64 - Badfinger - Ass

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"Oh, I'm sorry, but it's time to make a stand
Though we never meant to bite the lovin' hand
And now, the time has come to walk alone
We were the children, now we've overgrown

You're the apple of my eye
You're the apple of my heart
But now, the time has come to part."
From "Apple of My Eye"


The cover art of Ass also references the band's relationship with Apple. It's a picture of a hand holding out a giant carrot to a donkey, a symbol of the lure of rock 'n' roll riches 
enticing the band away from their true home. It was a road that would lead them to ruin, that is for sure. 

It all adds up to a heartbreaking portrait of how a criminally overlooked band was struggling to cut through loads of personal trauma, financial problems, and outright 
skullduggery to express their considerable talents as time was running out for them. Full article



Badfinger is one of my favourite bands. Ass or no ass.

Information wanted for original album art design concept.
Album produced by Chris Thomas, Badfinger, and Todd Rundgren. Apple 1973.


Badfinger's fourth album, Ass, is the least known of the group's Apple albums.

By the time it was released in November 1973 in the US and in March 1974 in the UK, the band had left Apple. Although Badfinger wanted to stay with the label, Allen Klein 
showed little interest in the band as he was focused on the releases of John, Yoko, George, Ringo and Paul, as well as Beatles reissues. Badfinger's management understood 
the situation and looked elsewhere, signing the band to Warner Brothers Records. George Harrison was disappointed with the loss of Badfinger and became upset when he
learned of Klein's treatment of the band. With little promotion behind it, Ass stalled at number 122 on the US charts. More


On the night of 23 April 1975, Ham received a phone call from the US, telling him that all his money had disappeared. Later that night he met Tom Evans and they went to
The White Hart Pub in Surrey together, where Ham drank ten whiskies.Evans drove him home at three o'clock on the morning of 24 April 1975. Ham hanged himself in his
garage studio in Woking later that morning. His suicide note — addressed to his girlfriend, Anne Herriot, and her son, Blair read: 

"Anne, I love you. Blair, I love you. I will not be allowed to love and trust everybody. This is better. Pete. P.S. Stan Polley is a soulless bastard. I will take him with me".

Pete William Ham was cremated at the Morriston Crematorium, Swansea; his ashes were spread in the memorial gardens.
His daughter, Petera, was born one month after his death. Full article


(A) Apple of My Eye - Get Away - Icicles - The Winner - Blind Owl

(B) Constitution - When I Say - Cowboy - I Can Love You - Timeless

            

  

www.badfingersite.com

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63. Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

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There's a bunched young couple; his shoulders hunched like he was talking about a job well done yet so easily, her head resting on him as if she was really impressed and her arms clinging
on his as if to assure him that no one on this planet could have done the job so well as he did. And yet it seems that they're walking on a road that is littered with earthquake debris.
Or maybe something was blowin' in the wind. Or perhaps what was blowin' in the wind was blowin' on my mind.

So how many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man? 

The answer, my friend.

No. 97, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 127, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000.

No. 47, Music Radar, The 50 Greatest Album Covers of All Time.

Photo by Don Hunstein. Album produced by John Hammond & Tom Wilson. Columbia 1963.

The album cover features a photograph of Bob Dylan with Suze Rotolo. It was taken in February 1963 — a few weeks after Rotolo had returned from Italy — by CBS
staff photographer Don Hunstein at the corner of Jones Street and West 4th Street in the West Village, New York City, close to the apartment where the couple
lived at the time. In 2008, Rotolo described the circumstances surrounding the famous photo to The New York Times: "He wore a very thin jacket,
because image was all. Our apartment was always cold, so I had a sweater on, plus I borrowed one of his big, bulky sweaters. On top of
that I put on a coat. So I felt like an Italian sausage. Every time I look at that picture, I think I look fat."

