Coolest Covers from my Vinyl Collection
Easily the best thing about collecting vinyl records is the cool packaging you get with it. I like CDs for their small storing size and occasional sweet extensive liner notes, but they pale next to a giant, high quality vinyl LP cover or a glorious gatefold. So, I thought I’d have a gander at my collection, and pick out the best covers.
(Hint, click on the covers to see them larger, as they need to be seen!)
The Red Krayola – Parable of Arable Land
I should preface this by saying outside of a few stragglers, my vinyl collection is mainly extremely weird stuff, with an emphasis on early electronic music and krautrock, but this is easily the weirdest cover I have, and probably the weirdest LP as well. I mean, what is that supposed to be? Still, it captures the music perfectly, a frightening thought.
Santana – Abraxas
Like we could expect anything other than batshit insanity from a Santana LP cover, it almost hurts my eyes looking at it. Also, good to see some album cover nudity, a rarity in our day and age.
Graveyard – Graveyard
A lot going on again, a bunch of girls lying around a table, two of them doing something at the bottom whilst another above them looks down disapprovingly. Two cloud people make out in the corner, and holy shit, is that a dragon made of paper?
Suicide – Suicide
This is just messy and depressing, like the music itself.
Can – Tago Mago
The back cover is just as cool, with a green version of the orange thing on the front. Is it a man’s head? Is it a mushroom cloud? Is it a ‘Mushroomhead’ (name of a song on the album)?
I do have more, but I’ll save them for next time!
If you want to see some kickass covers, check out Roger Dean’s stuff. He did almost every YES album cover and also a very obscure band named GUN. Their first album was HIS first cover as well and the album cover itself – without the record in the sleeve – sells for over $300.00 now. He’s a marvelous artist.
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The art of album covers is dying with the digital age. Thanks for sharing some amazing art.
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No it isn’t. There are some amazing album covers out there from some very creative bands.
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I see your point, but no way. There are some amazing album covers out there from some amazingly creative bands…
Here’s a few…
http://comicnut.blogspot.com/2012/11/cool-album-covers-still-exist.html
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Thanks for the link!
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I don’t mean to link to my site that many times…but just wanted to share.
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Sure. I’m sorry for linking my site that many times…but I just wanted to share. Seems like we both made the same genre of post at the same time 🙂
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Cool, I wrote a “Worst Covers of 2011-2012” post the other day…check it out:
http://comicnut.blogspot.com/2012/11/top-ten-worst-album-covers-of-2011-2012.html
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Great post! The sleeves for “Parable of Arable Land,” “Suicide,” and “Tago Mago” have the added distinction of containing some of the raddest music ever made.
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I’m still trying to rap my head around Parable, and Suicide just frightens me, but they are still really cool.
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