend on the cover
of the band's 1990 album Ritual De Lo Habitual.
Niccoli was Farrell's
sometime
collaborator too,
directing the videos
for the songs Stop
and Been Caught
Stealing (the last of
which won an MTV
award) and the
surrealist film The
Gift, which spliced
documentary
fll&VERUiMfXi
footage of Jane's
Addiction onstage
with fictional
footage, including Farrell's orig Spencer Elden in... Nevermind NIRVANA (i99i)
a scene where
Niccoli is dying of
a heroin overdose
inal plan was WHEN SPENCER ELDEN first made his name on an
album cover, an interview was hard to procure, for he
with the baby," Renata recalled. "We dunked him in
the water three times and Kirk got the shot after
By the time the
film was released
to sculpt his was four months old at the time. But 14 years on, he
has since appeared on another album cover- 2003's
taking only 12 pictures." The hook, line and dollar bill
- also Cobain's idea - were superimposed later.
the couple had
separated. Niccoli girlfriend The Dragon Experience by Skinny Puppy singer cEvin
Key, whose girlfriend was Spencer's babysitter.
Rick Elden later admitted that they'd considered
Nirvana as just another rock band until driving down
fell apart, spending
time in jail, and
despite three years
out of glass. The Nevermind cover image was Kurt Cobain's
original concept. "One day, Dave Grohl and I were
sitting around watching a documentary on babies
Sunset Boulevard four months later and seeing
Spencer's picture on a huge billboard. Their son
now has a framed platinum disc of Nevermind in
in a rehabilitation ♦ <t**44****♦ ♦ »♦ «»fe|#»*♦ ♦ ♦ %» +*<* being born underwater," said Cobain. 'And I thought, his bedroom - to impress the girls, he says, and to
facility, later Let's put that on the album cover." silence those who don't believe it's him. He also
returned to heroin. Unsurprisingly, their record label, Geffen, didn't go enjoys walking up to people wearing a T-shirt of the
And she never received any money for her contribution for such a candid image, and everyone agreed to film cover and saying, "Hey, that's me on your stomach!"
to Jane's Addiction. "Where I'm coming from, it kind of a baby swimming underwater. When a library image While Spencer says he's not a big Nirvana fan (he's
sucks," she said. "I put one hundred per cent of myself proved too expensive, the band hired underwater more of a White Stripes man), "most bands around
into some man who fucked me. Here this guy is who's photography specialist Kirk
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++4. today can't even get near to
floating on clouds and I can barely pay my phone bill." Weddle, whose friends Renata what they did on that album,
In 2003, Jane's Addiction reunited. "Fora longtime and Rick Elden allowed their
I was OK, but then the band came back," she lamented
"Now it's in my face all the time." In the meantime,
baby son to be photographed
for $150 in their local open-air
Kirk wanted and I'll always be happy to
be a part of it". He even
recreated the image for the
though, Niccoli has moved on, living in the gentler rural
environs of Bakersfield, California with two young
children and promoting her Lonely Girl brand of
pool in Pasadena, California.
"We were both in the water to put a baby album's 10th birthday, albeit
with swimming trunks on.

custom-made jewellery.
being born
underwater
on the cover.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 97

THE STORIES

+++++4++++++++++++++++++++++ -*++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++4+++++++++++++++++++++++++++4

What's My Name? <ft Mil

STARS WHOSE TRUE IDENTITY
REMAINS A MYSTERY

Leisure You've Come A Long Way, Baby Riot City Blues

BLUR (1991) FATBOYSUM (199S) PRIMAL SCREAM (2006)

When Blur considered the all-important identity for Well versed in rock folklore, Primal Scream frontman
In a series of Virginia Slim cigarette poster ads used
their 1991 debut album Leisure, the term Britpop Bobby Gillespie knows his photography too. William
in the US from 1968 to 1986, a procession of stylish
hadn't been invented. Nevertheless, they agreed on Eggleston, the father of colour photography,
women joyously lit up alongside the slogan, "You've
an image drawn from the heart of booming postwar specialised in candid, simple depictions of the
come a long way, baby!" Fast-forward a decade and
Britain. The point, though, was to distance Blur from Deep South - that's his famous 'red ceiling' (titled
the phrase became the title of Fatboy Slim's second
such 'shoegazing' peers as Ride and Chapterhouse. Greenwood, Mississippi) photo adorning Big Star's
album. However, rather than use a similarly
Rob O'Connor of design agency Stylorouge delved into Radio City, while another appears on the cover of
'inspirational' glamorous lady to adorn his new cover
the archives of Hulton Library (now subsumed within Alex Chilton's Like Flies On Sherbert.
Fatboy, aka Norman Cook, chose to illustrate it with
the giant Getty Images): "Hulton had a huge repository Gillespie chose Eggleston's Troubled Water for
the now famous hefty T-shirted lad (complete with fag
of kitsch images specialising in advertising, which Primal Scream's 1994 album Give Out But Don't Give
in hand), having seen the image in a newspaper.
tends to go out of date very quickly, so even pictures Up, while for last year's Rtot City Blues it's the classic,
Hunting down the photo, Skint Records' design
fives years old can look really funny." untitled shot of a young lad brazenly carrying a snake
agency of choice, Red Design, found out that a French
The Leisure image had been shot as 'Bathing Cap twice his size around his skinny neck.
agency owned the rights to the picture, which came
Fashion' and published under the headline "Glamour Bom in Memphis, Eggleston has a reputation as
from a set of photos called Fete Du Gross - literally
In The Swim" in the June 12,1954 issue of Picture a softly spoken hellraiser with a taste for bourbon
'Festival Of The Fat' - taken in 1973 or 1974 in one
Post magazine by Charles Hewitt. The bathing caps and guns. If only 'Snake Boy' was as easy to find.
of America's Southern states, but most likely Texas.
were part of the Viking range, designed by Kleinert and The photo was taken in Los Alamos, New Mexico
"Skint have tried for eight years to track down the fat
manufactured by ET Skinner, which started life as a between 1966 and 1974, and with Eggleston refusing
kid to no avail," reports Red Design's Ed Templeton.
toy company but ended up making swimwear and to talk about individual photographs, the mystery is
"The agency they bought the photo from doesn't have
scuba gear. The company and Charles Hewitt are now preserved. "A picture is what it is," he said in 2004.
any more information either."
long gone, with nobody able to verity the identity of the "It wouldn't make any sense to explain them. Kind of
But not knowing the horizontally challenged one's
swimsuit model. "I can't remember if the title Leisure diminishes them. People always want to know when
name hasn't prevented his further use: Fatboy Slim's
or the picture came first," says O'Connor, "but we 2006 greatest hits album not only featured him, something was taken, where it was taken and, God
showed them images from the lost golden age of knows, why it was taken. I mean, they're right there,
now replete with angelic wings, but even named the whatever they are."
something or other and Blur jumped on it." collection Why Try Harder after his T-shirt's slogan.

++++++++++44++++++++++++4 +++++ ++4++4+++++++++++++++++++4 ++++++4 +++4+++++++++++++++++44+++++i

Chris McLure in...

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not ARCTIC MONKEYS eooet

MUCH LIKE ITS musical spirit and album
title, the Arctic Monkeys' debut had the
simplest, starkest cover: a face, staring
straight out, smoking a cigarette,
confrontational and defiant.
"Following on from their first single, we
were trying to reproduce that brutal realism
of their lyrics," explains Scott Jones, one of
three designers heading UK design agency
Juno. "They sing about the stuff they're
seeing everyday, and our job was to put
that across visually. We wanted to illustrate
each tune in the booklet as if they were
all singles, and part of that was featuring
the same guy in five of the photos, just as
a job, which suited the brief's 'everyday' Understandably, McLure only has
angle. The first session in Liverpool didn't "vague memories" of the shoot. "It was a
work; McLure's head shots - inspired by good laugh, though we got carried away,"
photobooth image ry-weren't right. he says now. "I can remember being sick
"Chris pretending to be drunk looked too over my feet, and having a glass of water,
staged," says Jones, "so the following week and saying, Sorry 'bout that. It all ended up
we gave him £70 and told him to go out for OK. I wouldn't be on any fucking cover. It's
a drink. Which he did with four mates. an amazing piece of work."
"Five hours later he turns up, completely McLure has also worked as the band's
battered. We set up the shot, but every guitar tech and merchandise seller, and
little thing was taki ng five minutes. like his Arctic Monkeys mates, has since
Suddenly he says, 'I don't feel well', and been recognised in public. "Every day
ended up vomiting over the side. Someone someone mentions it, which isn't a hassle,
tried to clear it up, just unexpected.
then Chris stood up +++++++++++++4++++++++++++++4i Big groups can
follow you around.

"I remember
the album tells a story from different and slipped on the
viewpoints. The guy comes home from wet floor- his back It's stopped being The Daily Sport offered three grand to take
work, drinks with his mates... We bandied was covered ingod- about just a band; a picture with two girls. No way. It makes

being sick on
about a few ideas and nothing quite fitted, knows-what! But we it's become this a mockery of it."
but right at the same time we all thought sat him down, he really big thing." McLure is busy enough anyway; he's
had a cigarette and He reckons he'd

my feet and
about putting Chris on the cover." currently studying sociology and cultural
Chris McLure was a friend of the band we just kept going. do more modelling studies at Manchester Metropolitan
who'd played football with them since they It's definitely an "but it just depends University and says he fancies his
were 16 and had no experience of such

H m t t u > o t > n t > m i m > i i i i t

iconic cover."
saying,
■*** 'Sorry
'bout that.'
"
what was offered. chances at chartered accountancy.

98 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 ♦
»♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦
+♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦♦♦
♦
»♦
»♦♦
♦♦■+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++*++++++**

Felice Lazae in...

Sam's Town the kilers !200e, +++++++++4.

IN THE KILLERS' barely disguised attempt - not one that looks like a model but with look." But he Corbijn hired Flowers'
to swap their English pop roots for a more
American chest-beating stadium identity,
a different kind of beauty. I also suggested
making use of the word 'Miss', but rather
wasn't imagining
her for the album a stuffed grandfather over
myface.andlsaid
I didn't want to be
model of a
who better to take the cover photo for their than Miss America, it could refer to hit- cover. His original
second album, Sam's Town, than Dutch and-miss, or missing someone." inspiration, the headless
Rather than hiring anonymous models, bizarrely, was woman. A month
photographer-turned-filmmaker Anton
Corbijn, who shot those iconic images of
U2 for The Joshua Tree?
Corbijn suggested using people connected
to the record. At Vegas's Studio At The
Nevada's state
animal, the bighorn sheep from later, I was asked
how I'd feel being
"The band's main idea was something
relating to gypsy chic/travelling circus, and
Palms, where The Killers were recording,
production assistant Felice Lazae received
sheep,and he
hired a stuffed a museum. on the cover. It's
all been pretty
the setting was to be in or around Las a phone call the night before the shoot model from a surreal, but I like
"out of the blue, museum. Under +44+4++ 4++++ + 4++t + . ♦ » « + + ++ +++ the image a lot.
Vegas," Corbijn recalls.
"Part of that idea was saying they needed soaring desert Though I look very
to have a kind of a model", she says. temperatures, Corbijn shot separate tough; I have a softer look in real life."
grouping round of "We'd hung out and photos of the animal, the band and Felice Was she comfortable impersonating
several figures, become friends, at a deserted mobile home: "But, for fun, a beauty queen? "It was explained to me
includingtheband.as but I was still pretty I took a shot of the animal and the girl that it's supposed to show what real beauty
if around a campfire surprised. I'd not done together. When I saw the contact sheets, looks like in America. I'm half Puerto Rican,
but without the any modelling." this was the image that stuck out for me, half African-American, so I'm not your
campfire. We "Felice reminded and the band eventually agreed it was the typical blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl."
decimated the amount me of the Richard perfect choice for this record." It has inspired Felice to assemble a
of people that were Avedon series of Felice was stunned. "After the shoot, portfolio, but she's adamant she won't
originally thought of photographs of the I heard the pictures of me might not get change careers: "I write R&B music and
and I suggested using American West," says used at all. Anton had taken a picture of I want to stay involved in all aspects, like
a girl, a beauty queen Corbijn. "I love her a painting of [Killers frontman] Brandon production, engineering and songwriting."

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MOJO Greatest Album Covers 99

 ♦ ♦♦♦»♦.♦»♦♦♦ +++++++++++++4++++++++4++++++++++++++++++++++++.
++++4++4++4+++++++++++++4++++++

_ ■■■■ « m
FROM ROUGH 'N' READY SKA TO DIGITAL DANCEHALL, IAN HARRISON IS YOUR
GUIDE THROUGH A WORLD OF GUNS, GANJA AND OVERSIZED GORILLAS.
♦ ♦ +++4 + a + t+++ + +++ + ++++++-++++++++++++++++++4 +++4+-+ + + + + + +~++ 44++++++4++4+++4++++++.*+++++++*+++++++++

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The Wailing Wallers Come Rock With Me Tighten Up

THEWAILERS
STUDIO ONE, 1965
Design Uncredited
Imitating a photo of US soul act The
Impressions, here Bob Mariey, Bunny Livingston
and Peter Tosh look smart and eager to please
in their dinner suits, unaware of the massive
shifts in reggae that were just around the corner.
Fourteen years later, when the UK ska revival hit,
this image of Tosh would be the inspiration for
Walt Jabsco, the 2-Tone man designed by Jerry
Dammers of The Specials.
What it sounds like Three rudeboys play
raucous r'n'b-influenced ska. Includes a cover
of What's New Pussycat.
In Jamaica
VARIOUS
TREASURE ISLE, 1969
Design Uncredited
Many LPs from the ska era featured tourist
board-esque maps of the island, and here's
a prime example. The proud message is clear-
this is the music of Jamaica, even if the sudden
exclamation of "ROCK STEADY SOUL" suggests
it hasn't got an immutable name yet- and to
the UKonlooker at least, the map's directions
to Spanish Town, Montego Bay and Ocho Rios
are mysterious and full of promise.
What it sounds like Rocksteady goodies
from Alton Ellis, Tommy McCook, The Paragons
and more.
(six volumes in all)
VARIOUS
TROJAN, EARLY'70S
Design Uncredited
Not far off the contemporaneous 'smiling
dollybird' Top Of The Pops albums of chart
cover versions, the undeniably eye-catching,
British-issued Tighten Up albums and their
sister releases were cheap and cheerful
compilations aimed at the young reggae fan.
Their pictures of alluring models posing with
a snake, covered in sweets or even playing
golf were never going to win prizes for subtlety,
but this was party music, after all.
What it sounds like Invariably top pop-reggae
tunes, though later Tighten Ups do sound a
bit smooth.

