Great Album Covers: Parallax

It has been a year of very memorable album covers, from the classic 4AD aping cover of Wye Oak's Civilian to the crying crude drawing of Panda Bear's Tomboy to the oblique, borderline-suicidal looking cover of Destroyer's Kaputt. None, however, seems as in tune with its musical content as this.

Atlas Sound is Bradford Cox's solo project outside of Deerhunter, and his covers have featured deformed looking men with Marfan's syndrome-like bodies similar to Cox's own (I think Logos may even have him on the cover). This one, however, glamorizes Cox in a classic 50s/60s pop-vocalist way, with a washed out color style. Yet as close as he is to the camera on the cover, and thus to the viewer...as mellow and accessible as Parallax is as an album...it's all still quite distant and confused. Cox is deliberately averting his gaze, or perhaps he's distracted with a thought of someone or something from the past. Also note that he is still half in darkness.

Anyway, maybe I'm over-analyzing again. All that artsy intellectual ruminating aside, it is a hell of a great cover. And a hell of a great record. But that is a blog entry for another time.

Great Album Covers: Bitches Brew

I really did mean to post a review today, but I still haven't given Grouper's double album, A I A: Alien Observer/Dream Loss, enough time or listens to formulate a coherent opinion about.

Still, I recently let a friend borrow a Miles Davis boxset I own (The Cellar Door Sessions one) and it in turn forced me to finally listen to some electric Miles again. And hot damn!

Some of the by turns peaceful/stormy, Earthy/otherworldly music of Bitches Brew is previewed by this cover, so before you even hear the music you already, somehow, intuitively have a good idea of what it's going to sound like judging by the cover.

Extra points go for this being one of those awesome "the album art wraps around onto the back" covers, using the sweating woman as a sort of hinge between the two.

See? One could say it is truly bitchin'. If one were so inclined.

Great Album Covers- Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill

My original inspiration for doing this blog series about album covers came from a random old booklet that was included with some records I had ordered from Insound.com In it, there was an essay from someone talking about Grouper's Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, and it really got me to thinking about how certain album covers had filled me with strong feelings, like dread or sadness or love, in a similar way to what the essay was talking about.

I have to confess that for some reason the album art never shows up when I play this album in iTunes, and I don't own the vinyl, so the cover art rarely occurs to me when I listen to the album. The music seems more tranquil and...aquatic than this cover would make you think. It's also a more accessible record than her new double album, but I'll get to that eventually.

I feel like the lighting is what makes this cover work. If it were better lit, it would look like a silly little girl in a Halloween costume pouting at her parents. But with some haze and darkness going on, the little girl becomes a figure of uncertain menace, like coming across Bigfoot in the forest and being unsure how afraid you should be.

Great Album Covers- Geogaddi

Boards Of Canada are one of those bands whose every release is a momentous occasion, if only because it happens less frequently than Presidential elections. As such you're given plenty of time to absorb their albums and dig into every corner. Boards Of Canada further inspire intrigue and obsession by playing on music nerd past times, putting backmasked messages in their songs, referencing numerology and other weird religious themes, and so on. I'm sure there are still people trying to figure out why they put a track of pure silence at the end of Geogaddi. It couldn't be just to round off the album to being 66:66 in runtime, could it?! There must be something there if you listen close enough, sort of like the missing 18 minutes on the infamous Nixon Tapes.

Right?

Anyway, I feel like Boards Of Canada are also one of those bands whose every album cover is perfectly chosen. There's a simultaneously psychedelic, dark, child-like, and entrancing quality to their music which is perfectly captured in their covers. True, the Geogaddi cover may be the most coherent kaleidoscope image ever seen--it's a dude, with arms outstretched, in front of some trees!--yet it still strikes me as, well, psychedelic, dark, child-like, and entrancing. I really wish I owned this album on vinyl, but then again, it would only inspire me to do a lot of drugs and stare at it (and the rest of the album art inside) for hours at a time.

Great Album Covers- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Though my opinion of the album has gone back and forth over the years, there's no denying what an important and iconic album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was and remains. Chicago had become a cultural mecca in the 90s for the indie and post-rock scenes though realistically the city was known as a center for great art of all stripes for many years. Indeed, it is the artistic mecca of the entire Midwest. That a band like Wilco would end up there seems only fitting, since they spent the first phase of their career moving from alt.country to more experimental music, much as young people from the Midwest often leave their suburban and rural birthplaces for the intellectual and artistic offerings of Chicago.

It's only fitting that something from Chicago would end up on a Wilco album cover, and that it would also be on the band's most iconic album is sweet serendipity. The low angle view of Marina City emphasizes the bizarre appearance of its towers; unless you're from the area you probably weren't sure exactly what you were looking at right away. "What are these, man, like prickly corncobs...?"

Beyond the unique look of these buildings, their use on the cover cements Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as a Chicago album through and through.

Great Album Covers- Thrust

I really wish I could find a bigger version of this cover. One that wasn't washed out looking, anyway, but short of scanning and stitching together images of my vinyl copy of this album, this is the best we can do.