In her memoir, A Freewheelin' Time, Rotolo analyzed the significance of the cover art: It is one of those cultural markers that influenced the look of album covers
precisely because of its casual down-home spontaneity and sensibility. Most album covers were carefully staged and controlled, to terrific effect on the Blue
Note jazz album covers ... and to not-so great-effect on the perfectly posed and clean-cut pop and folk albums. Whoever was responsible for choosing
that particular photograph for The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan really had an eye for a new look.

Critic Janet Maslin summed up the iconic impact of the cover as "a photograph that inspired countless young men to hunch their shoulders, look distant, and let the
girl do the clinging". More


Here's the cover art on the spot where it was shot. twistedsifter.com

Photo by Bob Egan. 

(A) Blowin' in the Wind - Girl from the North Country - Masters of War - Down the Highway - Bob Dylan's Blues - A Hard Rain's a-Gonna' Fall

(B) Don't Think Twice, It's All Right - Bob Dylan's Dream - Oxford Town - Talkin' World War III Blues - Corrina, Corrina - Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance - I Shall Be Free

"Blowin' in the Wind" music video from Giulia Zarontonello on YouTube.

            

  

www.bobdylan.com

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62. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue

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Kind of Blue has been regarded by many critics as jazz's greatest record, Davis's masterpiece, and one of the best albums of all time. Its influence on music, including jazz, rock, and classical genres,
has led writers to also deem it one of the most influential albums ever recorded. Kind of Blue was one of fifty recordings chosen in 2002 by the Library of Congress to be added to the National
Recording Registry, and in 2003, it was ranked number 12 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. More


On this work, the original album cover art was processed with the Cutout filter and the resulting image was pasted at left. The names of Davis' band members and the album label logo
were deleted and the album title was repositioned and processed with the Craquelure filter. I had imagined coloured smoke rising in the air in the background as the artist played
"So What" I hear, and I proceeded with transforming the original design into Glowing Edges and pasted the resulting image at right.

I note that the names I've deleted all belong to great artists but my respect for them did not vanish with it. I like them all, and most especially Bill Evans and John Coltrane.
Here's the original album cover art design. 

No. 12, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 14, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000;
No. 50, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Photo by Don Hunstein. Album produced by Teo Macero & Irving Townsend. Columbia 1959.

Since Kind of Blue was released in 1959, it has been regarded by many critics as Davis's greatest work; it is his most acclaimed album, and has been cited as the best-selling jazz record released,
despite later claims attributing the achievement to Davis's first official gold record Bitches Brew (1970). Music writer Chris Morris cited Kind of Blue as "the distillation of Davis's art." It has
also been noted as one of the most influential albums in the history of jazz. One reviewer has called it a "defining moment of twentieth century music."

In a review of the album, AllMusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine stated: Kind of Blue isn't merely an artistic highlight for Miles Davis, it's an album that towers above its peers, a
record generally considered as the definitive jazz album, a universally acknowledged standard of excellence. Why does Kind of Blue possess such a mystique? Perhaps because this music
never flaunts its genius.... It's the pinnacle of modal jazz — tonality and solos build from the overall key, not chord changes, giving the music a subtly shifting quality.... It may be 
a stretch to say that if you don't like Kind of Blue, you don't like jazz — but it's hard to imagine it as anything other than a cornerstone of any jazz collection. Full article

(A) So What - Freddie Freeloader - Blue in Green

(B) All Blues - Flamenco Sketches

Chris Botti performing "Flamenco Sketches" from ChrisBotti's channel on YouTube.

            

  

www.milesdavis.com

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61. John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band

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John Lennon's album cover is almost identical to Yoko Ono's companion piece (of the same title), the subtle difference being that on Ono's cover, she is lying on Lennon's body. The photo
was snapped with a consumer-grade Instamatic camera by actor Dan Richter, who also worked as an assistant for the Lennons at the time. More


The texture of the image above was obtained through the use of the Watercolour filter after which the image was converted to monochrome. The cold tone was chosen with the intention
of creating an 'out-of-this-worldish' landscape in which a relaxed couple do not seem to mind as they fix their gaze at a distant light source. 