The Good, The Bad
&TheUpsetters
THE UPSETTERS
TROJAN, 1970
Photograph Dezo Hoffman
As demonstrated by excitable numbers such as
Django Shoots First and Death Rides A Horse,
reggae went through a serious Spaghetti
Western obsession in the late '60s. This LP,
recorded by The Upsetters when they were in
the UK promoting their hit The Return Of Django,
comes as near as any to visualising this
fascination. Rumour has it that cowboy flicks
were unofficially banned in Jamaica after
patrons kept shooting at cinema screens.
What it sounds like Hyper-rhythmic cheesy
organ instrumentals.
The Harder They Come
VARIOUS
ISLAND. 1972
Design CCS Advertising
The sleeve is, in miniature, the Perry Henzell
movie this record soundtracks. Within, you
see the striving poor ycuth sing his heart out,
only to be robbed of his dream of success by
unscrupulous businessmen. His plan-b dealing
career gone wrong, he turns to being a gunman
and dies as Public Ene"ny Number One. It's
a curious mixture of cri minal spree and cartoon
thrills - no wonder it worked equally well as a
movie poster.
What it sounds like A top-drawer selection of
then-old and new songs; as for aspiring Robin
Hood figures, Desmond Dekker's 007 (Shanty
Town) seems to say it all.
Burnin'
THEWAILERS
ISLAND, 1973
Design Visualeyes
Catch A Fire, designed to look like a Zippo lighter,
is the Mariey LP sleeve people remember. But
it was on Burnin' that his tough, revolutionary
stance came through most effectively, with
band portraits taken by Esther Anderson literally
burned on to a wooden packing crate expressive
of the explosive, righteously indignant nature of
what was within. The image on the back cover of
Mariey puffing on a Camberwell carrot-sized joint
was another indicator of their outlaw stance.
What it sounds like The tough, uncompromis
ing sound of the founding Waiters line-up of
Mariey, Tosh and Livingston.
Rastafari
RAS MICHAEL & THE SONS OF NEGUS
VULCAN. 1975
Design Neville Garrick
No reggae art inventory would be complete
without the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie,
revered by Rastafarians as the living God
incarnate. This photograph of him as a child in
the Rasta colours of red, gold and green is a
striking variation on Selassie-as-worldy-ruler
that evokes Christ's biblical teaching on children
and the kingdom of heaven. Selassie also spoke
of his own childhood, noting, "Our Lord the
Creator made us like everyone else."
What it sounds like Nyabinghi godfather Ras
Michael plays funky Rasta songs of praise; his
most admired album.

100 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 Design Tony Wright
A mighty King Kong-alike stalks the land,
one hand shaking a tree it's just torn out
of the ground, the other holding a gigantic
spliffthat, if we're talking scale, must be
about 30ft long. A sticker commands:
"DUB IT UP - BLACKER THAN DREAD".
Welcome to the biblical-elemental
prophecy-overkill of The Upsetters'
Super Ape. Lee 'Scratch' Perry, the febrile,
multi-dimensional brain behind the album,
never even met artist/designer Tony Wright,
but via coded messages to Island's London
offices he made clear what he wanted.
Scratch would have copies of Wright's
original painted on the walls of his studio-
laboratory, The Black Ark, which he
burned down in 1983 because (he
insists) someone stole his favourite
rubber ball off the mixing desk. In 1978
Lloyd Robinson would reprise the cover
concept to less spectacular effect for
The Return Of The Super Ape.
What it sounds like Fertile, super-heavy
dubs, with Scratch at the top of his game;
t++++++++++++4 old rhythms are made anew.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 101

 King Tubbys Meets Best Dressed Chicken In Tbwn
Rockers Uptown PETER TOSH DRALIMANTADO
AUGUSTUS PABLO CBS,1976 GREENSLEEVES, 1978

CLOCKTOWER. 1976
Design Glen Osboume
Pictured in the Waterhouse studio of dub
master King Tubby, the late Horace Swaby
takes it easy with an expression not unlike that
of Rastafarian deity Emperor Haile Selassie,
who peeps over his shoulder in poster form.
The image reflects the fact that dub's home
is in the studio and the Rasta belief that
spirituality is a 24-7 thing. An alternate sleeve
features an illustration of Pablo playing his
melodica leaning against a fruit stall.
What it sounds like Wailing melodica floats
atop deep roots as millennia pass in minutes
-a landmark!
Photograph Lee Jaffe
Not quite hidden, the formidable former
Waiter sits in a field full of ganja plants, puffing
meditatively on his pipe and displaying, with icy
cool, reggae's anti-establishment demand to
free the herb. It showed how smoking loads of
weed was, by Rasta standards, a political act
- see also U-Roy's Dread In A Babylon, where
the eminent MC is almost obscured by the
giant clouds of ganja smoke from his chalice.
What it sounds like Urgent calls to end
oppression mixed with communiques from
the roots.
Design DK James
The good doctor's shoes are falling off his feet,
he's got no shirt and the flies on his shorts are
busted so badly his red drawers are on show.
A comically down-at-heel image to be sure,
but in keeping with the title's sideways
identification of him as the best-informed
man on the street (it was originally lifted from
a radio advert for chicken). A subtle balance
of absurdity, hard living and humour.
What it sounds like A sharp-tongued
comedian's dada-esque responses to the
vicissitudes of life, over raw sounds.

+4+4++++++++++++++++++++++++++4+

Screaming Target
BIG YOUTH
TROJAN, 1973

Design Dirk Brown

His dreads are short and the hat wouldn't
be out of place on a disc from a decade
earlier; the artist whose civilian name is
Manley Augustus Buchanan clasps his
hands as if in reflection. But the literal
target behind him and hand-drawn typeface
give the game away. The impact of this
album was immense, making Big Youth
one of reggae's most influential deejays.
The title, says reggae thinker Chris Lane,
comes from the ultra-violent 1972 Oliver
Reed movie Sitting Target, which had been
retitled in Jamaica for extra shock value.
And taking its cue from The Harder They
Come, Screaming Target's cover resembles
a poster for an imaginary movie of the
mind where the artiste is some kind of

£A£ YflliTH
superhero. The name would later be
appropriated by deejay and punk's roots
enabler Don Letts when he left Mick Jones's
Big Audio Dynamite.
What it sounds like Spry, conversational
free-associating over familiar rhythms.
Revolutionary stuff, for the time.
+++4+++++4+44+++++4+44+++++4++4++44444++++++++++4++4++++++4

102 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

UB40 UNEMPLOYMENT B E N E F I T AT T E N D A N C E C A R D
Ni Number "J COOOT Nt^

U I M P O RTA N T N O T I C E A B O U T C L A I M I N G B E N E F I T
You should makfi your claiirts for unemployment benefit at the
Benufit Office each woe*" on tin? dayo unci a! Hie timer, shown

If you Fail to claim in any weak on the day specified you risfc losing
benefit and you could be disquafcfied for at! the days between your
last claim and the day you next claim.
If you do misa claiming benefit on the day specified go to the
Benefit Office on the «rry noxl day you can (but not on
Saturday or Sunday). Oo no! wait until Hie specified da/ to the follow

-opiy *

b firal day of uiwniii

Surname initials NI Number chkd by b ttala

1 ! 1 1 Revolutionaries Sounds Vol 2 TheGreensleeves

THE REVOLUTIONARIES generic 12in bag
BALUSTIC, 1979 GREENSLEEVES, EARLY '80S
B C L AIt I M
there
F OisR outstanding
O U T S T Abenefit
NDING in respect
B E N E FofI Tdays for which you have already claimed,
payment will he made si to your home address on return of this card with part 3 completed.
' IIK-: a Inst dey en which you claimed benefit at five Benefit OfJjtir«*Uhe date Design Ras Daniel Heattman Design Tony McDermott
o>
on which you storied work (or claimed another benefit) complete the decla There was no shortage of militancy in reggae in Known as 'The Carnival of Reggae History', this
the 70s and early '80s, but few album covers standard sleeve that contained 12in releases
"I HAVE READ AND UNDERSTAND die leaflet "Resportsibil
were as pure and simple in their insurrectionary from the Ealing-based Greensleeves label
I CLAIM BENEFIT for the following dates intent as this. Bigging up Che Guevara - the traces the development of the music in cartoon
died-young poster boy for fighting the colonialist form. Beginning with rural Mento musicians
AND DECLARE that on those days I was unemployed and didljio work: I
suitable work but was unable to get any. the circumstances of\iy dopendarit^wjjat'as last stated," oppressor - showed how reggae's own and on to ska and rocksteady, it makes explicit
(II there was a change cross out this last item). preoccupation with righting injustices extended the UK connection with a skinhead, some
to liberation struggles around the world. And police constables and two punky-looking dudes
ST DAY FOR WHICH YD J WISH TO CLAIM 9EMEF1 giving him a badge of the Well Charge label on (Joe Strummer and John Lydon?) standing by
DO NOT SIGN UNTIL TH
his beret made him an honorary Jamaican. the Westway to keep the home end up.
What it sounds like Crack session men play What it sounds like Early '80s? That would
steely, dubbed-out instrumental. be pre-digital dancehall, guv.
Signing Off
UB40 GRADUATE, 1980

Design The DHSS

Even though Margaret Thatcher had been
Prime Ministerfor less than a year, in 1980 it
was still an act of considerable subversion to
call your band after the claim form for the dole.
Birmingham eight-piece UB40 went one
further and used it as the artwork for their
debut album. A grim British reality, and a dry
sense of humour that distinguished the sleeve
from its Jamaican antecedents, was the result.
What it sounds like Impressive, political and
tough British reggae, quite unlike the band
they later became.

Police In Helicopter Stalag 17<18 And 19

JOHN HOLT GREENSLEEVES. 1983 VARIOUS TECHNIQUES, 1985

Design Uncredited Design Wilfred Limonious

Isn't John Holt meant to be one of the
maestros of lovers rock? Yet here he is as
an outlaw pursued by the law. (What's in the
bag? Money? Weed?) Succeeding simply on
the level of being literal, this upgrading of the
perennial 'police on my back' theme also
anticipated the more hip hop-influenced CD
design that, arguably, has caused the reggae
sleeve to lose something of its individuality.
What it sounds like Convincing roots set
where the former Paragon meditates on having
the police on his back, girls in bikinis and
(inevitably) romance.
Is this what Sizzla, Capleton and the severe
new Rasta contingent objected to? Here we
see law and order breaking down as prison
officers, inmates and even some rats start
up a peculiar jailhouse rock situation. It's just
one example of the mighty work of Wilfred
Limonious, a made man of the felt-tip pen
whose drawings have graced albums by the
likes of King Jammy, Half Pint and more.
What it sounds like It's all rather similar.
This is because all 10 artists are using the
same Stalag 17 rhythm created by producer
Winston Riley.

Scientist Encounters Pac-Man

SCIENTIST
GREENSLEEVES, 1982

Design Tony McDermott
This is just one example of the singular
aesthetic of illustrator McDermott, whose
covers portray such musical heavyweights
as Mad Professor, Prince Jammy or Scientist
in the boxing ring, vanquishing vampires or
battling video-game characters such as Space
Invaders or Pac-Man. The technique's not the
most polished, but only a dunderhead would
deny the impact and humour. A necessary
contrast to the previous years' preoccupation
with dreadlocks and sufferation.
What it sounds like Febrile, echo-drenched
and hard dubs that sound simultaneously
close-up and 100 miles away. Now, exhale.
Termination Dub (19734979)
GLEN BROWN AND KING TUBBY
BLOOD AND FIRE, 1996
Design Matthew Rudd at Intro, London
With the arrival of labels like Blood And Fire
and Pressure Sounds, the ante for reggae-
reissuing was upped across the board. This was
particularly true for sleeve design. Here, Intro
approximate the finesse and rawness of the
music within using a wooden frame, wire, tape,
string and contemporary photographs, evoking
rediscovery, detective work and thrilling mystery.
What it sounds like Kicking roots rhythms
given the 10 million megaton dub treatment.
Black Woman And Child
SIZZLA GREENSLEEVES, 1997
Design Uncredited
Featuring the two subjects of the title -
suggestive of the Madonna and child - within
the shape of Africa, this album was a landmark
of conscious dancehall, where strict Rasta
orthodoxy replaced the sex, drugs and violence
that had become prevalent in reggae. The
silhouettes of African animals suggested
yet more yearning for a return to Eden.
What it sounds like An updated take on
the roots sounds of the 1970s. Pity about
Sizla's alleged homophobia, mind.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 103

THE OUTTAKES L KAYA ^^*4
BOB MARLEY TfJ

5 cb cfc cD cD

w. iunls DURING HER

FIRST VISIT TO
JAMAICA, KATE
SIMON TOOK A
FEW PHOTOS OF
BOB MARLEY TWO
YEARS LATER,
THEY TURNED UP
ON THE COVER OF
HIS KAYA ALBUM.
BY LOIS WILSON
♦++*♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦+♦+♦+<+
.+++++* ♦♦>+++♦♦>♦♦♦♦+++++■♦♦+♦♦♦♦

1976, she spied Bob Mariey watching her.

and clad only in a bathing suit
when she captured Mariey for the
front cover of Kaya. Catching her to her surprise, a portrait from that impromptu
breath after coming second in a
K AT E S I M O- N breaststroke
WA S sswimming
o p p i n g race
wet
with Island Records owner Chris Blackwell in
Kingston, Jamaica's Sheraton Hotel pool in
Snatching up her Nikon, she started snapping
away at him from the poolside. Two years later,
session ended up on the front of the Wailers'
1978 album sleeve. It quickly became one of the
visually defining shots not only of Mariey but of
the entire reggae genre.
"Chris had sent me over

"Bob has such presence in the to Jamaica," she explains.

