Er, 31 More Singers

Well, I knew I couldn't stop at just 31. So here are 31 more. I'm sure that your favorite is probably omitted! For some of these, I've included links to videos. Hope they're helpful, and, as always, thanks for reading.

Andy Partridge (XTC): "This is Pop," "25 O'Clock," "Green Man"

Pete Seeger: "Russian Folk Themes and Yodel," "Tenting Tonight," "Times are Gettin' Hard"

Amy Winehouse: "Love is a Losing Game" (Demo), "You Sent Me Flying," "Just Friends"

Mamas & the Papas: "I Saw Her Again (Last Night)," "Got a Feelin'," "Words of Love"

Bob Dylan: "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Just Like a Woman," Baby, Let Me Follow You Down"

Otis Redding: "I've Been Loving You Too Long," "Dock of the Bay," "Day Tripper"

Hank Williams: "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," "Lovesick Blues," "Hey, Good Lookin'"

Bob DePugh (Trizo 50): "Live Like You Wanna Live," "Dream Girl" (version two), "Graveyard"

John Lydon: "Home is Where the Heart Is," "Pretty Vacant," "Holidays in the Sun"

John McCormack: "Macushla," "I Hear You Calling Me," "She Moved Through the Fair"

Diana Ross: "Love is Like an Itching in My Heart," "Love Hangover," "He's All I Got"

Roy Orbison: "There Won't Be Many Coming Home," "It's Over,""Oh, Pretty Woman"

Buddy Holly: "Peggy Sue Got Married," "Rave On," "True Love Ways"

Dionne Warwick: "Alfie," "Anyone Who Had a Heart," "I Say a Little Prayer"

Pete Ham (Badfinger): "Baby Blue," "Take it All," "We're For the Dark"

Tom Jones: "It's Not Unusual," "The Lonely One," "Promise Her Anything"

Michael Stipe: "Southern Central Rain (I'm Sorry)," "Perfect Circle," "Good Advices"

Gram Parsons: "Brass Buttons," "Return of the Grievous Angel," "To Love Somebody"

Sandy Denny: "You Never Wanted Me," "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" "I Don't Know Where I Stand"

Micky Dolenz: "As We Go Along," "Daily Nightly," "Girl I Knew Somewhere"

George Harrison: "The Inner Light," "Long Long Long," "Love Comes to Everyone"

Elvis Costello: "Tiny Steps," "Lipstick Vogue," "Baby Plays Around"

David Gilmour: "Dogs," "Breathe," "Fearless"

Mark Lindsay: "Too Much Talk," "Just Like Me," "Louie, Go Home"

Morrissey: "William, it Was Really Nothing," "Asleep," "Back to the Old House" (acoustic)

Steve Martin (The Left Banke): "Pretty Ballerina," "Walk Away Renee," "She May Call You Up Tonight"

Donovan: "Catch the Wind," "Lady of the Lamp," "The Summers Day Reflection Song"

Pete Shelley (The Buzzcocks): "Everybody's Happy Nowadays," "I Believe," "Ever Fallen In Love?"

Mick Jagger: "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Under My Thumb," "Backstreet Girl"

Astrud Gilberto: "The Girl from Ipanema," "Look to the Rainbow," "Who Needs Forever?"

Curtis Mayfield: "Move on Up," "Freddie's Dead," "Choice of Colors"

Missing in action: Roger Daltrey...Stevie Wonder...Jeff Buckley...Alex Chilton...Gladys Knight...Levi Stubbs...Terry Hall...Mick Jagger...Nina Simone...Edwyn Collins...Mike Smith...Pete Townshend...Bing Crosby...David Crosby...Roger McGuinn...Jeff Lescher...Martha Reeves...and so many more.

Thirty or Thirty-One Great Singers and Some of their Greatest Moments

Here are 31 great singers and some of the moments that I thank them for. There were originally 30.

I know that this is a fool's errand. You will probably, and rightfully, say, "How did you miss Sam Cooke/Delroy Wilson/Andy Partridge/Emmylou Harris/Hank Williams/John Lydon/Sandy Denny/Buddy Holly/Rob Tyner/Sam Phillips/Martha Reeves/Bing Crosby/Kurt Cobain? What are you smoking?" Guess it just shows how many truly great singers there are.