There are many things I want to say about this cover, though perhaps it's best to start by saying that Thrust's artwork is more akin to a Parliament-Funkadelic live show than anything else in the world. Note the absurd keyboard controls for his weird bubble spaceship. Note the "surely inspired by drugs" intricate detail of absolutely everything going on here: the switches and dials at Herbie's hands, the mountain and labyrinth (maybe) he's flying toward, the moon, etc.

You'll also want to note Herbie's expression, which absolutely sells how badass this cover is even though it is also simultaneously dated and lame. What I mean is, even Ceelo couldn't get away with this kind of artwork in today's world. Even under the veil of retro kitsch it would be too far.

Also, it bears mention that this is a damn good jazz/funk record. My copy has skips in it that make it seem like it's making loops of itself for use on hip hop tracks; hearing it without them loses something, at least in my mind.

Great Album Covers- Blonde On Blonde

Do yourself a favor sometime and go the Albums section of Bob Dylan's official site. A wall of images greets you, small thumbnails arranged in reverse chronological order. For a man who has more than half a dozen iconic covers under his belt--even the first Greatest Hits is iconic--the one that still sticks out to me is Blonde On Blonde.

During this time it was common for bands to appear on their covers. Sometime in the mid-60s, though, the true art of album covers took off. Sure, jazz artists sometimes used works of art as covers and the like, but pop musicians never before tried new things. The most interesting Beatles cover to me is not the busy-yet-lush-and-detailed Sgt. Pepper's one, but the ultra-minimalist White Album. In fact, if memory serves, it's the only cover they don't appear on.

So why then did I choose one in which the artist does appear? Well, for two reasons. One, Dylan may be on the cover but his name and the album's title aren't. This had to have been one of the first examples of a pop musician not having their name or album title on the cover; it's as if Dylan is trying to get beyond his name and its attached fame, trying to make you dig deeper into the music instead.

And the second reason? I just adore this picture. It's hazy and out of focus, belying the druggy/boozy music contained therein. I don't know when this picture was taken or why, and I want to keep that mystery. This has always been the irony of Dylan to me; I don't really want to know the "real" Dylan like so many do. I prefer the image and the mystery; I prefer the music and lyrics without direct explanations of who/what they're about. This is the sort of record cover that appeals to my imagination, by which I mean, I fill in the blanks myself.

To my mind, he has just emerged from a house with a bad hangover and wishes nothing more than to smoke a cigarette without it making him want to puke before he gets on his motorcycle to head to the recording studio. A press photographer from across a street spies him while getting a coffee at a diner, rushes outside, and snaps a few quick shots with shaky, anxious hands. It's like spotting Bigfoot and knowing you have mere moments to get a clear photo. Dylan squints, annoyed, and heads back inside, deciding to stay home instead. The photographer hurries back to his dark room and develops the photos, impatient all the while, but the only one even halfway usable is still a little out-of-focus and Dylan has a sour look on his face. Still, Dylan's two-fisted-son-of-a-bitch manager Albert Grossman tracks down the photographer's publication and sues to get the photos back. Dylan, in his usual contrarian way, loves the real-ness captured in the photo and decides to use it for his next album cover.

Great Album Covers: In Ear Park

Some of the best album covers of course come from existing sources, whether it be public domain pictures from the Civil War, say, or re-contextualized art of some sort. I think the cover for the first Fleet Foxes album was a perfect summation and complement to the music, somehow, and I feel the same about In Ear Park.

Taken from a four picture series by artist/photographer Amelia Bauer, the cover is a close crop of the 4th one shown below. Something about seeing trees in perfect nighttime blackness illuminated by an intense light speaks to me on a subconscious level I can't quite explain. Glance at, say, the 1st one below and you might mistake it for a quick shot of one of the Ents from the Lord of the Rings movies. Glance quickly at the others and you might assume this a photograph someone took of Bigfoot and now you need to look closer to spot him (or her!).

Check out http://www.ameliabauer.com/ for more amazing art.

Great Album Covers: Standards

With the dominance of the CD as the musical format of choice in the 90s and early 00s, I feel like less care and imagination were taken for album covers. Since the CD was the primary format, it made for smaller, often less interesting covers. A band's music videos and magazine interview pictorials became more important to drawing people in than word of mouth or, indeed, an album's cover. So why not just have a visual pun on the album's title as a cover, or a blinged out, fisheye picture of a rapper with a bunch of shiny words in a gold font around him?

Still, during this time there were some bands putting out interesting or noteworthy album covers. Tortoise's in particular I recall always being drawn to, even in CD form. With the exception of It's All Around You, I love every one of the covers they've had for all of their releases, even the cool B&W photo of an accident scene on the A Lazarus Taxon boxset.

Standards is probably my favorite of all, however. As an instrumental band, it's strange to see such a political cover, suggesting perhaps that something wasn't right about our country. Moreover, the chopped up, Photoshopped U.S. flag on the cover hints at the jittery, heavily electronic sound of the music contained within.

Great Album Covers: Live/Dead

Far from the stereotypical psychedelic motifs the band is known for, the cover for the Grateful Dead's landmark Live/Dead is rich with details and oblique, almost medieval symbols. The woman rising from a wooden coffin seems Christian, right down to the red and white cross on the right, but the middle symbol, closely inspected, is a triangle inside a square. What's more, the tip of the tincture she's holding has a Star Of David on it.