"I was there to take extensive
photos for use on Bunny

photos. He made my job easy. Waiter's Blackheart Man

album cover. I was working for

He never took a bad photo. KATE SIMON

Sounds and NMEat the time,
and I lived for music," she
enthuses. "I wastakingtime
out by the pool, enjoying my first time in Jamaica.
It was a very productive time for reggae, but also
for me. While there I took pictures of everyone
imaginable, from KingTubby, Gregory Isaacs and
Augustus Pablo to Peter Tosh, Inner Circle, The
Mighty Diamonds and Cornell Campbell. You met
everyone by hanging out at Channel One and
Randy's Records."
Kate had first met Bob Mariey, though, at his
legendary London Lyceum shows in 1975: "It was
at the aftershow party through my friend Anna
Capaldi, the wife of Jim Capaldi from Traffic.
What struck me was just how relaxed he was;
so peaceful and thoughtful. I started taking
photos of him. He was so handsome; he made
the perfect photographer's subject."

BOB AND KATE quickly struck up a friendship

that would result in Kate documenting his
European Exodus tour. She also captured his
political coup of bringing together Jamaican
adversaries Michael Manley and Edward Seaga.
But it's the Kaya shots that made a lasting
impression: "I took three rolls of film that day in
Jamaica by the pool. Out of all the shots, Neville
Garrick, Bob's sleeve designer, picked the only
photo of Mariey really smiling for Kaya. It's down
to him that the picture was used. I didn't initially
recognise it as sleeve material. It's a warm photo,
but the others from that session show another
side of Bob. He has such presence in them. He
made my job easy. He never took a bad photo;
there was no one as good as Bob for placing in
front of the camera."

104 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

The many
moods of
Mariey: Kate
Simon's pool-
side shots of
Robert Nesta,
Sheraton Hotel,
Kingston,
Jamaica, 1976.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 105

 THE THEMES
Electric Ladyland
FKXVOOKX THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE
TRACK, 1967

Design David King

Photograph David Montgomery
This was the guitar god's sole US
Number 1 album, yet it didn't get there
because of its high-nipple-count cover.
The now-familiar headshot of Jimi was
used in America, but a delay in shipping
meant the UK label had to improvise
with this picture, which Hendrix vetoed
for all subsequent reissues.

Baring EVER SINCE ROCK BEGAN,

ITS PRACTITIONERS HAVE BEEN
PLYING THEIR WARES WITH A
PROCESSION OF LOVELIES -AND
UGLIES - IN VARIOUS STATES
OF UNDRESS. BYANDYFYFE

Original Soundtrack:
Woodstock 2
VARIOUS ARTISTS ATLANTIC, 1971

Design Uncredited
Three days of peace, music and, apparently,
naked kiddies. A similar sleeve today for the
Glastonbury movie soundtrack would have
Michael Eavis clapped in irons and his farm
house stoned by vigilantes. Though no one
can remember for sure (if you can remember
you weren't there, right?), the children on
the sleeve are thought to be Woodstock
documentary director Michael Wadleigh's kids.

Unfinished Music No 1:
Two Virgins
JOHN LENNON & YOKO ONO APPLE. 1968

Photograph John Len ion and Yoko Ono

Photographers everywhere breathed a sigh of
relief that John and Yoko chose to shoot this
sleeve in Ringo's basement themselves, but
actress Sissy Spacek- then a hopeless singer-
songwriter called Rainbo - was so outraged
that she recorded a riposte entitled John, You
Went Too Far This Time. She wasn't alone.
Retailers sold the album in a brown wrapper,
and in some US states it was even impounded.

106 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 Sunburst Finish

FABLO CRUISE
BE-BOP DELUXE harvest, 1976
Cover concept Mike Doud
A strained visual pun on the flashy guitar paint
job, are we really meant to believe that the
model's clothes have disintegrated in the glare
of the sun's radiation after foolishly taking
shelter in a giant beer glass, with only a flaming
Gibson left to shield her? Or do we conclude
that it was the work of grubby-minded art-rock
also-rans dreamed up after eight pints before
themselves spontaneously combusting in the
heat of punk's white-hot furnace?

Lifeline
PABLO CRUISE A&M, 1976

Design Junie Osaki, Norman Seeff

Woof! Pablo Cruise were a little too laid back
even for the mellow decade, so to spice things
up for their second album it was time to bare
a little man-flesh. The record company may
have envisaged a local demographic for the
San Franciscans, but these staunchly hetero
guys were hoping to lure the ladies. They didn't,
and their fans remained pimply wannabes
dreaming of cruising with the top down,
imaginary sun-blissed girlfriend by their side.

Pressure Drop
ROBERT PALMER ISLAND. 1976

Design Graham Hughes

For the sleeve of his gently reggae-fled album,
the suave lounge lizard added mild misogyny
to his sexy reputation, courtesy of designer/
photographer (and Roger Daltrey's cousin)
Hughes. The lothario's 9% Weeks approach to
saucy sophistication reached its acme on the
video for 1986's Addicted To Love, where his
backing band was a bevy of leggy lovelies,
including Big Brother 7's Suzie Verrico.

Small Change
TOM WAITS ASYLUM, 1976

Design Cal Schenkel

Although a native Califomian, Waits had little
truck with the laidback cowboys and folkie
Canyon ladies of the '70s LA music scene,
instead indulging his beat fantasies to create
a new hardboiled genre about the city's
stumble-bums and winos. Waits lived at a
motel so depraved, the pool was painted black.
Perhaps the biggest surprise about this cover,
then, was that he hadn't been photographed
with a stripper on a sleeve before now.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 107

 THE THEMES
NUDITY

' ■■■■ ■ " ■ '..;■■ ■■' . - ; "Cut

Cut
THE SUTS ISLAND, 1979

Photograph Pennie Smith

As controversial as it could get in punk's
nascent PC times, but The Slits were
their own women in a pogoing man's
world, and the record company must
have been quietly relieved they came up
with a sleeve that would help sell the
rudimentary reggae found inside. Island's
joy was short lived, though, as they were
sued by a lorry driver who crashed after being
distracted by a promotional poster.

Contradiction Blood, Guts & Pussy

THE OHIO PLAYERS mercury 1976
Art direction Jim Ladwig
After album titles such as Pain, Pleasure,
Ecstasy and Climax, there seemed to be
a fair chance that Contradiction would
show a softer side of the Ohio Players'
relentless booty call. But the merry
funksters delighted schoolboys with
yet another lady-centric cover, this time
adding casual bestiality into a sexual milieu
that on previous sleeves had suggested
S&M (Pain, naturally) and fellatio (Honey).
DWARVES sub pop 1990
Photograph Jane Higgins
When the songs carry titles such as Bitch,
Motherfucker, Gash Wagon, Insect Whore and
Let's Fuck (which recommends statutory rape),
what else were Dwarves going to put on the
cover but two naked women and a dwarf all
covered in blood? While on tour in 1992,
bassist Salt Peter went AWOL on a crack binge,
and the following year the band announced
that guitarist He Who Cannot Be Named was
dead. He wasn't, and even Sub Pop tired
of their antics and dropped the band.

Going For The One

YES ATLANTIC 1977

Design Hipgnosis
At the peak of their fame, Yes celebrated
keyboardist Rick Wakeman's return to the fold
by ditching long-term design collaborator Roger
Dean in favour of Hipgnosis. The ensuing
debacle resulted in jeans being painted over the
offending buttocks for billboard advertising and
a catastrophic drop in US sales after rumours
circulated among their almost exclusively male
fans that the group members were, in fact, gay.
Of course, it could have been worse: it could
have been Wakeman's gnarly arse on display.

108 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 This Is Hardcore
PULP ISLAND, 1998

Design Peter Saville and Howard Wakefield

After all the cocaine, celebrity and Union
Jack waving of Britpop, the comedown for
Pulp's Jarvis Cocker was, indeed, hardcore.
The follow-up to the jaunty singalong world
of Different Class and the sleeve it came in -
a live model airbrushed to resemble a blow-up
sex doll - reflected Cocker's self-loathing
brought on by endless lonely and unfulfilling
nights curled up with generic porn in
anonymous hotel rooms in Akron and Bergen.

1 lHcriilllJrv
BELLE AND SEBASTIAN JEEPSTER, 1996

Design Uncredited
Mysterious and cultish, Belle And Sebastian's
first album was originally the 1000-copy-only
end-product of singer Stuart Murdoch's music
business course, reissued in 1999 complete
with 'oo-er, missus' cover of Joanne Kenney
(now a promotions executive at SonyBMG)
suckling a toy Tigger. Belying his choirboy
voice and visage, Murdoch's flirtation with
the slightly pervy continued on their sex-toy
name-checking third album, The Boy With
The Arab Strap.

Liz Phair
LIZ PHAIR
CAPITOL, 2003

Design Eric Roinestad

Poor old Liz Phair. Even getting naked for
the sleeve of her self-titled comeback album
failed to translate into the mega sales for
which the slick teen pop within strove. The
former indie poster girl was no stranger to
getting her kit off, fuelling many a student wet
dream when she appeared on the cover of
Rolling Stone magazine in 1994 wearing a
flimsy nightie.

Simple Pleasure
TINDERSTICKS island, 1999
Artwork & photograph
Bartholomew & Windsor
Tender, romantic despair is the more usual
stamping ground of Tindersticks' quivering,
glacial indie gospel, rather than the thorny
world of 'niche' nudie pics. In this case, the
painting of a possibly pregnant woman is by
Tindersticks singer Stuart Staples' wife,
Suzanne Osborne - the couple masquerading
as the band's design conceptualists,
Bartholomew & Windsor.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 109

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DEEP PURPLE BUDGIE BLUE OYSTER CULT
HARVEST 1970 MCA, 1972 COLUMBIA, 1972

Design Edwards Coletta Productions
The Mount Rushmore pastiche was in answer
to guitarist Ritchie Blackmore's sulking that the
band had strayed from the hard rock path by
releasing keyboaro player Jon Lord's Concerto
For Group And Orchestra. So Blackmore, Lord,
singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover
became the rock's four presidents - Washington,
Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln -with drummer
Ian Paice chiselled in slightly further down.
What it sounds like Virtuoso heavy rock
that blazed a trail for Iron Maiden and others
to follow.
Design Roger Dean
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a bit of both.
Budgie's album covers have had the titular
bird in all manner of unlikely adventures: riding
a horse, piloting a spaceship, attacking a cat,
etc. This early study - chirpy domestic pet
re-imagined as a terrifying, skeletal jet fighter
- was originally drawn on the horizontal, but
it lacked the requisite sense of impending
doom. Then Roger Dean tilted it by 45 degrees
and... bingo!
What it sounds like Sabbath-style heaviness
offset by the squeakiest singer in rock history.
Design Bill Gawlick
Styled as the American Black Sabbath, Blue
Oyster Cult were the most enigmatic of rock
bands, and part of their mystique emanated
from the esoteric cover art by Bill Gawlick.
Inspired by Nazi Albert Speer- Hitler's architect
of a new Europe - Gawlick drew a futuristic
cityscape of maze-like construction for BOC's
first album. Crucially, he also added the
mysterious symbol that would become the
band's logo. Is it the mark of the Greek god
Kronos? The alchemical sign for heavy metal?
Spookily, not even the band know for sure.
What it sounds like Weird, left-field heavy
metal with shadowy occult overtones.

v & j f fl m

III JBSiipIi m

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath Physical Graffiti Destroyer Boston

BLACK SABBATH LED ZEPPEUN KISS BOSTON
WORLD WIDE ARTISTS, 1973 SWAN SONG, 1975 CASABLANCA, 1976 EPIC, 1976

Design Pacific Eye & Ear, Drew Struzan
Steven Spielberg's favourite movie poster artist,
Oregon-bom Drew Struzan is now famed for
his work on the Indiana Jones, Star Wars and
Harry Potter series. Back in the 70s, however,
he was in the employ of rock demons Alice
Cooper and Black Sabbath. His illustration for
the last great Ozzy-era Sabs album is an occult-
art masterpiece, both chilling and beautiful.
Typographer Geoff Halpin's use of Nazi-style
'S's only added to the heavy vibe.
What it sounds like The world's heaviest
band dabbling in prog rock, with help from
RickWakeman.
Design Mike Doud, Peter Corriston
The cover of Zep's third album had more novelty
value - a pinwheel rotating within the sleeve,
revealing various pictures via cut-outs - but
Physical Graffiti was the grander design.
It featured a brownstone apartment block
(address: 97 St Marks Place, New York) with
cut-out windows displaying the band name and
album title. The inner sleeves had alternative
window views of icons such as the Virgin Mary,
King Kong and, shockingly, Zep in drag!
What it sounds like The most powerful rock
band of all time, at their most expansive.
Design Dennis Woloch, Ken Kelly
For their magnum opus, Kiss wanted artwork
that truly represented their larger-than-life
superhero image. Gene Simmons suggested
sci-fi comic artist Frank Frazetta, but when he
demanded copyright they enlisted the relatively
unknown Ken Kelly for a fee of $5,000. Kelly
painted two covers, in oils. "The first," said
manager Bill Aucoin, "wasn't dynamic or exciting
enough." The second would prove to be the
definitive, iconic Kiss image.
What it sounds like Bubblegum-metal
anthems with a 'kitchen-sink' production by
Bob The Wall'Ezrin.
Design Paula Scher, Roger Huyssen
"Better music through science", was how Epic
Records sold Boston's debut album, to the
chagrin of band leader Tom Scholz. But this was
indeed a work of technological excellence,
crafted with surgical precision by the boffin
Scholz, and its cover artwork is perfectly in sync
with that frontier spirit. The airbrushed, sci-fi
fantasy image of a domed city inside a spaceship
that was actually a guitar (or was the guitar
actually a spaceship?) heralded Boston as
a rock band from another dimension.
What it sounds like Multi-layered melodic rock
perfection. Seventeen million copies now sold!