I suppose that I could have done artists who had just one great thing and did it fantastically well, like Little Anne, or the guy from the Castaways who sang "Liar, Liar," but I wanted artists who did more than one fantastic thing. So here they are, mostly long-term artists, and thankfully, not a Celine Dion, Bruce Hornsby, or Jon Bon Jovi among 'em.

These artists aren't really listed in order, except maybe for the first few.

Why are there 31 and not 30? Because I refuse to leave out Gene Clark.


John Lennon, “God,” “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” “All I’ve Got to Do”

Paul McCartney, “Long Tall Sally,” ”Got to Get You Into My Life,” “For No One”

Carl Wilson, “Long Promised Road,” “I Can Hear Music,” “God Only Knows”

Sheila Chandra, “ABoneCroneDrone 5,” “Om Namaha Shiva,” “Dhyana and Donalogue”

Sade Adu, “Is it a Crime,” “It’s Only Love That Gets You Through,” “Like a Tattoo”

Arthur Lee, “Maybe the People Would be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale,” “Nothing,” “Seven and Seven Is”

Dusty Springfield, “I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten,” “Just a Little Lovin’,” “The Windmills of Your Mind”

Aretha Franklin, “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You),” “Spanish Harlem,” “I Say a Little Prayer”

Ray Charles, “Mess Around,” “Night Time is the Right Time,” “Busted”

Smokey Robinson, “The Tears of a Clown,” “Ooh Baby Baby,” “The Tracks of My Tears”

The Bee Gees, “Nights on Broadway,” “Blue Island,” “In My Own Time”

The Everly Brothers, “Sleepless Nights,” “Cathy’s Clown,” “Devoted to You”

Nick Drake, “Which Will,” “Time Has Told Me,” “Clothes of Sand”

Michael Jackson, “Billie Jean,” “I Want You Back,” “I Am Love”

John Fogerty, “Bad Moon Rising,” “Lodi,” “Who’ll Stop the Rain”

Marvin Gaye, “Can I Get a Witness,” “What’s Going On,” “I’ll Be Doggone”

Colin Blunstone (The Zombies), “The Way I Feel Inside,” “Time of the Season,” “She’s Not There”

Bill Withers, “Grandma’s Hands,” “Use Me,” “You”

Brian Wilson, “Please Let Me Wonder,” “You Still Believe in Me,” “The Warmth of the Sun”

Art Garfunkel, “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” ‘For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her,” “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright”

Michael Nesmith, “What Am I Doin’ Hangin’ Round?,” “Grand Ennui,” “Silver Moon”

Steve Winwood, “I’m a Man,” “Empty Pages,” “No Face No Name No Number”

Glenn Tilbrook (Squeeze), “Pulling Mussels,” “Woman’s World,” “Satisfied”

Elvis Presley, “Love Me,” “Hound Dog,” “Burning Love”

Ella Fitzgerald, “Angel Eyes,” “Let’s Do It,” “Black Coffee”

Syd Barrett, “See Emily Play,” “Golden Hair,” “Lucifer Sam”

Frank Sinatra, “I Get Along Without You Very Well,” “That’s Life,” “In the Wee Small Hours”

Little Richard, “Keep a Knockin’,” “Tutti-Frutti,” “Good Golly Miss Molly"

Rodd Keith, “Atomic Wise,” “I Died Today,” “Ecstasy to Frenzy”

Juanes, “La Camisa Negra,” “A Dios Le Pido,” “Suenos”

Gene Clark (The Byrds), "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better," "From a Silver Phial," "If You're Gone"


Comments welcome!

Top Five Album Covers of the Rock Era

Following my last four posts of album covers which I consider the top of the art form, here are my five favorites of all. Each of these images has the power to pull me in no matter how many times I look at them. They can either make me laugh, impress me, beguile me, or even freak me out. Hope that they're at least interesting to some of you!




With the Beatles, 1963

Robert Freeman's cover photograph wasn't planned. He caught up with the band in a hotel on a British tour, constructed a makeshift background, and shot them in the black clothing they were wearing off-stage at the time. Shot in August 1963, just into Beatlemania and only a few months prior to their U.S. breakthrough, this cover captures them in what one could consider their last stage of innocence.

