After stumbling on this post on social media I thought, we have a thread on bad album covers; why not a thread on great album covers?
"Jazz (and classical) album cover arts by Japanese American graphic designer Sadamitsu Neil Fujita. He was the head designer for Columbia Records"
I have owned Mingus' Ah Um for a good many years... and of course, Brubeck's classic, Take Five. With as many Glenn Gould recordings as I own, I'm surprised I've never even seen this one before.
I can’t think of any one in particular, but I did recently watch a doc about Hipgnosis, the British design firm started by Storm Thorgerson (the concept guy) and Aubrey “Po” Powell (the photographer guy). It was about how it all got started, how it reached great success, and then how it burnt out in the end. They were extremely creative and took some really crazy risks, basically doing whatever they needed to in order to make their conceptual visions happen. As they said about album art, “The artwork is the poor man’s art collection.”
Ha, I'll out myself by confessing that I think the cover for Sticky Fingers is quite stunning. The model is rumoured to have been Joe Dallesandro, but I don't think anyone knows for sure.
I had seen a documentary or a report, years ago, on Pink Floyd's covers, how they made them and who.
I like them. they are very famous in fact.
I especially like the one with the prism, and the one with the man catching fire.
I was surprised by the back of Abbey Road album when I first saw it. That beautiful random flash of the blue dress. Apparently, it was an accident. The lady walked in front of the frame as he was taking the shot. Annoyed, the photographer then snapped some 'perfect' photos but later preferred the mistake.
Looking through a slew of the classical album covers I have saved on my desktop, I came across these made for the chamber orchestra of the Berliner Philharmoniker with the slogan: “Näher an der Klassik …”, which translates to meaning “closer (or nearer) to classical music”. The images are all of almost architectural photos of the inside of instruments:
I don't know if these images were used as CD covers... perhaps box sets... although I do remember a couple of CDs with similar covers. I'll need to keep digging.