110 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 Design Sutton Cooper, Chalkie Davis
It was the album that defined Thin Lizzy -
a double live set recorded by the band's
classic line-up. And its cover is the
quintessential Lizzy image. Simply, there
has never been a better illustration of
the raw power, excitement and glamour
of a live rock show. It was while the album
was being mixed that the four members of
Thin Lizzy convened at the south London
home of frontman Phil Lynottto sort
through the thousands of photographs
taken during the band's 1977 tour. Lynott
set up a slide show in a back room. "We
knew that the cover shot had to be really
striking," recalls guitarist Scott Gorham.
"It had to hit you right between the eyes."
They found what they were looking for in
a photo by Chalkie Davis, taken at the
Hammersmith Odeon: Lynott on his knees,
fist clenched, mouth agape, eyes shut,
completely lost in the moment. "It was
undeniable," Gorham says. "It captures
what we were about onstage. It's hard
rock. We mean business. And there's that
total commitment to the audience. That's
the whole story right there."
What it sounds like The greatest live
rock album of all time; Thin Lizzy at their
swaggering peak.
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MOJO Greatest Album Covers 111

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 Permanent Waves Iron Maiden
RUSH IRON MAIDEN
MERCURY. 1980 EMI. 1980

Design Joe Petagno
American artist Petagno worked for legendary
design company Hipgnosis before meeting
Lemmy Kilmister in 1975. Jointly, the pair
created the classic 'snaggletooth' skull logo
for Lemmy's new band, Motbrhead, and their
working relationship continues to this day.
In keeping with Lemmy's fascination for
WWII history, and Nazi Germany in particular,
Petagno's design for the Bomber album had
the band flying a German Heinkel HE 111.
A 40ft replica was the spectacular centrepiece
of the band's live show.
What it sounds like Raw, speed-driven
rock'n'roll, cranked up to maximum intensity.
Design Hugh Syme, Neil Peart
As the thinking man's metal band, Rush
naturally favoured heavily symbolic cover
art, often involving naked men's bottoms.
For Permanent Waves - which introduced a
new, modern Rush sound for a new decade
- they did the previously unthinkable and
put a sexy girl on the cover. Being Rush,
though, they chose a classic beauty- albeit
one with her knickers showing. Have fun
spotting the visual puns on the album's title
(average score: three).
What it sounds like Precision-made prog-
metal, with a singer on helium.
Design Derek Riggs
The monstrous, subhuman figure of Eddie
is effectively the public face of Iron Maiden.
Originally, 'Edward the Head' was just a
theatrical mask mounted on the band's stage
backdrop. But when manager Rod Smallwood
saw a startling illustration of "a mad punk
monster" in the portfolio of young artist Derek
Riggs - eureka! - "There was Eddie!" Riggs
has since designed every Iron Maiden album
cover, all featuring Eddie, but none have
matched the menace of the original.
What it sounds like The most streetwise
heavy metal album of the '80s.

^♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»»M»MUHM>MH»<♦«»♦♦♦»♦»♦■»♦♦♦

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buUi
Rising
RAINBOW
POLYDOR, 1976

Design Ken Kelly

Rainbow's second album was an epic in the
truest sense. Rich in Tolkeinesque sword-
and-sorcety imagery, its centrepiece was
Stargazer, a song so overblown it made
Kashmir sound like it was by the Ramones.
Clearly, this music - later waggishly dubbed
'castle rock' - required artwork of equal
grandeur. The task fell to American artist
Ken Kelly, a former Vietnam veteran who
had illustrated various comic-books and
fantasy novels, including Robert Adam's
Horseolan series. Kelly delivered a
masterpiece, a mythical vision inspired
by the legend of Neptune, the Roman god
of the sea. 1976 was a big year for Kelly:
his work also featured on Kiss's Destroyer.
More recently, his heroic, Conan-style
figures have adorned albums by Manowar,
the self-styled 'true metal' warriors. But
Rainbow's Rising remains his crowning
glory. No other rock album cover comes
close to matching its dramatic power.
It's what those big patches on the back
of denim jackets were made for.
What it sounds like Heavy progressive
rock, neo-classical flourishes and the best
metal vocalist of them all.
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MOJO Greatest Album Covers 113

 Climate Chaos

Glastonbury
Greenpeace
Oxfam
WaterAld

Glastonbury supports us, will you?

aWaterAid 0 Oxfam
www.greenpeace.org.uk www.wateraid.org www.oxfam.org.uk/climatechange

Animal Magnetism
SCORPIONS
EMI, 1980
Design Hipgnosis
The cover of the Scorpions' 1976 album, Virgin
Killer, was shocking: a nude pre-pubescent girl
seen through shattered glass, the point of
impact at her crotch. Animal Magnetism
offered a more amusing spin on the German
rockers' dubious sexual politics, the back cover
delivering the man's-best-friend punchline.
Note the can of Carlsberg lager held by the
male figure: if Carlsberg trained dogs, they'd
probably give the best blowjobs in the world.
What it sounds like Punchy hard rock with
the kind of funny German accent usually
heard in sitcoms.
Appetite For Destruction
GUNS N'ROSES
GEFFEN, 1987
Design Robert Williams
G N'R singer Axl Rose was browsing through
postcards at an art store on Hollywood's
Melrose Avenue when he chanced upon the
illustration that would give Guns N'Roses' first
album its cover and title. The apocalyptic vision
of Robert Williams' Appetite For Destruction
struck a chord with the nihilistic singer. But
after an initial pressing of 50,000 albums, the
cover was changed to a crucifix tattoo design
following a ban by major retailers. The pussies!
What it sounds like The rudest, sleaziest
and most ass-kicking American rock album
of the 1980s.
Back In Black
AC/DC ATLANTIC, 1980
Design Bob Defrin
They were a band in mourning. On February 19,
1980, AC/DC singer Bon Scott died from acute
alcohol poisoning in London. Back In Black-
recorded with Bon's successor, Brian Johnson
- was described by guitarist Angus Young as
"our tribute to Bon", a fact reflected in the
plain black cover design. Both Spinal Tap and
Metallica would produce similar covers. "But
at least Spinal Tap were taking the piss," said
Johnson. "Them other fuckers were serious!"
What it sounds like Hard-rocking genius. And
with 40m sales, the biggest rock album ever.
Kill'Em All
METALLICA MUSIC FOR NATIONS, 1983
Design Gary L Heard
The original title of Metallica's debut album
was Metal Up Your Ass. The proposed cover
had a hand sticking out of a toilet bowl,
brandishing a machete. Sadly, this brilliant
concept was abandoned for being, well, a tad
too silly. But a new title, Kill 'Em All, made it
clear that Metallica were taking no prisoners.
And a new cover- hammer, blood, blurred
attacker's hand - provided a fittingly crude
illustration of the band's bludgeoning force.
What it sounds like Mega-heavy riffs at
breakneck speed. Thrash metal had arrived.
1984
VAN HALEN Warner Bros. 1984
Design Pete Angelus, Richard Seireeni,
David Jellison
"The 1984 cover?" mused Van Halen's David
Lee Roth. "I found that." It makes sense. A
cherub having a sneaky cigarette would clearly
appeal to a wisecracking dude like Roth. And
its mischievous sense of rebellion was entirely
in tune with VH's teenage demographic.
America's do-gooder factions were less
impressed, calling for the cover to be censored.
It wasn't. And it's still a corrupting influence.
What it sounds like A night out on the Strip
with two 'exotic dancers' and a big bag of coke.
British Steel
JUDAS PRIEST COLUMBIA, 1980
Design Roslav Szaybo
Given that guitarist Glenn Tipton had worked
at a British Steel plant in the early '70s, it was
only fitting that Judas Priest should appropriate
the company's name for the title of their
definitive album. Working designs for the
album's cover had the razor blade cutting into
the fingers, dripping blood, but the finished
artwork has a clean, classic simplicity. "It still
has a tremendous impact," says singer Rob
Halford. "A very edgy feel."
What it sounds like Fist-shaking, head-
banging metal at its gonzoid best.
Bark At The Moon
OZZYOSBOURNE EPIC, 1983
Design Steve 'Krusher' Joule
With an album title that celebrated Ozzy's
lunatic tendencies, transforming him into
a werewolf for the cover was the logical step.
Makeup artist Greg Cannom spent eight hours
coating Ozzy in delicate human hair. The results
were worthy of Carry On Screaming. After the
shoot, photographer Fin Costello suggested
they do some extra pictures at a nearby bus
stop. "If I do that," Ozzy retorted, "the shock
will fucking kill some old dear!"
What it sounds like Not his best, but the title
track is vintage Ozzy madness.
To Mega Therion
CELTIC FROST noise, 1985
Design HR Giger
Cult Swiss metal band Celtic Frost pulled off
a major coup for the cover of their first album.
Their fellow countryman Hans Ruedi Giger,
world-famous creator of the Alien movie
monster, appreciated the band's high-minded
artistic bent, and so offered them his heretical
surrealist painting Satan I. It proved a perfect
match for the heavy gothic music and an album
title that translated as 'The Great Beast' - alias
of feared British occult master Aleister Crowley.
What it sounds like The doom-metal
soundtrack to Milton's Paradise Lost.
MOJO Greatest Album Covers 115
THE STORIES
MALCOLM GARRETT
enna
*»M*»»»»>»»>»>»»»»»**m>»»»»»*l*»»*»*»*M»»«»»»t*»*»*M>*^»»*»*>»>»
WITH HIS TRAILBL AZING COVERS FOR THE
BUZZCOCKS, DURAN DURAN, CULTURE CLUB
AND MORE, MALCOLM GARRETT BROUGHT
THE SPIRIT OF PUNK INTO THE GLITZY,
CONSUMERIST '80s. BY MARTIN ASTON
NLIKE HIS BRIT-DESIGN peers Peter Saville and
Vaughan Oliver, who also flourished in the punk years and
beyond, Malcolm Garrett is not a sentimentalist. "I've never
» had a problem with CDs," he says. "Nobody had a problem
>■ S designing lor postage stamps, so size doesn't matter as long
as you know that it's a different format. If you want 12in record sleeves,
you're not a designer, you're a nostalgist. It's padietic."
Similarly, Garrett has always embraced digital design: "I had an
Apple before tiiey even introduced the Mac. Computers are sexy!"
Empowered by the latest technology, he found record companies beat
ing a path to his door through the '80s "because diey knew my work
would be technically sorted and delivered on time". His credits include
covers for the likes of Magazine, The Human League, The Members,
Culture Club, Duran Duran, Simple Minds and Peter Gabriel.
Yet his punk roots remain as intact as die day he moonlighted on an
office photocopier to design the 7in sleeve for the Buzzcocks' Orgasm
Addict single. From his London office today, Garrett recalls how com
puters enabled record companies to design artwork in-house, and
how the same computer and internet boom has seen the artists them
selves take control of music, artwork and production. "Our generation
that came through with punk," he concludes, "wanted to destroy the
music industry, and I'm glad that we're witnessing its destruction."
Garrett and Peter Saville attended the same grammar school out
side Manchester, followed by Manchester Poly, but both took wildly
different paths thereafter. As opposed to Saville's borrowing from art
Those in the know knew it
was the word cock' on Boy
G eorae's ha MALCOLM GARRETT
history and theory, Garrett was inspired by typo
graphy and packaging. Not being tied to a benefactor,
as Saville was with Factory, continuity has never been
Garrett's interest. "As soon as I'd designed some
thing," he says, "I'd immediately move on. I'd never
elaborate that singular vision."
Garrett initially wanted to be an architect until he
realised that meant seven years at university. "But
by then I was getting more interested in music," he
remembers, "and the rebellious lifestyle seemed the
116 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
»»»»*»*»*»
way to go." He and Saville "would spend our entire time together
discussing the future of design and the visual world, and what it meant
to us. We didn't even talk about girls, for Christ's sake!"
EETING UNDER MULVEY, an illustrator at Manchester
Poly, was die turning point. She would become die girlfriend
of Buzzcocks singer Howard Devoto, and this put Garrett in
touch with that band. The Buzzcocks got him to design them a poster
— on which Garrett's huge interest in Andy Warhol's screenprinting
techniques is clearly visible. Then came the Orgasm Addict single, for
which Gari"ett took a striking collage by Linder (a polemical comment
on a woman's role in society) and framed it in electric yellow. "It
looked totally different to anything the Sex Pistols did," says Garrett.
"It was DIY, rough-and-ready, but clinically made."
Having established a name, Garrett dabbled in different styles, from
industrial to '50s pastiche, but packaging became his raison d'etre. The
first Buzzcocks LP, 197 8's Another Music In A Dijferen t Kitchen, came in a
plastic bag, as if itwas already bought. For Magazine's The Correct Use Of
Soap, in 1980, he made die reverse brown side of the cardboard sleeve
the front, and screen-printed white type (in honour of soap) on top.
For Duran Duran's Rio album in 1982, he avoided using photos of
the band: "Let Smash Hits do that. And the band agreed — but EMI
weren't happy." Competition was fierce in the money-grabbing '80s,
and Garrett found himself embroiled in band politics. "I saw myself
as the Henry Kissinger of design. Artists who wanted dieir own way
wouldn't listen to the label but they'd hear stuff from me.
Or I'd subtiy retouch work so that those in the know knew
it was the word'cock' on Boy George's hat [for 1987's Sold
album] but WH Smiths wouldn't." But even Kissinger had
to admit defeat sometimes. "Sitting in a room widi a bunch
of millionaires who respect your work but all the money's
spent and they've the ones who've got it? Sometimes I
hated our clients! People presume I got wealthy off the
back of Duran, but I was employing 10 people and get
ting nothing that paid me royalties. I've always loatiied
the industry's mercenary attitude."
It's partly why Garrett has bowed out of sleeve
design, citing "it's a young man's industry" (with recent
exceptions for old mates/codgers Buzzcocks and
Heaven 17), and is now concentrating on advertising
and corporate design. He has, however, just put togetii-
er a travelling exhibition for the Buzzcocks' 30th
anniversary. As die saying goes, old punks never die.
O
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0
o
THE OUTTAKES LlONHEART
KATE BUSH
*o
dD~d? ~3?