The stark black-and-white image is, of course, iconic--it's been parodied by many artists--and, in its shockingly high quality, mirrors the Beatles' growth as artists from their first album (Please Please Me) to the second. The group had several great photographers, including Robert whitaker, Iain MacMillan, and Ethan Russell, shoot their covers, but did any of them have such great source material to work with?

And dig the lettering...lovely 60s lower-case type, but jumbled and off-center. How groovy is that?

As for the boys themselves, they look fantastic--young and confident, sexy and cool, and Ringo even a little sad and silly--but they're not smiling, not light-hearted, not interested in playing your game.

That the Rolling Stones and Pretty Things were able to convince people that they were somehow "cooler" than the Fabs because they were "tougher"...well, the evidence doesn't really point that out. It's a retrofit at best. As has been written elsewhere, the Beatles had to create the center before anyone else could go left (or right).

This image is so great that even tinted funny (and given a truly ugly banner) for the U.S. market's Meet the Beatles, it was still an amazing introduction to the world's best band.




The Supremes A' Go-Go, 1966

Whaaaat? A Supremes album?

While much credit is given (and deserved) to Atlantic and Stax for their fine album covers of the 1960s and early 1970s, Motown sleeves don't usually get a lot of kudos. But there are some terrific ones; the Supremes always looked good, the Temptations had some great images, and of course the Jackson Five were cartoon-beautiful even before they were cartoons.

This sleeve is simply the happiest, bounciest invitation to dance, sing, and laugh that I've ever seen. Horace Junior designed it; Frank Dandridge, an accomplished magazine photographer, shot it. But the sassy "check me out" of Mary Wilson on the right? The beguiling but shy swinging of the lovely, tragic Florence Ballard in the center? The spirited boogie of Diana Ross on the left? Nobody could have created that but the girls themselves.

The typography is brilliant--the arrows on the two "G"s means action, and the blue background goes great with the pink cover. It's feminine, as are the girls' up to-the-minute fashions, but ripples with pure energy. And indeed, this album is full of foot-tappers and booty-shakers. This ain't no set of Broadway tunes.




Forever Changes, Love, 1967

Love's first two albums featured nearly identical front covers of the moody, frankly unpleasant group hanging around their Los Angeles hangout, a big house with a castle-like design.

For their third album, a grand statement from Arthur Lee (who believed he would soon be dead) about his adopted Los Angeles in the alternately glorious and gloomy psychedelic summer of 1967, Elektra hired Bob Pepper to illustrate the band as a five-headed organism.

Ironically, this was the album where the group began deteriorating due to the anomie, hard-drug abuse, and assorted mental anguish afflicting its members. But never did a collapsing group sound so together...and never did a cover better epitomize the color, vivacity, and beauty of the best music of its time.

This is simply a gorgeous piece of art, laid simply on a stark white background, with the band's inimitable logo--maybe the coolest band logo ever?--just large enough to serve as an effective inducement. Pure genius all the way around.




Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd, 1973

While this is a terrific album, I almost wish that the cover image wasn't such a ubiquitous hot-button for classic rock. DSOTM's sleeve is almost a victim of its own effectiveness; these days it's tough to see with fresh eyes what an amazing image this is.

Dark Side's cover's beautiful use of color AND black, and utterly simple delivery of a complex (and, in fact, physically impossible) image could befit any number of artists.

Experimental ambient guitar groups, sunshine pop combos, progressive house DJs, modern folk revivalists, etc. etc., all do music that could fit an image like this very well. But who did it? Pink Floyd, who were in 1973 a fully established, popular rock group which had already topped the charts in England and established a strong following in the states.

Only Floyd, among contemporary groups, were egoless enough--or smart enough--to consistently keep themselves off their album covers. The Floyd, not sharp dressers or great lookers (David Gilmour aside), hadn't appeared on a sleeve since 1969, and that's the way the quartet wanted it. As a unit, they were uninterested in rock stardom but very interested in creating entire packages that fit together, from music to album covers to tour visuals.

Groups that followed in Floyd's wake never quite got it, and even Hipgnosis, who designed this cover and others by the band, never duplicated the magic with other artists, because Pink Floyd's music worked in a special way that strongly affected what it touched.