Note the incredible detail in the leaf-like patterns of the backgrounds. Note the way the coffin casts a shadow yet the woman does not. Sure, this could just be to make "Live" legible, but it could also be that she's a ghost or spirit of some sort.

I think I'm putting too much thought into this. Pass the cookies, man.

Great Album Covers: Double Nickels On The Dime

This is one of those accidentally great album covers, not in the sense that the picture was an accident, but in that a relatively modest band with a relatively modest idea produced something timeless and near-perfect. A half-joke at the expense of the hit song 'I Can't Drive 55', this cover shows bassist Mike Watt driving at exactly 55 and headed toward the band's beloved hometown, San Pedro.

The first time I saw this cover, I thought it was a picture from the 50s. Watt and the car seem oddly button-down and conservative, and his obvious smile--magically, his smiling eyes are in focus in the rearview mirror--seems to be ironically saying that driving the speed limit was a good time, after all.

By curious coincidence, this album is filed next to Cookin' At The Plugged Nickel by Miles Davis in my collection. Cookin' with double nickels...?

Nevermind.

Great Album Covers: April

The last two album covers by Sun Kil Moon can serve as signifiers for the focus of the lyrics inside. While last year's Admiral Fell Promises featured a hazy view from a window, hinting at that album's sense of being on-the-move and watching the world while not always becoming directly involved, 2008's April looks like a particularly artsy photo from an antiques store. Or, more likely, the nice lighting above the dinner table in someone's house.

Mark Kozelek's lyrics evoke those introspective, dramatic moments that occur when you're in a relationship or getting over one. In particular, the kind of realizations you have while unable to sleep and staring at the fancy lights in your dining room. You know, kind of like the cover of the album.

Even without all of that in mind, this is still a really lovely cover. I've used it as my desktop background at work for a couple years.

Great Album Covers: Trout Mask Replica

Sure, you can find innumerable lists of obscure, weird album covers from the 60s through the 80s on various websites and blogs, but by and large they are both weird and terrible at the same time. Not so for Trout Mask Replica, which I owned on CD for years and eventually had to buy on vinyl just to have a bigger version of its cover. That's because it is both weird and fantastic at the same time.

This cover is like a multi-layered puzzle you eventually figure out by listening to the album. Even then, questions remain:

1) Is that a light bulb or something sticking out of the top of his hat?

2) Is that actually Captain Beefheart on the cover?

3) Is that a real trout's head or a really good simulacrum?

4) Why is he cradling it in his hand as if to give it a jaunty "hello" mime?

5) OK, I get that it's a replica of a trout mask. But why would someone need a trout mask to begin with? Furthermore, does this imply that a trout mask uses a real trout, while a replica uses an aforementioned simulacrum?

Yeah, I know it's an absurdist, surreal picture that isn't trying to make sense. One of the things I love about album covers is that they can be vague or abstract and leave a lot up to the viewer. Trout Mask Replica is definitely this way, and I enjoy puzzling over it even though there are no answers to be found.

Great Album Covers: MM..Food

The art of album covers is something that has always appealed to me. I even have a half dozen or so of those wall hanging frames you can buy that display vinyl record covers as art. Anyway, since I may never end up doing more videos for Whiskey Pie, I at least want to try to incorporate something more visually oriented. And so it was that I decided to begin a new series of posts about some of my favorite—or anyway, some of the most interesting—album covers.

MM..Food struck me as the perfect place to begin, since I didn't notice how much clarity and detail was found on its cover until I happened upon a vinyl copy. Seeing this cover on a 200 x 200 JPEG on iTunes misses out on all the minutiae packed into it. For what it's worth, the back cover is equally great.

Apologies in advance if the pictures aren't exceptional or perfectly in focus, but I had to take my own rather than hunt online for the exact close-ups I wanted. With that warning out of the way, take a gander at the full cover above and we'll continue on.

Literally every corner of this cover has something interesting going on in it. The simple night scene outside the window, of buildings and the moon, subconsciously lends it a different vibe than if it had been sunny outside or raining or any other meteorological conditions.

The font for both the artist name and album title is obviously graffiti inspired, but the extra touch of a bit of green and white dripping off of both is pitch perfect.

The characters on the milk and cereal box are interesting, especially when it occurs to you that what Doom is actually eating isn't cereal at all. The 'Have You Seen Me?' part is either a reference to Doom's sometimes long layovers between releases or his onetime friend MF Grimm.

Never mind that this isn't cereal. Check out the detailing on The Thing on the right and some kind of woman-looking head on the left. These are the sort of things I never would have noticed and appreciated if not for owning the vinyl. The shadows and detailing on the hand are also incredible.

I'm fairly sure this is all a reference to MF Grimm. The pun of it being a Brothers Grim-style fairy tale book written by/for MF Grimm is a plus in my book.

I'm not sure what this drink is supposed to be, but it says 'Monster' which could be a reference to his early Monsta Island Czars release or his appearances as King Gheedorah aka Monster Zero.