Sensual
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THE FRENETIC, 20-YEAR-OLD KATE BUSH

LEFT PHOTOGRAPHER GERED MANKOWITZ
EXHAUSTED AFTER THE SHOOT FOR HER SECOND
ALBUM, LlONHEART. BY STEVE MALINS

impression on a young Tori Amos, who recreated

ithere is this tremendously powerful
.sexuality to Kate Bush," says
^photographer Gered Mankowitz,
■ who worked with the singer
* throughout 1978. The striking cover
SHE'S BEAUTIFUL, AND of course
for her second album, Lionheart (released in
November that year), pictured Kate barefoot on
top of a box in a moth-eaten lion costume.
Kate's debut album, The Kick Inside, had been
presented in two covers. US audiences were given
the English-girl-in-a-box image, clearly making an
it for the cover of her 1992 album, Little Earth
quakes. In the UK, the original LP was housed in
oriental-style artwork featuring Bush hanging off
a kite. "I had the impression EMI weren't entirely
happy with the British cover for the first album,"
says Mankowitz. "But there was something quite
mysterious and moody about Lionheart."
Mankowitz had taken the now famous photos
of Kate in a skin-tight leotard earlier, and EMI used
them as part of a promotional poster campaign:
"For many people, the shots in the dance gear
were the first time they'd seen Kate Bush. They

"We liked the idea of a lion... a had the same effect visually as the music - you
couldn't believe your ears or your eyes.
"The idea for Lionheart came from Kate and

courageous, male image. GERED MANKOWITZ

her brother John Carder Bush. Kate described
this little girl who goes into the attic room of an
old house and finds a box. Inside there's a
dressing-up outfit. I built the set in my studio, and
we all decided that the costume had to be an
animal. We liked the idea of a lion because it's
a very courageous, male image, but of course it
has Kate inside. We dressed the room up with
cobwebs and then it was really a case of Kate
finding the right way to look on the box." (The toy
box remained in Mankowitz's studio and was used
as a coffee table for the next few years.)
Mankowitz worked closely with graphic
designer Richard Gray to create a double-sided
cover. "On the back there's a very vibrant,
dramatically lit portrait of Kate's face," says the
photographer. "We put the lettering on the front
and back so it could be racked either way; I think
we were a little concerned that the lion image
might make her a little small on the cover."
Although Lionheart reached Number 6 in the
UK charts, it was a difficult period for Kate Bush.
The album's first single, Hammer Horror, failed to
reach the Top 40, and the follow-up, Wow, was
famously parodied by Pamela Stephenson on the
BBC TV show Not The Nine O'clock News.
Nearly 20 years on, though, and the pictures
remain just as striking, despite the subject's
reservations. "Kate was confident about her
ideas, but like most artists, a little uncertain when
in front of the camera," says Gered. "The self-
doubt manifested itself in the frenetic way she
bounced from one idea to another. She'd want to
try so many things that at the end of every shoot
I'd collapse with exhaustion. Of course, when I
got the 40 rolls of film back the next day, there
they were - one great shot after another."

118 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 119
THE STORIES
rue
»*»»>M**»»»»»>*»»»»»*»>»>»»>*»»»»»*M*»»»»>*»M+»»»>^>**M»»**»l**»»»»»»M*t*^m>^
N 1979, WHEN Peter Saville left Manchester for London "to find
a job in the creative dimensions of communications design", he
couldn't have envisaged that he'd forever be associated with the
former. The man behind album covers for Joy Division and New
Order among numerous others for Factory Records, Saville helped
propagate the reality and mythology of Manchester as the centre of
Britain's dominant youth culture. Now, 28 years on, he is back, as a
consultant to Manchester council for the rebranding of the city itself.
"Manchester was once the epicentre of new development, the first
modernist city," he reasons. "So I'm challenging them to make
Manchester a brand synonymous again with complete originality."
Saville's post has no visual brief, yet he believes he was given the job
"because of a quintessential understanding of what I do — as someone
who thinks about the world with an associative understanding of
patterns, trends and directions".
Discovering that Saville is being employed as a civil servant and
pop philosopher combined isn't shocking when you consider that he
New Order's Republic aside,
Saville has never listened to
an artist's music for inspiration
^SMUSIP^*
120 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
BY DEPLOYING INDUSTRIAL DESIGN, RELIGIOUS
IMAGERY AND STARK MINIMALISM, PETER
SAVILLE'S STRIKING GRAPHICS FOR JOY DIVISION
AND NEW ORDER BROUGHT ALBUM COYER
ART INTO A NEW ERA. BY MARTIN ASTON
has always behaved more like an art historian and trend forecaster
than a graphic designer. His admission that — New Order's Republic
aside — he's never listened to an artist's music for design inspiration
only confirms his distance from his subjects. The work, he'd argue
philosophically, is the work itself.
who doesn't give a damn for deadlines but whose artwork is
SAVILLE'S REPUTATION
increasingly displayed inPRECEDES him
exhibitions and - as a"I'm
museums. designer
finding
that new artists are citing my early Factory work as significant influ
ences. The artist Kelly Walker put my sleeve for Power, Corruption Sclies
in his Top 10. A recent show in Munich called Secret Public re-evaluat
ing British post-punk included my sleeve for Closer. Artvvorld [Saville's
pet term for die commercial business of fine art] is looking at my work
and saying, 'Hmm, what you were saying is quite important.'"
Not all of Saville's work is exceptional. Nowadays, he readily
acknowledges that his covers for Thomas Dolby don't pass muster and
diat designs for TJltravox were merely "Peter
Saville for Ultravox, like John Galliano for
Dior". Yet the artwork for Joy Division's
1980 swansong Closer alone is enough to
justify his brilliance. A neo-classicist image
— Christ's body entombed — was welded to
a band versed in the 'now' language of post-
punk and whose singer was to commit
suicide before the album was released.
According to then NME journalist Paul
Morley, Saville was "a designer of record
sleeves that you were tempted to applaud
whenever you saw them".
Saville's prescient design was influenced
by knowing Ian Curtis but by referencing his
knowledge of art history and penchant for
fusing classicism and modernism. This trend
began with a teenage love affair with early
Roxy Music's retro-futurist sax-and-synth
melange. Ironically, Saville's own blandly
accomplished sleeves for Roxy Music's '80s
AOR albums Flesh And Blood and Avalon are
barely remembered. Perhaps he was too
close or subservient to his heroes.
Born in Manchester, Peter Saville had
studied graphic design at Manchester Poly
alongside schoolfriend Malcolm Garrett. As
Garrett began designing for the Buzzcocks,
o
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E
<
o
6
s
THE STORIES

122 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

an envious Saville searched for suitable employment, and found it in
Throughout the 1990s Saville searched for his next 'Factory'
Factory. But with no regular job on offer, Saville became ait director (having left the struggling label in 1990), with unsuccessful stints at
for Virgin offshoot Dindisc. Factory was his true calling, however; a London's feted design studio Pentagram and ad agencies in Los
label that trusted him, and whose artists didn't know what sleeves Angeles and London. The latter post meant working out of a sublime
they wanted or cared whetiier their name was on it. Saville designed modernist apartment in Mayfair called The Apartment, depicted on
the label's very first record release, The Factory EP, housed in indus the sleeve of Pulp's 1998 album This Is Hardcore, one of the few album
trial heat-sealed polythene with appropriate industrial imagery. cover design jobs that Saville accepted, despite his age, alongside
The cover of Joy Division's 1979 debut Unknown Pleasures — a graph Suede's Coming Up and Head Music albums.
of consecutive pulses from a dying star — was the band's suggestion, Peter Saville says he had found Suede's 1994 album Dog Man Star
but the way Saville framed it in a sea of black made it a minimalist "a bridge to the British culture I was missing while living over in Los
masterpiece. As was his 'floppy disk' sleeve for their single, Blue Mon Angeles. Back home, I heard that Brett Anderson wanted to see me."
day — a complex design that essentially caused New Order to lose 2 Op Saville played the 'I'm too old' card, but the singer persevered. With
on each sale. The same could be said for his design for New Order's German photogi-apher Paul Wunderlich's surrealist touch and die
following album, Power, Corruption And lies. What was French realist computer program Paintbox as inspirations, Anderson provided die
Henri Fantin-Latour's painting Roses doing killer touch: a bare mattress,
on an album cover in 1983, albeit with a "like in a squat, which is
colour-coded strip to denote 'product'?
exactly why you can't do
"A 19th-century oil painting of flowers is record covers at 40. I haven't
not the cultural contact point for avant-garde seen a bare mattress in 20
rock or pop culture in general," Saville agrees.
years." The result resembled a
"I was saying, Can't contemporary pop
gleaming digital update of
culture embrace a wider spectrum of refer a drug-infused prog-rock
ences? To me, this is the beginning of cover. This Is Hardcore, mean
'lifestyle', broadening the understanding of while, resembled nothing less
pop commoditisation to a young audience at than a Roxy Music cover.
an impressionable age. The image crosses Saville's subsequent cam
over because it's a New Order cover; they
paign for indie band Gay Dad
wouldn't bat an eyelid if they saw the post in 1999, centring on 'Pedes
card in die National Gallery." trian Man', was even more
But by 198S "I'd had enough of retro. I celebrated, though few paid
couldn't even reference modernism without attention to the Gay Dad sill
looking back. I wanted to look at now. The THE FACTORY ies and albums that featured
outcome was photographs of New Order as Saville's Waste Paintings, a
people on the cover of Low-life. Shock hor stunning series constructed by
ror!" Inspired by French minimalist painter applying a Photoshop 'scatter'
Yves Klein, Saville began to explore "nothing technique to old album covers.
ness" (untreated sheet metal for New Order's These were Saville's depiction
Brotherhood album) and a single gold leaf on of "the speed and instant
Klein's favourite blue background for the disposability of things. The
band's True Faith 12in. This progression was lifespan of a product had been
"derailed", Saville says, by acid house, but he shortened to a three-month
responded by going "all Andy" (as in Warhol)
and embarking on silk screening in "different
versions, different colours".
Top culture has become a
New Order's , , Mil
subsequentsleeveforre^jjewasanantique fH | nd-COntO IGQ QIUQ OXeOSe
cherub in posterised psychedelic garb. v y

HILE SAVILLE WAS preoc

dominated by multinationals." PETER SAVILLE

pied with art, he still had to run a

business. When Japanese fashion clients were added, the
workload became unmanageable, while the record companies didn't
share Saville's enthusiasm for semiotics and "wanted everything
delivered yesterday". Saville saw the advent of digital design as his
escape route; he still can't work a Mac or even send emails. In any case,
he argues, no one over 30 should be designing album covers. "It's not
just my feeling about what pop needed in 1980 and what it needs now,
but the fact that, at S 1 years old, the issues we've discussed —
Manchester, social and global economies — aren't those for which a
record cover is the platform. I had that learning curve with Happy
Mondays. Once I heard Lazyitis and got them, I wanted to do their
sleeves. But when I saw them playing at G-Mex, the guys who designed
their covers were up on stage, and I understood it was a family. I wasn't
going to be up there widi Bez and a pair of fucking maracas."
press cycle. It's all about recycleability."
Saville still feels deflated by popular culture. "It's become a mind-
controlled drug exercise dominated by multi-national corporations,"
he says. It doesn't help that old relationships haven't survived. Saville
recalls how "18 months ago, the New Order situation turned into
the archetypal band/cover situation. Bernard Sumner rejected
everything I suggested for Waiting For The Siren's Call, so I told him he
could do it himself."
Saville has bigger fish to fry: like trying to enter 'Artworld'. "But
adding to the canon of art is really difficult. Have I anydiingto offer to
the progress of tiiought?" Since this summer sees Manchester stage an
exhibition of new art based on Saville's "original modern" principle,
you'd reckon he still has plenty to offer. Just don't ask him to design
an album cover for it.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 123

 >t))(t>t(t» > "' ♦♦♦+»♦»♦»♦»♦♦»♦»»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»«>»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦»♦»♦»♦♦■♦

SHOULDER PADS, MASCARA, ASYMMETRIC HAIRDOS AND MORE... VOGUEING

THROUGH POP'S MOST STYLE-CONSCIOUS DECADE WITH STEVE MALINS.