You Can't Hide Your Love Forever, Orange Juice, 1982

I suppose this one will be somewhat polarizing. Some people will get it immediately, while others will say, "what's the big deal?"

But from the moment I saw it, I knew I had to have this album without having even heard the band.

First off, the image of the dolphins was extremely unusual. Let me put it into context.

1982 was a weird time in music. Punk was over. Post-punk, with its rough industrial images, was in vogue in Britain. In America, the corpses of stadium rock bands, and sappy MOR drivel, littered the charts. What was new and interesting generally had a new wave or punk-oriented sensibility. The fluffy groups featured silly retro-futuristic images or prettified portraiture to accompany their insubstantial songs. The "relevant" groups were usually self-consciously arty.

An album cover with an optimistic image--a playful, bright, splashy image rooted in nature--was highly unusual among the Dexys and Loverboys of the time. That's why I wanted to hear what this band sounded like.

And I wasn't disappointed. Glasgow's Orange Juice delivered on everything that could have been promised by people who had enough space in their hearts for the Buzzcocks, Al Green, the Velvets, Chic, and the Beatles.

While big-mouth leader Edwyn Collins blabbed about how 'tunnel vision' was good, his own music belied his brave punk-inspired words, evoking the angularity of early Talking Heads as well as the lovely melodies of a McCartney, the harshness of Nico and the bounce of Motown. Love songs for skeptics; funk songs for the Scottish; pop for punks.

Anyway, I love this sleeve, right down to the obviously faked water splash on the bottom, the understated graphics, and the brilliant use of the 'infinity' symbol instead of an "a" in the word "can't." Pure genius, alternately smooth and amateurish, done in a way that beguiles rather than bludgeons. And I'd rather be seduced than brutalized any day of the week.

I wish that the quality of this particular image were better.

As always, thanks for reading!!

Favorite Album Covers, Part 4

Here are my favorite album covers from the past 20 years or so...



Crashing Dream, Rain Parade, 1985
I always found the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind quite disturbing. I don't particularly need to see a child's penis, OK? But water can make for a fascinating surface through which to view a subject. Here, the members of this underrated LA band are seen at the bottom of a very nice swimming pool. The idea of being drowned in west-coast culture is a central theme to the album.


Recurring, Spacemen 3, 1991
What does it mean? I dunno. But it looks amazing under a black light. Its druggy simplicity perfectly matches the music inside.



Girlfriend, Matthew Sweet, 1991
This album was originally going to be called Nothing Lasts, but Tuesday Weld (that's her) didn't want her photo to be associated with such a negative title. So it became Girlfriend, which is far more appropriate anyway.


Every Man and Woman is a Star, Ultramarine, 1991
A breezy, surprisingly organic-sounding album of techno, house, and even prog-rock influences, Every Man could have had a cold, crisp cover like other electronic music of the early 90s. But instead, this Canterbury duo showcased a cornfield under blue skies rather than a cartoony spaceship or computer graphics or some other trite image like most digital acts used at the time. Much of the music here reflects the sounds of camping, hiking, and swimming in nature, making the cover a natural fit.




Love Deluxe, Sade, 1992
Sade's covers have always been immaculately done, which puts some people off. I guess her detractors want to see Ms. Adu in jackboots, or sneezing, or something. But here, she's literally a bronze goddess, frozen in place or cast in metal in a passionate but oddly constricted pose. It's their best album, too.



The Decline and Fall of Heavenly, 1994
This cover image for a nice, but somewhat twee, pop band--albeit one beset ultimately by the tragic suicide of its drummer--is almost too cute for words. Almost. (Sorry about the size of this one.)



Ray of Light, Madonna, 1998
While no expense is ever spared on Madonna's covers, many of the resulting images are just transient, meant only to show off her newest persona. Here, she's wearing clothes and hair that she might be expected to wear on an everyday basis, but the image is interesting enough to keep you looking. Why is she to the left? Why is she dissheveled? The graphics are understated and simple and add rather than detract.



