Cracking album, and the cover would have been good: However, they chose to use the artists draft mock-up, rather than the finished artwork, which sucks.
I’ve got a fair few 4AD albums, by Pixies, Breeders, Belly, Kristin Hersh, Tanya Donnelly, and I’ve always loved the artwork and graphics, but it’s so difficult to pick a favourite.
One that isn’t necessarily a great design, and isn’t really my favourite, but is one that really formed my musical tastes for the rest of my life, after a schoolmate brought it in to school then let me borrow it, and it changed forever what I thought music could be.
Up to that point it had been whatever I’d heard on the radio, Beatles, Stones, a bit of Jethro Tull, mostly the pop chart stuff of the 60’s.
Then I heard this:
21st Century Schizoid Man utterly blew my mind, and even better, my folks hated it!
I can really only think of this one as the worst, there are probably worst buried away somewhere, but I can’t think of any at the moment, crap sleeves tended to put me off the band; “if that’s the best they can do for the sleeve, well…”
One of my absolute favourites, is this one:
It’s an album that Kris put together of poems by people who’s work she loved that she put to music, a broad range from all over the place, and as soon as I saw the sleeve design I just fell in love with it.
I’ve managed to get hold of one of a very limited run of hand-printed posters that Kris had run up by the artist for some US shows, and which she signed for me.
It’s sitting across the room now, framed up and waiting to go on the wall.
And I highly recommend Kris as someone who anyone who appreciates fine singing and songwriting should check out.
Not sure about best but a very powerful one for me was by a band in my home town called The Depraved. Their album ‘Stupidity maketh the man’ featured a shocking photo of a crowd of people stood around a tree from which two black men hang, from lynching. Horrible image that has stuck with me.
Always quite liked Jesus meets the Stupids, by The Stupids as a skater yoot.
Can’t really think of any ‘worst’ album covers – although I am sure there’s plenty in my collection if I had a look through. There’s certainly some bland ones…..
My favourite’s are probably, in no particular order:
The Black Crowes: Amorica
Pantera: Vulgar Display of Power
The Almighty: Powertrippin’
The Wildhearts: Earth v’s The Wildhearts
Actually – the worst from a pretentious nonsense point of view from a band that should have known better (IMO) was Metallica’s album cover for Load. It’s a ‘piece of artwork’ called blood & semen and is apparently bovine blood mixed with the artist’s semen….and the album was a bit meh, too….
Quite surprising that people over the age of 10 like Iron Maiden covers. Always thought they were naff in the extreme.
The later ones got a bit crap I agree (but see them live and you know they are really quite self-depreciating) however the original ones (the Derek Riggs stuff) was generally very good.
This is pretty cool; on holiday in Ireland we wandered into this place in Kinsale where the bloke prints posters on white canvas. The colours are super-dense and bright. You can actually build a collage of your favourite CD covers taken from iTunes:
Nice that Globalti. I’ve signed up for a Kickstarter thing where you can hang your albums (8 albums iirc) on the wall in a display. Easy to change and/or remove to play. Will pass the link on if anyone interested.