Peter Gabriel 3 KooKoo Nightclubbing

PETER GABRIEL
VIRGIN, 1980
Design Storm Thorgerson for Hipgnosis
The cover on Perer Gabriel 3 was created
by Storm Thorgerson, emanating from a
dream he'd had in which his subject's face
was melting as if made of wax. Smudginga
freshly taken Polaroid before all the chemicals
had set created the effect. Both musician
and designer had so much fun doing this with
various photos that neither can remember who
smeared the final image. Fittingly, the corroded,
demented electronic rock of the album
also includes many of Gabriel's most
experimental moments.
What it sounds like Massive gated drums, icy
synthesizers and Kate Bush on backing vocals.
DEBBIE HARRY CHRYSAUS. 1981
Art direction HR Giger
Although this her first solo album was a flop,
Harry's collaboration with HR Giger on the
cover remains one of her most iconic images.
A mixture of beauty and the macabre, Giger's
airbrushed photograph of Deborah Harry's
pierced face illuminates a darker side to the
public's fantasies about Hollywood movie stars
such as Marilyn Monroe, with whom Harry was
often compared. The cover alienated some
of her mainstream fans and was also deemed
too hardcore by London Underground, who
objected to a planned poster campaign.
What it sounds like A shimmering production
from Chic's Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards,
but musically as hollow as a Visage B-side.
GRACEJONES
ISLAND, 1981
Art direction Jean-Paul Goude
Grace Jones had already graced the covers of
Elle and Vogue as a model, but she made even
more impact when she teamed up with her
boyfriend, the photographer/designer Jean-
Paul Goude, for a series of record sleeves,
promo videos and her striking, Grammy-
nominated 'one-man show'. The Nightclubbing
cover is arguably their most influential work
together, as the exaggerated shoulders and
sculptured pillbox haircut of the androgynous
Jones had a massive influence on the fashion
scene in the 1980s.
What it sounds like An haute-couture take on
3 funk.

Tin Drum See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Rio

JAPAN
VIRGIN, 1981
Concept David Sylvian Design Steve Joule
Photograph Fin Costello
The cover came from a question by Sylvian's
brother and Japan drummer Steve Jansen, who
asked, "What would you put on an album about
China?" The answer: a bowl of rice, chopsticks
and Chairman Mao. The image works as it's
given a knowingly romanticised twist by Sylvian,
permanently frozen in a semi-narcissistic state.
The props came from the kitchen of bassist Mick
Kam and his girlfriend Yuka Fujii, who was about
to leave Karn for Sylvian, effectively killing off the
band for good.
What it sounds like Eastern melodies, intricate
synthesizer pop and rubbery, fretless basslines.
Your Gang Yeah! City All Over.
Go Ape Crazy bow wow wow
RCA, 1981
Photograph Andy Earl
Malcolm McLaren discovered 14-year-old
Annabella Lwin at her parents' laundrette. Only
a year later she was singing in Bow Wow Wow,
and naked on the cover of their debut LR
recreating Edouard Manet's 1863 painting Le
Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe. Her mother tried to get
the album artwork banned, and another image
was used in the US (above right). In truth, the
album is more famous as a McLaren 'art-prank'
- its gimmicky pop only fleetingly made an
impression on either side of the Atlantic.
What it sounds like High-pitched, frenzied,
tribal pop that quickly becomes unlistenable.
DURAN DURAN
EMI, 1982
Design Malcolm Garrett
Illustration Patrick Nagel
Artist Patrick Nagel's Latin girl with a big, cherry-
lipped smile is a gam combination of magazine
illustration and Art Deco styling. Flashy, slick, arty
and super-real, it expresses exactly how Duran
Duran perceived themselves. Nagel's work
was first discovered in Playboy by the band's
manager, Paul Berrow, and for a while the
original Rio drawing was on full display in his
office - until the band themselves swiped it on
their way to an appearance at Top Of The Pops.
What it sounds like Brightly coloured, fast,
catchy MTV pop with ludicrously pretentious
lyrics penned by a former drama student.

124 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

♦♦♦♦♦♦»«♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦»♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦»♦»♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦»«♦»♦♦♦♦

Design Morrissey
For all the quality of their other artwork, the
likes of The Smiths or The Queen Is Dead
effectively form a gallery of self-referencing
Morrissey cultural obsessions ranging from
Warhol to kitchen-sink dramas. Meat Is
Murder emerged with a far more strident
image. Morrissey redesigned a still from the
1968 anti-Vietnam War documentary In
The Year Of The Pig (left) so that the words
on the Gl's helmet were changed from
'Make War, Not Love' to Morrissey's animal
rights slogan. Such was its impact, a whole
generation of students not only bought the
T-shirt but also followed the singer's lead
into vegetarianism. The slaughterhouse
imagery of Meat Is Murder wasn 't restricted
to animals, however, as the album also
deals with domestic violence, institutional
ised brutality, murder and hooliganism.
While the likes of Amnesty International
and Live Aid enlisted bands in causes
during the mid-'80s, the individuality of the
acts were usually sacrificed for 'the greater
good'. In stark contrast, Meat Is Murder
is The Smiths at their most individual,
provocative, gentle, savage and political.
What it sounds like Self-proclaimed
celibate indie sharpened by a huge sense of
injustice and a twist of hangman's humour.
|frW+

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 125

 A Broken name
DEPECHE MODE
MUTE, 1982
Design Martyn Atkins
Photograph Brian Griffin
The band had hated Brian Griffin's swan-in-
a-plastic-bag image for the front cover of
Depeche Mode's debut album, Speak And
Spell, but they gave him another chance in
1982 when he was commissioned to design
A Broken Frame. He decided to go for "a bit
of Soviet social realism", although the
picture was actually taken in a cornfield in
Hertfordshire. The front cover eventually
ended up on the cover of Life magazine in
1989 as part of a feature on the best
photographs of the decade.
What it sounds like A bubblegum electro-pop
band experiencing growing pains.
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126 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
Murmur
R.E.M.
IRS, 1983
Artwork Carl Grasso
The strange, alien landscape that spreads
across Murmur's artwork is a Japanese vine
called kudzu that grows in the band's home
state, Georgia. Although it's a Southern image,
it's too weird and beautiful to be so clearly
defined and instead has a dreamlike, haunting
feel not a million miles away from the visual
mysticism of Joy Division or Cocteau Twins. The
sleeve helped to connect R.E.M. with a new,
alternative, independent, underground scene.
What it sounds like Seductive indie-rock
melancholia with a Southern twang.
♦♦♦■»
Power, Corruption & Lies
NEW ORDER
FACTORY 1983
Design Peter Saville
Factory's Peter Saville really went to town with
Power, Corruption & Lies. The front is a 19th-
century still life of flowers by French artist
Henri Fantin-Latour, but Saville juxtaposes this
romantic scene with one of machine-like
beauty (inspired by floppy disks). There are no
song titles on the sleeve, only a colour-coded
language indicated by the circular design
on the back. Saville seems to be playfully
suggesting the dawn of a new revolution in art
through computer technology, paralleled by
New Order's pioneering approach to music.
What it sounds like Sequenced electronics,
fluid basslines and bittersweet pop hooks,
all delivered with a masterful sense of
understatement.
The Stone Roses
THE STONE ROSES
SILVERTONE, 1989
Painting John Squire
Guitarist John Squire's painting on the front
of his band's self-titled debut album is
heavily indebted to abstract artist Jackson
Pollock, whom he discovered after spotting
a photo caption in a Clash book that read:
"Paul Simonon surveys a Pollock-styled
action painting on the floor." After
investigating the American's work further,
the young, self-taught artist and musician
felt that Pollock's apparently random
splashes of paint were "already looking
like record covers".
The colours on his own Stone Roses
sleeve look similarly freeform but were
actually inspired by the foaming water at
the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.
The painting also shares the same title and
theme as one of the songs on the record,
Bye Bye Badman, which was inspired by
the riots in France during 1968. That
explains the tricolour on one side and the
three sliced lemons, as Roses singer Ian
Brown had been told that the Parisian
students used lemons to counteract the
effects of tear gas. This combination of
instinct, art and revolution is at the heart
of The Stone Roses' appeal, expressed
through their artwork, songs and the
generation-defining show they played at
Spike Island in 1990.
What it sounds like Sublime, pupil-dilating
Byrdsian guitars, acid-funk grooves and
»»♦♦»♦♦♦♦+♦♦ quasi-religious poetry.

Stop Making Sense
TALKING HEADS
EMI, 1984
Design David Byrne, Michael Hodgson
and Jeff Ayeroff
Drawn by David Byrne on a napkin in a
restaurant during a trip to Japan, the 'big suit'
that graced the cover of this live album is
absurd, funny and far more stylish than most
'80s pop star threads. According to Byrne,
the oversized vision of a "Mister Man but
bigger" was an attempt to take an everyday,
conservative image and transform it into
something expressive and surreal.
What it sounds like Jittery electro-funk with
quasi-African percussion.
Lovesexy
PRINCE PAISLEY PARK. 1988
Photograph Jean Baptiste Mondino
There was a lot going on in Prince's Geminian
mind back in 1987. He was about to release
the so-called Black Album when he switched
gears and recorded Lovesexy in just seven
weeks. Gone was the heavy funk, replaced
once again by that "skinny motherfucker with
the high voice" in an increasingly evangelical
pop mode. Fittingly, a more spiritual Prince
re-emerged naked as the day he was bom
inside some giant flowers. Many American
stores either refused to stock the album or
covered it up.
What it sounds like A man coming back
to pop life and proclaiming it to the world.
Ocean Rain
ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN korova,1984
Photograph Brian Griffin
Echo & The Bunnymen's early albums were
graced by a series of beautiful sleeves all shot
on location. Photographer Brian Griffin had
considered a change of style for Ocean Rain
and scouted Paris for a cooler, metropolitan
look, but the success of The Style Council
and their pseudo-Parisian chic put an end to
that. Instead he returned to the naturalistic
panoramas that had defined the previous
covers, shooting this on a lake in Cornwall.
What it sounds like Indie pop with style
and grandeur.
HI
1
« ■■■■■■ j
ZZ~
Surfer Rosa
PIXIES 4AD, 1988
Design Vaughan Oliver
A topless flamenco dancer, head thrown back,
poses in front of a peeling wall decorated with
a torn poster, disembodied guitar and a crucifix.
The image conveys sex, Catholicism and faded
decadence, but also defiance and individuality.
It's such a rich, evocative picture, it's hard to
believe the whole thing was staged in a pub in
Wandsworth, opposite the offices of the band's
label, 4AD. The woman was a friend of the
photographer rather than an exotic-but-doomed
beauty from one of Madrid's harbour bars.
What it sounds like Schizophrenic alternative
rock, ranging between quiet and very, very loud.
Paul's Boutique
BEASTIE BOYS capitol, 1989
Photograph Nathanial Homblower
No longer goons with schlock-horror phalluses,
the Beastie Boys celebrated New York on their
second album via an intoxicating mix of hip hop
and trash culture. The sleeve art was shot at 99
Rivington Street on New York's Lower East Side,
although there's no shop there called Paul's
Boutique. The sign above the street clearly
reads Lee's Sportswear. Since then an
enterprising local has opened a small cafe
called Paul's Boutique in that very same spot.
What it sounds like Brilliant, whiny, white-boy
raps collide with sample-heavy grooves.
Treasure
COCTEAU TWINS 4AD, 1984
Design 23 Envelope
4AD developed a reputation for exquisite-
looking record sleeves in the '80s, all created
by Vaughan Oliver (see pl28). Of all 4AD's
acts, the Cocteau Twins' textured music Is
closest in spirit to the style of his artwork, so
that almost every sleeve feels like a seamless
expression of the music inside. On Treasure,
a veiled shop dummy is transformed into an
image of spooky Victoriana.
What it sounds like One of the finest voices in
pop through a dream-like fog of guitars, drum
machines and electronics.
It Takes A Nation Of Millions
To Hold Us Back
PUBLIC ENEMY defjam recordings, 1988
Photograph Glen E Friedman
Public Enemy's visual impact in the late '80s
was stunning. Their pseudo-paramilitary
image, gun-scope target logo, hoods, baseball
caps and the oversized surrealism of Flava
Flav's giant stopwatch signalled a new,
uncompromising vision. The group was
founded by graphic designer and deejay
Chuck D, who visualised a hip hop version
of The Clash: controversial and political, but
also with a unique sense of style.
What it sounds like A cacophonous,
innovative barrage that reinvented hip hop.
Like A Prayer
MADONNA wea. 1989
Photograph Herb Ritts
Art direction Jeri Heiden
Madonna's fourth album was far more rooted
in personal experiences than her previous
LPs, in particular the impact of her Catholic
upbringing, the loss of her mother and her
volatile marriage to Sean Penn. The artwork
is also detailed and personal, including a
message about AIDS and an image of her
exposed midriff that was feminine rather than
sexual. Madonna also insisted that the initial
pressings were all scented with patchouli oil.
What it sounds like A pop star growing up.
MOJO Greatest Album Covers 127
THE STORIES
D one
»»»»r»m**»»*M**»>*M*»»w*»M>»*»**mm>t***»»»*w*»*m>>+M- »»»m**»»*m*M*»>»>>*M*»>w>»M*»-
Oliver grins, "was the words: 'To suggest is to create; to
describe is to destroy.' So said French photographer Robert
Doisneau, and it struck me as the perspective I come from.
THE FIRST
To keep
THING
thingsI open
ever towrote
interpretation."
on a toilet wall," Vaughan
Aesdietically armed, the graphic designer has ventured forth across
three decades of quixotic designs and images, but few so memorable
as the creation of the sleeve for The Breeders' debut album Pod, for
which Oliver, accompanied by photographer Chris Bigg, found him
self near-naked in a suburban London flat, wearing a belt of dead eels
and doing a fertility dance.
In the spirit of Doisneau, Oliver shouldn't be recounting his rea
son, but it's too good to resist: "It was a reaction to an all-girl band,
called The Breeders, die tide Pod and the vibrant colours I was getting
from the music. To me, it needed a strong male response. The eels?
Yeah, diey Ye phallic, but I'd seen an image of a belt of frankfurtei's diat
stuck in my mind, so I developed that. Chris brought the dead eels
along, and when it came to shoot it I couldn't get anyone else to do the
job, so I did it. There was blood everywhere... but I knew one of the
shots would work!"
MAD was so outside the times,
so un-postmodern. We were
romantic," VAUGHAN OLIVER
was known as v23, while 23 Enve
O L I V E Rlope
A Nwas
D Bthe
IGG 'S p
alias fora rOliver
t n e r s hand
ip
photographer Nigel Grierson. But die part
nership that Oliver is most recognised for is
the one with the independent record label
4AD, home of die Cocteau Twins, Pixies and
Scott Walker. For 18 years, Oliver was 4AD's
in-house designer, and despite going freelance
in 1998, he has been responsible for almost
every 4AD sleeve. And wherever the label's
music has gone, Oliver has followed. So as
reviewers started referring to a 4AD 'sound' in
128 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
FROM DEAD EELS TO BLOODY
MANNEQUINS AND BEYOND,
VAUGHAN OLIVER'S DESIGNS FOR
THE PIXIES, COCTEAU TWINS
AND OTHERS EXUDE ROMANCE
AND POETRY. BY MARTIN ASTON
the mid-'80s — romantic, dark and austere, spearheaded by the
Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance and This Mortal Coil - so Oliver
concocted a signature visual language to match it.
"The work is worthless unless it's connected to the music," he says.
"I know Peter Saville at Factory would reference stuff like art history,
but to me that's too easy." He pulls out a copy of Red House Painters'
1992 debut Down Colorful Hill, with its stark, sepia portrait of a bed
with an ornate lace bedspi-ead. "That's one of our most complete. The
photo existed. It was just remembering it when I was listening to the
record, which Chris had described as making Lou Reed's Berlin sound
like a disco record! The band had this image of a flattened sunflower
with horrible colours, which was so far away from the music. But
when I showed them my chosen image, they agreed. It has just die
right mood: melancholic, reflective, and slightly desperate."
As 4AD broke beyond an identikit sound with disparate new sign-
ings, so Oliver pursued new directions beyond his favoured sepia
tones, from David Lynch-style surrealism for the Pixies to neon-glow
ing Polaroid abstractions for Lush to collages referencing 'S0s/'60s
magazine advertisements for Ultra Vivid Scene.
Oliver's design for the Pixies' Come On Pilgrim debut "came from
my first conversations with Charles [Francis,
Pixies singer]. He said, 'I like nudes. I like figu
rative work. I like darkness', and then we
drifted from ideas behind the music to films
we both liked, like David Lynch's. Simon
Larbalestier had already shot the image of
the guy [Sean Bolton] as part of his degree
work, and I could see that it would work on
every level. Sean got in contact with me a
couple of years back when the Pixies
re-formed — he's now a primary school
maths teacher."
Oliver was especially inspired in his
teens by Roger Dean's sci-fi landscapes and
the lurid glamour of Roxy Music's imagery.
He studied graphic design at Newcastle
Polytechnic as a way to break into sleeve
design, and then, having moved to London, I
was sharing studio space with two designers $
They couldn't make one meeting at the @
label, so sent Oliver to go and see 4AD's »
 liAlil E.S