Salt Rain, Susheela Raman, 2001
This is Ms. Raman's first album. While many beauty queens are splashed all over CD covers in close-up, rarely is a woman not "conventionally" beautiful (in a white Anglo-Saxon context, anyway) shot so intimately. Of Indian ancestry and raised in England, she has hair vibrant enough to push the very boundaries of the frame, and in addition she is showing off what is either an un-made-up skin-color variance, a shadow, or a black eye.



American Idiot, Green Day, 2004
Here is one of the few releases on these lists o'mine that features a drawing. A band trying to break out of the punk-pop ghetto and do something they felt was more lasting needed a great cover image, and this is it: a man ready to toss a heart-shaped grenade.




We'll Never Turn Back, Mavis Staples, 2007
As if anyone needed a reminder of the struggles of the civil rights movement...this is a perfectly realized concept, with superb typography that announces but does not overpower the image.

Thanks for reading...next come the top five of all.

Favorite Album Covers, Part 3

In which I look at my fave LP sleeves of pop/rock history. This is part 3, going from 1975 through 1981. Part four will cover the 80s through the present, then I will present my all-time top five, making 45 total covers in all. As always, thanks for reading.

Relatively Clean Rivers, 1975. A psychedelically-inspired 70s album that only sold a few dozen copies, at best, RCR's recent rediscovery is our gain, not least for its stony, well-structured California rock as for its funny and extremely eye-catching and eye-popping sleeve. Who is this guy? What river is this? I want to know!


Ricochet, Tangerine Dream, 1975. Just a lovely photo.



Blondie, 1976. The standard "pretty girl in front" tactic gets an interesting spin: Debbie Harry is not only in front, she's almost blocking the rest of the band! You can see bassist Gary Valentine--soon to be an EX-Blondie--shifting his head, trying hard to be seen, while the other fellas seem to accept their fate with some resignation. Each album, Blondie changed its typeface, and never had a distinct logo; this is my favorite lettering of theirs and overall my favorite American new-wave cover.


This Year's Model, Elvis Costello, 1978. I prefer the British image of the album, where you can see him speaking to you as if you are the object. Having him interacting with you, photographing you, while he's being photographed is, I think, the very point of the exercise. One of the most effective and, to me, inviting shots ever on an album. The four-color bar on the right, simulating a photo proof sheet, is a nice little piece of detail.


Jesus of Cool, Nick Lowe, 1978. Nick Lowe, for many years rock's resident wit, decided to take the piss out of his contemporaries for his first solo album. The American version (retitled 'Pure Pop for Now People' to save our virgin ears, perhaps) had a few different shots.



One Step Beyond, Madness, 1979. This is among the best images to come out of the punk and postpunk movements. It sums up this fine pop band's indomitable spirit of fun.



Wild Planet, the B-52s, 1980. I like this even more than the shot from their debut album. The electrifying red, which makes everything pop out at the viewer, is appropriate for an album including songs about the Devil, strobe lights, wild parties, nuclear energy, and being lost in space. All five of the '52s look primo, half-real and half-cartoon. The inner bag, of a leopard print on green, is cool too.



Get Happy!!, Elvis Costello & the Attractions, 1980. For a long time I thought this was the best album cover ever. It still holds up extremely well for its perfectly executed palate of bright pop colors and its almost crass triple-portrait of Costello. The ringwear on the British album cover is almost too cute, but it works here because it's all of a piece.



Pretenders, 1980. While the basic leather/black/white/red color scheme wasn't especially new, the quality of the band's faces and poses was jarring enough to be eye-catching, and the art deco lettering kept it from being either too "New Wave" or too retro-60s. Most of the Pretenders' sleeves feature faboo no-bullshit portraits.



The Flowers of Romance, Public Image Ltd., 1981. What is this woman doing with a pestle? Is she going to bash my brains in with it? Don't those thorns hurt? Whatever...I'm intrigued. While it has little to do with the content, this cover image dovetails perfectly with the sometimes amateurish, sometimes aggressive, but very beautiful music inside.

Album Covers, Part 2

Here is the second installment of 40 of my favorite album covers. These next ten (of 40) cover the years from 1967-1975. (My all-time top five will be discussed in a separate post.)

Once again, my excitement in sharing these with you is tempered by the teensy size of these photos, which in several circumstances keep from properly conveying the majesty of these sleeves. Nonetheless, hope you enjoy!

