| June 2001 Judging by the Cover
More examples. The first time I bought an album due entirely to the cover was the Emerson, Lake and Palmer album Pictures at an Exhibition. That cover, with all those blank picture frames with only captions underneath, aroused my curiosity to the point that I bought the album just to see if they showed what those pictures were inside the gatefold cover. They did, but upon listening to the album, I found I enjoyed the music more than the cover. Serendipity. (As a side note, E.L.P.’s album helped fuel my interest in classical music, with the Ravel/Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition being now one of my personal faves.) It was this happenstance that got me to thinking about the correlation of cover art with musical content. (OK, OK, so I didn’t use quite those terms way back when, but, you get the idea.) Now I was on the lookout for cool covers that might translate into cool new music.
Along about that same point in time came another serendipitous discovery, again due exclusively to the cover art. How many of you have heard of the group King Crimson? (And for those of you who have, how many remember that they’ve been around since the late '60s?) If you do, you will know exactly which album I’m about to describe. In The Court Of The Crimson King had one of the most bizarre covers you’ll ever run across -- that close-up drawing of a person screaming in terror (at least that’s what I’ve always assumed, and if I’m wrong, don’t correct me, as I’d like the idea to stay that way). It’s so magnified that you were looking right down the throat. And the music was even better than the cover. It is still one of my favorites, one that will be on any desert-island list (under rock, natch) that I draw up. Songs such as "21st Century Schizoid Man," "Epitaph," "I Talk To The Wind" and "The Court Of The Crimson King" are a part of me, helping to define who I’ve become. Another album that didn’t require fancy animated artwork to capture my inquisitiveness was Joe Walsh’s So What. The picture of Walsh with only goggles on and a scarf around his neck looking stonily out at you was enough to make me risk the cash to hear what he had to say. And from first note to last, he had a lot to say. Over the years my friends and I have played a lot of air guitar to Joe and the boys. This is another desert-island disc, and one I’ve worn out two copies of over all the years of listening. I’d list my favorite songs, but that would include the entire album, so why bother?
How many of you can relate similar tales of albums purchased due to covers that grabbed your attention and then turned out to offer musical enjoyment in the bargain? I would be surprised if most of you, like me, haven’t found serendipity in this way once or twice. But just to show that this system isn’t 100% fool proof, I once purchased an album that had what, to this day, I consider the most superb cover art I’ve seen. Shadowfax’s Watercourse Way. Dog awful album musically. What a major disappointment. While I still have the album, I haven’t listened to it in years. Oh well, we all make mistakes. On the whole, however, I would say my success ratio is about 85% good to 15% bad, and I’ll take those numbers anytime.
...John Crossett GO BACK TO: |
Buying albums
based solely on the cover art is a lost art today. With the CD’s much smaller size,
you just can’t appreciate the artwork in the ways you could on that 12"x12"
LP cover. Not only did the LP’s size offer more space for the record companies art
departments to develop ideas, the LP’s cover stood out when you were browsing in the
bins. Think about this: have you seen those album covers that are now being framed and
sold for big money today? Ever asked yourself why? Because they’re art, that’s
why. They bring back, in many cases, vivid memories of happier times. For example, how
many of you recall the rock group Yes? Remember those awesome covers? They used to spark
my imagination every time I looked at them. Even today, I can recall events tied into
those covers. 
But sparking my imagination
didn’t require fancy animated artwork; sometimes something simple or obscure did the
trick. Thinking back, it was those qualities that drew me toward the Shawn Phillips album Second
Contribution, with the picture of a man in a black cape with long, dirty blonde hair
and with his back turned to the camera playing a 12-string guitar. I figured that anyone
who would decide that he didn’t have to use his face on the cover of his own album
must have a darn good album inside. And I was right -- he did.
One of my next finds, again
due strictly to the cover art, was the group Gentle Giant. Their album Octopus,
with the cover cut to mimic a Mason jar with a picture of an octopus inside (as well as
the small diver in the background, complete with rising air bubbles) was too cool to pass
up. A friend who was with me at the time thought I was nuts to buy an album just because
the cover intrigued me, at least until we got back to my house and gave it a listen. Cool
as well was the music, with songs like "Think Of Me With Kindness,"
"Dog’s Life" and "Raconteur Troubadour" getting into my head.
I’ve purchased more Gentle Giant over the years and continued to enjoy both their
music and their album covers.
A group that you will
probably not have heard of, because they never made it big (unfortunately, in my humble
opinion), was Pierce Arrow. Their self-titled debut album, with the drawing of the cherub
taking aim at you with his bow drawn, again got under my skin. As I said, the group never
made it, recording only one other album, called Pity the Rich (again, with great
cover art), but they were a group I was glad to have found. Along those same lines of
groups that never made it big, but who put out albums with both great music and neat
covers was Triumvirat, especially their album Spartacus. The cover, with the photo
of the rat inside the light bulb, caught my eye and somehow (it wasn’t that hard back
then) got me to reach into my pocket for the money to purchase the album. I still have
that album, and I still enjoy it.
One final example (and please
don’t think for a minute that these are the only albums I’ve ever bought due
just to the cover art) is Peter Frampton’s album Frampton’s Camel, with
the cover of the multiple crisscrossed words "Frampton" and "Camel" in
yellow and green on a purple background next to the road sign of the camel circled in red.
Yeah, I know, his live album of a few years later spoiled him as an enjoyable listen, but Frampton’s
Camel came out earlier and was my introduction to Frampton’s work. I became a
fan, so much so that (and oh how it now pains me to have to admit this) I was one of the
first to buy Frampton Comes Alive when it came out, and I liked it, at least until
I began to hear it every five minutes, on every radio station, everywhere I went.
While I don’t use this
system as much anymore (due, in no small part, to the high cost of CDs), I occasionally
pull it out for use in used record stores or yard sales. That’s what makes the system
so great -- when it works you get to combine sight with sound. It can make listening more
enjoyable. If you haven’t tried buying by cover, take a chance. Sometimes,
serendipity lies just behind that snazzy artwork.