■ I
tiv-
Wrr■■■■>
t& ..

m WMmmSmmW,

Memory gongs:
(clockwise from top left)
The Breeders' Pod
(1990); Lush's ScarEP;
Red House Painters'
Down Colorful Hill
(1992); Pixies' Doolittle
(1989); The Breeders'
Last Splash (1993);
Cocteau Twins' Love's
Easy Tears EP; Pixies'
Bossanova (1989); This
Mortal Coil's Song To
The Siren 12in single.

n *"

-at <Spluj>li
■:.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 129

 . ' ■• >3fcr '

'"'

■'. rh \

"I LOVE Q. YOU ARE MUCH

COOLER THAN WHEN YOU
STARTED. SO ARE U2."
ARCTIC \* -ARCADE
MONKEYS ' 1) J>~< FIRE

3$*rai
2006
REVIEWED

Greatest*
' ' Singers !]
lOOO
THE ESSENTIAL MUSIC GUIDE. Greatest i!
i Songs
ON SALE Ist OF EVERY MONTH. \-J&A
 THE STORIES

(Clockwise from top)

Ultra Vivid Scene's Ultra
Vivid Scene (1988);
Lush's Black Spring
EP; Ultra Vivid Scene's
Joy 1967-1990(1990);
Throwing Muses'
Throwing Muses (1986);
Dead Can Dance's
The Serpent's Egg
(1988); Cocteau Twins'
Garlands (1982). (Below)
Modern English's
Gathering Dust EP.

founder, Ivo Watts-Russell. "We'd meet at gigs after that, and I'd bend by car spray paint for Head Over Heels to the 'classic 4AD' sleeve of
his ear. I talked myself into more work, basically." Treasure. "It's a chiaroscuro effect, light and dark, with attention to detail
Oliver was clearly the right man for his first job, Modern English's on the typography. But boiled down, it's a bloody mannequin with a
4AD debut, the Gathering Dust EP, as the Diane Arbus photo that the few bits of lace around it! I like that die subject matter is so banal but
band wanted on the cover was the same one he'd manipulated as part you can create something special from it. It goes with the music, not
of his screen print module at against it. That's why 4AD was so outside the times, so
college. Hitting his stride, Oliver un-postmodern. We were romantic and poetic."
Oliver has no problem admitting that he remains a
began mining "medical text
books, obtuse illustrations, romantic. "I love this experience," he says, sliding a 12in
inner sleeve from the outer sleeve and lining up contrasting
taking images out of context.
"In terms of reflecting images from both, "and dien the sexy black vinyl inside
music, texture has always been that. It's an object in itself. Which has been denied us with
there for me," he adds. "You can CDs." But his imagination still runs wild, even if he's as
see music as textures, colours, fanatical nowadays about Wandle Wanderers, die under-
10s football team he coaches, and as proud of his FA
ideas, the words that pop out at
you..." It's there in the amor Coaching Level 1 badge as his Pixies sleeves. And no, their
phous imagery he orchestrated strip doesn't resemble a naked madman wearing a belt of
for the Cocteau Twins, from the eels doing a fertility dance — but you must wonder what the
others think of this most eccenti'ic ot soccer dads...
24-gallon tub of water coloured

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 131

THE OUTTAKES A STORM IN HEAVEN
THE VERVE

d3~cl3~d?

Brainstorm
THE VERVE WANTED
ACOVER THAT
SYMBOLISED THE
CYCLE OF LIFE FOR
^■■4
->*»-*i■-*■■
" #■»--;■■

THEIR DEBUT ALBUM.

SO THEY STARTED BY
SETTING FIRE TO AN
OLD BANGER IN A
FRIEND'S BACK
GARDEN, MICHAEL band's manager Dave Halliwell was given the task
SPENCER JONES ever," claims lensman Michael of striking the match. We had no idea how hot it
TELLS LOIS WILSON. Spencer Jones of the time he would be when it caught fire, or that the tyres
was asked to take a series of would start exploding. He was blown backward,
shots for the sleeve of A Storm In almost burnt alive."
T H E M O S THeaven,
DANG E 1993
the R O Udebut
S s halbumoot Halliwell wasn't the only one feeling shaken
by Verve (then sans definite article). "It started that day. The car to be set alight - a Citroen
out innocently enough. Singer Richard Ashcroft purchased for £100 from a scrapyard - was
came up with the idea of setting fire to a car; the placed in the back garden of some friends of the
main question was whether we use petrol or band's in Billinge, Wigan. "Their parents just
diesel. And once we'd settled on petrol, the weren't happy at all - they were convinced we
were going to burn their house

'The band's manager was blown down, and a fire engine did turn
up at one point. But we got
hold of a fire extinguisher, just

back, almost burnt alive. MICHAEL SPENCER JONES

to play it safe, and while Dave
Halliwell was trying to figure out
how to use it, he set it off. That
didn't inspire confidence!"
It was an ambitious project from the start.
To visually augment Verve's atmospheric,
innovative outing, Michael and sleeve designer
Brian Cannon and Verve frontman Richard
Ashcroft arrived at the idea of having a series
of shots that represented the human lifecycle
of birth, exuberance (symbolised by the burning
car), apathy and death.

JONES AND CANNON'S design team Microdot

had handled Verve's portfolio from their inaugural
single, 1992's All In The Mind, after a fortuitous
meeting with the group's label, Hut. "Brian was
down in London, showing his portfolio," says
Jones. "He mentioned he was from Wigan, and
they'd just signed Verve from Wigan, and that was
enough to make an initial connection. Then they
saw our design for the Ruthless Rap Assassins'
debut record -we'd photographed a burning
record for it. It became a recurring motif in our
work - setting fire to things!"
Jones intended to juxtapose the violence and
intensity of the city with the peacefulness
of the rural countryside: "I didn't wantto place
the car in an urban setting; I thought it would
lose a lot of its power due to familiarity. So the
moment we placed it in an environment that
no one was expecting, it immediately became J
far more interesting." !
On the day of the first shoot, for 'Exuberance', I
expectations were high: "So high that about 100 |
of the band'sfriends had turned up wanting to be s
in the portrait. I remember looking through the »

132 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 133
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 4 ■
THE OUTTAKES
m u
ds C& d3 C& c
m u
A STORM IN HEAVEN

■ u
THE VERVE
m

Rock of ages: » camera's viewfinder and thinking it looked like an

(clockwise
from above) extended family snap. I had to politely tell them
'birth', 'apathy' they weren't needed. I only wanted the band."
and 'death'
overs from There was another problem. The heat
the conceptual generated from the car was so hot that it was only
cover shoots.
safe for the group to take up their positions for a
moment or two: "They ran in, I took the shots in
rapid succession, and then they got out again as
quick as they could."
Props were added to give the shot an extra
edge. "The family had a cart in the garden, which
emphasised the bucolic, and I thought it would be
a surreal touch to have someone up a ladder on
the side of the house. That was Miles Leonard,
who signed the band. There was a satellite dish
on the side of the farmhouse which the owners
refused to remove, but luckily the smoke from
the car obscured it."
Overjoyed with the resulting shot, Michael next
decamped to Thor's Cave in Staffordshire to
capture 'Birth', which would adorn the front cover.
"The cave represented the womb. With the
organic structure to the side, it looked like a
natural vignette. Rather than putting the band
name on the finished shot, we decided to include
it in the scene. The letters were made by a welder
in Manchester, covered in lint and then soaked Southport. "We'd come full circle," says Jones.
in petrol and set alight." "The guy in the graveyard giving the peace sign,
In contrast, the photo signifying 'Apathy' he drove a tank- he was one of the Desert Rats.
summoned feelings of claustrophobia and We used him as he came with an interesting
despair. "It was shot in a damp cellar in Up provenance. He smoked Senior Service, without
Holland, Lancashire to heighten that experience. the filter tips, a 60-a-dayguy. He's wearing
Wejust wanted to visually encapsulate the Richard's clothes. We came up with the idea
state people can get themselves into if they on the spot, so Richard was more than likely
lose interest in everything. I symbolised this standing off camera in his underwear! The
by capturing the guy, a friend who is now sadly telephone sign was a reference to communicat
dead, watching himself on TV. There's another ing beyond the grave, crossing the boundary from
TV in the shot to emphasise this hopelessness the physical world to the spiritual world."
- he's just watching his life pass him by. He's The sleeve took three months to complete.
I totally passive in it. The whisky bottle added to "It did take a longtime," recalls Jones. "It was a
j the narrative, while the lighting gave it an extra real labour of love, but because I loved the music
\ sense of drama." so much I wanted it to be special. The best thing
i The final shot in the sequence, signposting with The Verve was that they were up for as many
i 'Death', took place in Birkdale Cemetery, mad ideas as we could muster."

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 135

THE STORIES
D
aranoid
»■»>»>»>»*»+»+»»+»»>
FIRE' BREATHER TURNED RADIOHEAD CONFIDANTE AND SLEEVE ARTIST STANLEY DON WOOD
TALKS "DECADENT HORROR" AND "REPETITIVE ANGST" WITH IAN GITTINS.
HAT IS IT like working on Radiohead's record
sleeves? It's just a headfuck," says Stanley Donwood.
"The constant and/or recurring panic that accom
panies any new project cripples my brain and makes
me a tedious and repetitive angst merchant."
Radiohead could hardly have found a more apposite kindi-ed spir
it to design their sleeve artdian Donwood. Born plain Dan Rickwood,
he has shaped die band's visual edios ever since 1994, when he de
signed the cover of the band's My Iron Lung EE Since then, he has
consistently produced some of the most striking, gnomic and allusive
rock artwork extant.
Donwood first met Radiohead frontman Thorn Yorke when both
were arts undergraduates at the Univei-sity of Exeter in die early '90s.
Yorke was travelling back to Oxlord at weekends to rehearse widi his
band On A Friday, who were soon to become Radiohead, and his
peripatetic fellow student paid them a visit.
1 don't ever ego in wont to f<reel
as I did while making the ar^A/ork
to Kid A STANLEY DONWOOD
"I was hitchhiking round the UK with a
mate doing fire-breathing to apathetic,
non-cash-donating tourists," claims Don-
KID A
wood. "We just made enough to buy beer
and more paraffin. I wanted to support On
A Friday at the Jericho Tavern, but we
weren't allowed to due to fire regulations. I
later gave up fire-breathing because I heard
it gives you pleurisy and my girlfriend
wouldn't kiss me because I always smelt of
petrochemicals."
Once renamed and signed to EMI,
Radiohead's 1993 debut album, Pablo
Honey, featured a rather gauche cover with
Jw... *^*
136 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
rod
flowers budding from a baby's head. They asked Donwood, who at the
time had "no interest in design at all", to become dieir sleeve artist. "I
think they wanted someone else to do their sleeves because of... well,
because of Pablo Honey,'" he reflects now. "It's not awfully good, is it?"
HE FIRST ALBUM sleeve to bear Donwood's imprint was
199S's The Bends, for which the designer and Yoi'ke paid an
undercover visit to a hospital. "We bluffed our way in with a
video camera looking for an iron lung," says Donwood. "When we
found one, it looked really boring, but we also found a mannequin
that the staff practised resuscitation on. It had this strange mix of
agony and ecstasy on its rubbery face."
However, this rudimentary cover paled in comparison to the
sleeve for the next Radiohead album, 1997 's OK Computer. Donwood
decamped with the band to actress Jane Seymour's mansion near
Bath and worked alongside them as they recorded the album. The
record's blanched, fractured sleeve was
born at die same time as the music.
"The important diing is, die artwork has
to reflect the music. By the time die record
has a shape, I've hopefully managed to at least
vaguely reflect it. We always work together,
and I'd like to diink that we can accomplish
an artistic project without the need for a
'briefing', or even worse, a 'concept'."
Nevertheless, as OK Computer's provoca
tive, abstract sleeve developed, it was clear
diat one Radiohead member was far more
involved than the rest. Thorn Yorke spent
hours with the designer poring over a laptop
in a corner of Seymour's library, helping to
assemble the layered sleeve-booklet images
of everyday dislocation. When the record
appeared, the artwork was credited to
"Stanley donwood and the white chocolate
farm" — just one of a range of bizarre alter
egos that Yorke has adopted.
"When OK Computer's sleeve was finished,
I was incredibly happy with it, but then I >■.
MOJO Greatest Album Covers 137
THE STORKS

