July 24, 2013
Prior to the 1940s and Alex Steinweiss, a graphic designer and art director known for inventing album cover art, records were sold in plain brown wrappers.
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In the 60s, album covers and concert posters frequently emulated the LSD experience with frenetic collages, undulating type, and hallucinogenic color.
But even before that, somewhere in between the bold graphic Steinweiss style or the trippy visuals of Wes Wilson or Peter Max, there was something else brewing in the minds of the average American musician who was looking to put out an album.
The August issue of Print, a bimonthly magazine about visual culture and design, highlights the unsung heros of these albums.
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The book Enjoy The Experience: Homemade Records 1958-1992 by Sinecure Books is a compilation of the best (worst ?) in album art. Editor Johan Kugelberg says this about the book “Enjoy the Experience explores a slice of American culture with tales from well-known musicians to more obscure artists, such as pizza parlor organists. Some of these record covers are really laugh-out-loud funny, and some of the music and people are too…”
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Which of these genres speaks to your visual sensibilities? Do you have any albums that you have just for their cover art?
This brings back such great memories. My parents have a basement full of albums. I used to spend hours and hours when I was a little girl looking at album covers. I’d spread them out all over the living room floor and arrange them to my aesthetics.
The one album cover that will always remain in my memory is Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy. I always wondered what the story behind the little girls was. I found that cover here: http://albumcovergallery.blogspot.com/2011/01/hipgnosis-selected-album-covers-part-1.html
Great post!
Regan-Thanks for sharing that link, there were a lot of great albums on it. That Led Zeppelin album is very intriguing. Whenever I see little blond children used in an odd or creepy way, I think Village Of The Damned.