In part two of our series, we will again explore some famous and controversial album cover art. When CD’s were first introduced in the early 80's, they were the “next best thing” in the music world. Certainly an upgrade from cassette tapes, CD’s conveniently packed the music and artwork into a neat, small package. But one of the major flaws is the lack of cover art you get with a CD, especially when you compare it to the vibrant, lifelike album cover art you get with vinyl records. In this three part series about album cover art, we will explore some of the most legendary album covers of all time, look at some of the most controversial album covers as well as gauge the impact that major retailers have on cover art. Let’s start with a band that broke the ground for many of their other fellow musicians.
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One of the pioneering bands to take advantage of album cover art and its power of marketability were, of course, one of the most famous groups of all time, the “Beatles.” From such famous album covers as “Yesterday and Today” (1966), “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967) and even including the simplicity of the “White Album”, the Beatles certainly took full advantage of the allure of a great album cover (it didn’t hurt that the music is legendary).
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In fact, their album “Yesterday and Today” (also known as the “butcher album”) is highly collectible and, if you have an original, highly priced and is one of the holy grails of record collecting. Although Capitol Records recalled the album, many were released as promotional material to DJ’s and critics. Only then did the uproar ensue. You see, the Beatles were tired of Capitol Records chopping up their albums and repackaging them (the songs on this particular release are album cuts from previous Beatles’ albums including “Help!” and “Revolver”), so they posed with decapitated baby dolls, slabs of meat and fake blood as kind of a quasi protest, not ever thinking it would go out to the public. Capitol Records quickly intervened and recalled thousands of record albums and pasted over the “butcher cover” with what is now known as the “trunk cover” (just a picture of the fab four with a large trunk).
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- The Beatles also have one of the greatest album covers of all time (it was selected by Rolling Stone Magazine as the best) and the group won a Grammy Award (for Best Album Cover) in 1968 for the legendary album cover for “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Created and designed by Jan Haworth and Peter Blake, the cover features the group posing with a collage of famous singers, composers, comedians and other worldly figures including Lenny Bruce (comic), Edgar Allen Poe (writer), W.C. Fields (comic), Fred Astaire (actor), Bob Dylan (musician), Marlon Brando (actor), Marilyn Monroe (actress) and Karl Marx (philosopher/socialist), among many others.
- But there were a few people that were originally intended for the front cover, but were excluded, for a variety of reasons. For instance, Jesus Christ was omitted because the album was released just a few months after John Lennon had declared that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. Adolf Hitler was removed at the insistence of Parlophone Records. EMI requested that the image of Mahatma Ghandi be removed fearing his presence on the cover would offend the Indian Market. Legendary actress Mae West initially refused, but relented after the Beatles sent her a personal letter. Additionally, an image of Leo Gorcey was omitted because he had requested a fee for the use of his likeness. (For a complete list of exactly who is on the cover, please visit: http://math.mercyhurst.edu/~griff/sgtpepper/people.html)