John and Yoko recorded two albums simultaneously, the covers of which were identical, apart from the positioning of the couple, who were lazing under tree. One was called Yoko Ono/
Plastic Ono Band, the other John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band – the first solo offering by the former Beatle. Co-produced by Phil Spector (although he was absent for much of the 
recording, John & Yoko doing the lion's share of work), Klaus Voormann and Ringo Starr, along with John, made up the core musicians, with Billy Preston and Spector
playing piano on a track apiece, "God" and "Love".

The album was also referred to as the ‘primal’ or ‘primal scream’ album, because it was recorded just after the Lennon’s had undergone primal therapy with the American psychologist
Arthur Janov, whose book The Primal Scream had made a big impression on the couple, especially John, for whom it touched a particularly personal chord, enabling him to 
express the long-repressed childhood pain that had shaped his life. These raw emotions informed John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, which Rolling Stone magazine,
when placing it at No. 23 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, described as ‘a pure, raw core of confession that, in its echo-drenched,
garage-rock crudity, is years ahead of punk’. Full article

Here's the original album cover art design.

No. 23, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 40, Entertainment Weekly, The 100 Greatest Albums Ever;
No. 45, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 244, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000.


Design concept by John Lennon, photo by Dan Richter. Album produced by John Lennon, Yoko Ono & Phil Spector. Apple 1970.


Lennon's experience in primal therapy strongly influenced both the lyrical content of the album, pushing him toward themes of child-parent relationships and psychological suffering,
and the simple yet intense style of the album's music. Throughout the album Lennon touches on many personal issues: his abandonment by his parents, in "Mother"; the
means by which young people are made into soldiers, in "Working Class Hero"; a reminder that, despite his rage and pain, Lennon still embraces "Love"; and
"God", a renunciation of external saviours. In the piano-driven climax of "God," after listing a handful of "idols" he does not believe in, including Jesus,
Hitler, Elvis, Zimmerman (Bob Dylan), and The Beatles, Lennon proclaims that he believes only in himself and Ono. More


(A) Mother - Hold On - I Found Out - Working Class Hero - Isolation

(B) Remember - Love - Well Well Well - Look at Me - God - My Mummy's Dead

"Love" music video from MK P on YouTube.

            

  

www.john-lennon.com

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60. Talking Heads - Remain in Light

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It is now 2015. I tweaked the original album cover art in order to fit it on my computer screen. In the best way it could. In the best possible way I could. I did not notice this album 35 years ago and

perhaps because I was busy bundling myself up to be what would be like a husband and father. Now I have computers to work with and play with and Remain in Light is fitting my screen perfectly.

Read on.

Of all the awesome cover art in rock music, the cover for the Talking Heads’ Remain in Light is one of the coolest and, certainly, one of the most memorable. Like the music of Talking Heads,

the cover was an encapsulation of its time, while simultaneously being leaps and bounds ahead of other art being produced. The creation of the cover was overseen by Talking Heads

Tina Weymouth (bass) and Chris Frantz (drums), along with Walter Bender, a surprising collaborator considering the fact that he was a researcher at MIT. Yes, the Massachusetts 

Institute of Technology.

It was 1980. Computers were enormous, slow and relatively new technology. It took the design department of one of the most prestigious universities in the world to create the Remain in Light

cover. Specifically, MIT computers were used to transpose the red “masks” over each band member’s face. This was a major undertaking, especially considering that Remain in Light

is the first record to ever don computerized images on its cover. However, the cover you see below, the one that we associate with Remain in Light was originally planned

as the back cover. What we consider the back cover of the album was originally going to be the front. Full article

classicalalbumsundays

The cover art was conceived by Weymouth and Frantz with the help of MIT researcher Walter Bender and his MIT Media Lab team. Using Melody Attack as inspiration, the couple created a

collage of red warplanes flying in formation over the Himalayas. The planes are an artistic depiction of Grumman Avenger planes in honour of Weymouth's father, Ralph Weymouth, 

who was a US Navy Admiral. The idea for the back cover included simple portraits of the band members. Weymouth attended MIT during the summer of 1980 and worked

with Bender's colleague, Scott Fisher, on the computer renditions of the ideas. The process was tortuous because computer power was limited in the early 1980s

and the mainframe alone took up several rooms. Weymouth and Fisher shared a passion for masks and used the concept to experiment with the portraits.