SSiiff^v^^

138 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

had grave doubts," recalls Donwood.
Thorn Yorke had found his creative
soulmate: an art director as ambitious,
paranoid and prone to crippling self-
doubt as himself. The singer was to
find the kindred company useful in
2000 as Radiohead headed into the
musical long, dark night ot the soul
that was the making of Kid A.
Radiohead's lurch into esoteric
freeform jazz-electronica was faithfully
mirrored on the cover. With Yorke,
now working under the alias Dr
Tchock, as his design sidekick, Donwood crafted a Hieronymous
Bosch-influenced collage of alpine lunar landscapes, blasted vistas and
scorched terrains. KidA's apocalyptic visuals were credited thus: "Land
scapes, knives and glue by Stanley & Tchock". It was not an easy time.
"It was horrible," says the designer now. "I don't ever again want
to feel as I did while making that artwork. It was a horribly lucid time,
and I contend that Kid A is an extraordinarily prescient record. One
day, perhaps, I may explain the decadent horror that engendered that
work, but I'm not ready yet."
Nevertheless, by the simultaneous recording of Kid A and its fol
low-up, Amnesiac, Radiohead's design dynamic was firmly established:
Donwood and Yorke working in intensive tandem, with the rest of the
band as interested onlookers. The duo certainly surpassed themselves
with die riot of images that appeared inside the red hardback library-
book cover that housed Amnesiac. "Musically, Amnesiac was in close-up
and Kid A was wide angle," explains Donwood. "The same goes for the
artwork — Kid A was urban and Amnesiac rural. It was the first CD I
managed to put into a book. I hate compact discs; I love books." The
organisers of2002's Grammy Awards echoed the designer's enthusi
asm, giving the embarrassed-looking Donwood and Tchock a Grammy
for Best Recorded Package at that year's awards ceremony.
Donwood's sleeve for 2003's Hail To The Thief again reflected
Radiohead's perennial themes of alienation, postmodern paranoia
and creeping globalisation, comprising a series
of politically charged buzzwords on a map that
folded out of a paper sleeve. Like Amnesiac, it
eschewed traditional CD packaging; it is hard to
imagine this most environmentally aware of
bands submitting again to the evils of the non-
recyclable plastic jewel case.
Yorke and Donwood continued their creative
partnership on the singer's debut solo album,
The Eraser, in die summer of 2006. Donwood is
athing towards the notion that he could have
felt under greater pressure working widi/for j ust
Yorke: "The pressure on me comes from within,
not from Radiohead or from Thorn."
The sleeve print, showing a beleaguered London being swept away
by climate change-induced fire and flood, was true to established
Radiohead lyrical and visual themes. Yet with Dr Tchock, for once,
leaving him to his own devices, Donwood adopted a different modus
operandi from the digital norm.
"I wanted to avoid computers completely," he says. "I created the
sleeve via lino cutting, using floor tiles, a chisel and a huge cast-iron
press made in 1860. It was different from anything I had ever done
before because it was more tabloid: black and white and red with no
hidden meanings or partially revealed shades of meaning. It is what it
is, and that's it."
Wary of divulging whether his creative conversations with Radio-
head are profound or prosaic ("Er, it depends on how late it is"),
Donwood also professes scorn for the limitations of modern record-
sleeve art: "CD covers in general are just too small to give a flying fuck
about." Yet he remains grateful for the patronage that has allowed him
to design some of the most spectacular mass-market music artwork of
the last decade.
"I would never dream of foisting my musical notions upon Radio-
head," he says in closing. "In return, they seem content to allow me
to indulge my frenetic interpretations. Aldiough if they ever read this,
of course, that may change..."
MOJO Greatest Album Covers 139
 THE OUTTAKES £ DEFINITELY MAYBE W~4
OASIS ¥ fj
i U V U V u V U ■ ^

♦
♦♦♦■♦■■♦
♦ •'■♦
♦♦■♦
♦♦♦■♦
'♦ ♦♦♦■■♦■+
♦ ♦
+ *♦
•*+ •■-♦
*'+♦ +♦
♦♦
PHOTOGRAPHER
MICHAEL
SPENCER JONES
TELLS LOIS
WILSON HOW

& Alcohol
HETURNED
OASIS GUITARIST
BONEHEAD'S
LOUNGE INTO
AN ENDURING
ROCK'N'ROLL
IMAGE.

had been working together since 1990, but it

Michael Spencer Jones when he was their work with The Verve that had caught
discovered that Noel Gallagher wanted toNoel's eye. "He told Creation he wanted the art
shoot the cover for Oasis's debut album,
team behind their sleeves to do Oasis's covers.
We already knew who Noel was. When he was
Definitely Maybe, in their guitarist Paul
I WAS'Bonehead'
GUTTED," Arthur's
ADMITSfrontphotographer
room in working as a roadie with the Inspiral Carpets,
Didsbury, Manchester. "I didn't know how we'd who had an office in the same building as ours,
pull it off. But sometimes when you are given a we'd see him making tea for the band."
tight framework you can be much more creative." The photo session took a day. "The main
Jones was working with designer Brian Cannon problem was how to make the resulting image
at Cannon's design company, Microdot, when not look like a straight band press shot," says
they took the call from Oasis in 1994. The two Jones. The catalyst was stumbling upon the idea
of having Liam Gallagher lying

"We thought about having Liam on the floor with his eyes shut.
"That immediately set it
out as being different, and

hanging from the ceiling. then we built the rest of the

MICHAELSPENCER JONES shot around that. One of the
roadies brought in an inflatable
globe. I thought it would be great if it were
spinning, so I took the eventual shot on a time

ESS /m^ttel. J ,1/1.

1) J/f-L/^&LU f'h
T
>l<j-?
exposure. Then I got Noel to sit on the settee."
Drummer Tony Carroll was plonked in front of
the TV watching Noel's favourite film, The Good,
The Bad And The Ugly. Objects were carefully
placed around the room - the carafe and wine
glasses were Bonehead's, but rather than red
wine they were filled with Ribena: "It was Ribena
because no one drank red wine. I felt there had
to be an alcohol reference, and I wasn't keen to
have cans of lager strewn around as it would have
just looked like product placement and naff. So
I opted for wine, which I think gives the picture
more sophistication."
There was also a pack of Noel's Benson &
Hedges on show, plus Burt Bacharach's Portrait
In Music. On the mantelpiece stood Bonehead's
wooden flamingo and his George Best photo.
"While the Gallagher brothers were Man City fans,
Bonehead was a Man United fan, but Noel and
Liam didn't mind because they thought George
transcended football - he was a Beatle. The pic
of Rodney Marsh was Guigsy's."
Jones thought about printing the shot upside
down - "so Liam would have been hanging from
the ceiling, but we decided it would be too quirky
and gimmicky". The finished shot was then given
a blue-orange tint. "It made it more surreal."
The band were overjoyed with the result.
"The great thing about working with Oasis was
that they were always open to ideas," concludes
Jones. "There was no lengths I wouldn't go to in
the name of art for them."

140 MOJO Greatest Album Covers

 ^ *
p 3»*%
X

Round our way:

play spot the
difference
with this front
cover outtake;
(right) overs
from the CD
booklet pics.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 141

THE STORIES
Feel Gooc
he PREVIOUSLY THE BRAINS BEHIND CARTOON ANTI-HERO
TANK GIRL, ARTIST JAMIE HEWLETT DIDN'T JUST DESIGN
FUTURISTIC POP GROUP GORILLAZ - HE HELPED CREATE
THE BAND WITH DAMON ALBARN. BY IAN GITTINS
ANY A BAND has decided over the years to deco
rate the cover of their debut album with their name
and a classic portrait of the band members. When
Gorillaz opted for this tried-and-trusted gambit for
their first album in 2001, designer Jamie Hewlett had
one unique hurdle to overcome: the group didn't actually exist.
"It was important to put them on die sleeve because they are the
band," he says. "So I regarded the fact that they didn't exist as the big
challenge. It was down to me to convince people to believe in them."
Hewlett did at least have a strong understanding of what Gorillaz
were all about, as he and Damon Albarn had invented what was the
world's first virtual rock group when he was sharing a flat with die Blur
singer in the late 1990s.
Hewlett had first come to Albarn's attention via his groundbreaking
work in late-'80s pop culture magazine Deadline. The graphic artist,
newly graduated from art college in Worthing, invented Tank Girl, an
anarchic comic strip telling the tale of an attitudinal teenage punk who
'Gorillaz have become difficult
to work with.,, just like any other
multimillion-selling band
lived in a tank and dated a mutant kangaroo. "The Tank Girl strip was
brilliant because she was so un-superhero-like," says Jan Wiacek, a
comics guru at sci-fi and fantasy book chain Forbidden Planet. "She
was so in-your-face, always going off at tangents and getting drunk."
The cult strip's fame spread so far diat in 199S it was made into a major
(and somewhat disappointing) film with Lori Petty and Ice-T
Pre-Gorillaz, Hewlett had already dabbled with record cover art,
designing sleeves for early '90s indie outfits Senseless Things and Cud.
He also drew a comic strip illustrating Pulp's 1995 hit Common Peo
ple. After Deadline closed die following year, he worked in advertising
and designing for television, including Ant & Dec's show, SM:tv Live.
It was around this time that Hewlett moved in with Albarn and
the idea of a virtual reality pop troupe was born. As Albarn, Del tha
Funkee Homosapien and Dan the Automator shaped the music,
Hewlett and the Blur singer conceptualised and fleshed out the band's
members: preternaturally cynical bassist and band leader Murdoc,
ingenuous singer 2D, tiny female Japanese guitarist Noodle and hulk
ing NY drummer and hip hop guru Russel.
142 MOJO Greatest Album Covers
When the band's debut EF! Tomorrow Comes Today, was released
in 2000, Hewlett drew an accompanying promotional booklet to
illustrate their fictional back-story. Bodi the music and comics worlds
took to Gorillaz immediately. "Gorillaz is wonderful visually," endiuses
Wiacek. "Hewlett's work has just always linked in brilliandy to what
is happening in music and fashion."
T
HE DEBUT ALBUM appeared the following year and the
sleeve booklet carried a riot of Hewlett images showing 2D,
Murdoc, Noodle, Russel and cohorts in a variety of situations
and scenarios. It was die front cover, diough, that grabbed the atten
tion. Widi Murdoc, naturally, at the wheel, the four band members
stared insouciantly from inside a khaki-hued open-top "geep".
"We all liked the image straight away and it just seemed right,"
remembers Hewlett. "Plus some idiot from the record company told
me that it would never work. So we went with it just to piss him off."
Whereas most sleeve photographers and designers can do little
more than capture and faithfully reflect the
artists making the music, Hewlett revels in
his poetic licence to create the personae
behind Gorillaz. Nevertheless, when he came
to design the sleeve for their second album,
2005's Demon Days, the situation had altered
JAMIE HEWLETT
dramatically. No longer a cult secret, Murdoc
and co were now global megastars and very
public property. "Gorillaz have become very difficult to work with,"
the designer moans. "They've become just like any other multi-mil
lion-selling modern band — they are right up their own arses."
Is that why the striking cover to Demon Days, rather than another
group shot, comprises a series of individual portraits — to illustrate die
process whereby success always drives a wedge between tire members
of great bands? "No — I was trying to rip off The Beaties' Let It Be."
Hewlett-driven Gorillaz side-projects to date have included a slew
of inspired videos (Dare's was comically based around Shaun Ryder's
frankly gigantic mush), a recently released coffee-table book, Rise Of
The Ogre, and £20 Gorillaz action figures.
There is no doubt that Hewlett's brilliandy original work has raised
the game for today's record sleeve artists. This year the Design Muse
um voted him Designer Of The Year for his work widi Gorillaz, and he
has recentiy intimated his desire to revive die mooted-but-tiien-aban-
doned idea of Gorillaz: The Movie. Is there any guarantee it will be any
more successful than Tank Girl? "It will be fantastic," says Wiacek, "as
long as Jamie doesn't let fucking Hollywood anywhere near it."
 Monkey business:
(clockwise from top
left) Gorillaz' Demon
Days (2005); Deadline
magazine's Tank Girl;
Gorillaz' Tomorrow
Comes Today EP and
front and rear of their
eponymous debut
album (2001); comic-
strip illustration for
Pulp's Common People
single; Gorillaz' Feel
Good Inc single.

MOJO Greatest Album Covers 143

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