Mr. Fantasy, Traffic, 1967
I find this one of the few psychedelic covers to really capture the mystical, druggy bent of the time as well as the sense of adventure of "getting it together in the country." This was shot in Traffic's communal house in the Berkshire countryside, where the album's music was written and created, minds were blown, and lives were altered.



The Beatles, 1968
Things are seldom what they seem, in the words of W.S. Gilbert. "It's just a white sleeve!" some whined at the time. Well, no. First off, coming out of the splashy psychedelic age, a return to simplicity was a masterstroke. Plus, "The Beatles" is raised in relief on the cover. The original pressings were numbered (starting at #0000001). And the typography on the back is stunning in its deco simplicity. Once you got inside, there were pictures and a foldout poster with lyrics and candid shots. It's a triumph for British pop-artist extraordinaire Richard Hamilton.



Abbey Road, The Beatles, 1969
Including Beatles sleeves here is almost too easy, but objectivity forced me to remove some which are either too busy (Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour) or just not that appealing in the long run (Rubber Soul, Revolver). This has the advantage of being an arresting, crisply executed image of a moment in time that has often been imitated, usually poorly. Are you listening, Paul is Live?



Space, Modern Jazz Quartet, 1969
The veteran jazz group's second and last album on the Beatles' Apple label features a harsh, almost orgasmic abstract painting of fiery reds, purples, and black and white slashes. The painting also has inlaid metal balls, the largest of which reflects the photographer shooting it. Genius. I wish I had a better copy to show you. The only negative is the inclusion of the apple in the upper right.



Live Peace in Toronto, The Plastic Ono Band, 1969
Maybe it's a simple image, but it's a gorgeous simple image, one that contrasts markedly with the often chaotic music inside.



The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby, 1970
Chess Records of Chicago (and associated labels Cadet and Checker) put out a lot of great soul, jazz, and funk albums (with superb covers) around this time. This one features Ms. Ashby, a hard-partying funk-inspired singer/harpist, playing a Japanese koto on a huge oriental rug. Putting the artist in the upper left corner and giving most of the shot to the rug itself couldn't be much cooler. The album itself, a series of songs inspired by the poetry of Omar Khayyam, is rather amazing.



Abraxas, Santana, 1970
Many late 60s/early 70s album covers just look like technicolor vomit. But this one is special. Artist Mati Klarwein, a brilliant "primitive" before the term had been defined, painted 'Annunciation' back in 1961, when Carlos Santana was still playing with tinkertoys. Like the gorgeously textured and lovely music inside, the cover is almost an embarrassment of riches both sacred and profane. Mati himself is shown wearing a straw hat on the left. Wish this picture was bigger. Seeing it on a foldout LP is tremendous; on a CD, not so much.



Talking Book, Stevie Wonder, 1972
When my mom got this album in the early 70s, I didn't even know that Stevie Wonder was blind. I just thought it was cool that he was wearing this great robe and sitting playing in the dirt. Knowing that this was just his second album free from the Motown machine, a journey of self-discovery made public, it takes on extra resonance for me...I love that he is searching for answers and information in the earth.



Late for the Sky, Jackson Browne, 1974
Many 70s L.A. album covers exude an unearned sense of terminal coolness. This Magritte-inspired image, however, perfectly balances surrealism and ultra-realism. The daytime sky, night street scene, and perfectly appointed vintage car fuse into an unreal tableau of beauty and uncertainty. Placing this scene in a fashionable neighborhood is necessary to maintain the altered reality of the situation.



Bob Marley and the Wailers Live!, 1975
Reggae covers aren't always the most interesting in the record racks. But this one bursts with energy. The use of the red, green, and yellow is not particulary groundbreaking, but Marley's exuberance is palpable and the entire package just explodes.

Next time, we move into the new wave.

Album Covers, Part 1

After all these years, I figured it was time to talk about album covers. Vinyl records have never really gone away, and now the younger generation seems to be discovering the joy of vintage music packaging. I'm glad.

So I've been sorting through my own faves and decided to come up with a list, which will (one hopes) invoke discussion.

Everyone has different tastes in what they like in album covers. The choices on this list are informed by interests in mid-century modern art, minimalism, and pop.

As a result, you'll see no Yes albums featuring Roger Dean's adolescent space fantasies. No hair-metal pretty-boy-in-makeup shots. No silly wet dreams of priests drowning in thunderstorm-swollen rivers, leering skeletons, fly girls in lingerie, rappers in mall gear, or three-breasted vixens eating alien hedgehogs. Sorry.

In addition, most of these sleeves hold records that I love. That's probably because of shared sensibilities. Of course, plenty of albums high on my musical list have covers I consider unsightly (Buffalo Springfield Again, most of REM's and the Velvets' oeuvre, all of Juanes' LPs, and the Beach Boys' Friends are particularly egregious offenders).

Many new groups' releases feature cartoons or "naive" drawings, which as album cover art generally aren't my cup of tea.

In addition, I can't claim to know much about LPs from around the world, so these selections are limited to North America and the U.K.

So what makes a good album cover? It's not just an arresting image, although that's critical. For me, it's the way the cover works with the music inside; whether it's a cool image that I'd want to look at repeatedly; and the circumstances from which it came. Yes, I'm one of those annoying history geeks.

So, anyhoo, I compiled 40 great ones, and then five others that I considered my all-time favorites. To drag out the suspense interminably, I'll list the first 40 of them chronologically. Once I've gone through the 40, the all-time top five will then follow.

Off we go.


In the Wee Small Hours, Frank Sinatra, 1955
Most of Sinatra's drama came from the sense that it was just he and you alone in a room, him singing his heart out for a woman who's gone away. The loneliness of the music in this great album is even more palpable than the utter desolation of the cover.




Elvis Presley, 1957
Some people prefer the Clash's London Calling to this. I think that this shot of Elvis, from his first album (not second--thanks Bob), is FAR more interesting than one of Paul Simonon smashing a perfectly good bass guitar. And shouldn't originality count for something? This has inspired dozens of parodies.




The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, 1963
Many Dylan covers lend themselves to parody because the images are as strong as the music inside. This is my favorite. Suze Rotolo and her guy are walking confidently not on the sidewalk, but rather through the middle of a slushy street. There's a message there, no?




Please Please Me, The Beatles, 1963
What a punch in the gut! Here's an incredibly charismatic bunch of young men--none older than 22--looking down with total confidence from a modern British office building. Far above what other pop performers were doing at the time, and still shocking today.



Getz-a-Go-Go, Stan Getz, 1964
The smoky, sexy music inside this foldout cover is perfectly complemented by the pictures and graphics. Getz, directing the band, was a master of his instrument, and it really is his show. The colors, type, and images are just perfect.




I Like God's Style, Isabel Baker, 1965?
An album that even most music freaks haven't heard, and one that even fewer people could stand to listen to. Isabel Baker, a gravel-voiced teenage girl from Orange County, did this devotional album in the mid-60s to show her love for Jesus. That's fine, but just bathe me in gold and purple and tell me more about the mod-dressed blonde playing that guitar!




Mr. Tambourine Man, The Byrds, 1965
Oddly enough for such a groundbreaking band, most of the Byrds' sleeves are conventional and, ultimately, disposable. For their first album, though, the distortion of the fisheye lens puts the band, which explored the tension between distance and passion in its music, at the forefront of 1965 rock design. Making the photographic technique part of the cover itself inspired ensuing sleeves by the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Pink Floyd, and Captain Beefheart, to name just a few. It's ineffably cool.




My Generation, The Who, 1965
The Who may not have been qualified to win beauty contests, but this shot from their debut album spells out exactly what they were: sharp-dressed, aggressive, uncompromising, and a perfect mix of street smarts and art school hip. Bands still try to look like this.




The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, The Pink Floyd, 1967
Interesting looking band + great clothes + good pose + interesting photographic effect = one of the signature sleeves of its decade.




Between the Buttons, The Rolling Stones, 1967
Of all the Stones' "company front" covers, I like this one the best. It's a harsh image, borrowing the worn-down star look from 'Beatles For sale' and bringing it one step further, deep into the Stones' hard-partying world of winter 66/spring 67 and the effect that the lifestyle was having on most members of the group.

British minimalism, Chicago jazz funk, and eight more coming in my next post! Thanks for coming by.