The faces were blotted out with blocks of red colour.

The rest of the artwork was crafted by the graphic designer Tibor Kalman and his company M&Co. Kalman was a critic of formalism and professional design in art and advertisements.

He offered his services for free, and discussed using unconventional materials for the LP sleeve. Weymouth vetoed Kalman's ideas and held firm on the MIT computerised images. 

The designing process made the band members realise that the title Melody Attack was "too flippant" for the music recorded, and they adopted Remain in Light instead.

Byrne has noted, "Besides not being all that melodic, the music had something to say that at the time seemed new, transcendent, and maybe even revolutionary,

at least for funk rock songs." The image of the warplanes was relegated to the back of the sleeve and the doctored portraits became the front cover.

Kalman later suggested that the planes were not removed altogether because they seemed appropriate during the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979–81.

Weymouth advised Kalman that she wanted simple typography in a bold sans serif font. M&Co. followed the instructions and came up with the idea of inverting the "A"s. The final

mass-produced version of Remain in Light boasted one of the first computer-designed record jackets. Psychoanalyst Michael A. Brog has called its front cover a "disarming 

image, which suggests both splitting and obliteration of identity" and which introduces the listener to the album's recurring theme of "identity disturbance";

he states, "The image is in bleak contrast to the title with the obscured images of the band members unable to 'remain in light'. Full article

No. 76, Entertainment Weekly, The 100 Greatest Albums Ever; No. 82, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time;

No. 129, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 227, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000.

No. 25, Music Radar, The 50 Greatest Album Covers of All Time.

Art concept by Tina Weymouth & Chris Frantz with Walter Bender. Design by Tibor Kalman. Album produced by Brian Eno. Sire 1980.

(A) Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) - Crosseyed and Painless - The Great Curve

(B) Once in a Lifetime - Houses in Motion - Seen and Not Seen - Listening Wind - The Overload

Talking Heads "Once in a Lifetime" music video from MadFranko008 on YouTube.

            

  

www.talking-heads.nl

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59. Prince & The Revolution - Purple Rain

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There are a thousand and one ways a square album cover art design can be manipulated in order to fit a screen with an aspect ratio of 18 x 10 without losing its essential parts and, most importantly
(and hopefully, too), its original meaning. On this work, the flowery designs on the sides of the original album cover art were deleted as well as the title on its top. The remaining image was
pasted on the leftmost side of the canvass. It occupies exactly two-thirds of it.

Next, the lady standing at the top of the stairs was cut producing a second image and this was pasted at top right which covered 40 percent of the remaining space. It was then copied and
flipped producing a third image and this was pasted on the space below the second image. The remaining space was then covered with a black rectangle which was pasted over with
the title of the album. The whole image was then texturized and the name of the artist was finally added by typing it in a text box.


Here's the original album cover art design. 

    

No. 2, Entertainment Weekly, 100 Greatest Albums Ever; No. 35, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time;
No. 61, Billboard, The 100 Greatest Selling Albums of All Time; No. 72, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000;
No. 76, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Original album cover art design credits: Art direction by Laura LiPuma, photography by Ed Thrasher & Associates/Ron Slenzak.
Album produced by Prince & The Revolution. Warner Bros. 1984.

The soundtrack to the film of the same name, Purple Rain is regarded by many as one of the greatest albums ever.

The LP recently celebrated its 30th anniversary, and to this day earns its place in music's figurative hall of fame with a total of 20+ million sales. Prince's
timeless blend of rock, pop, R&B, funk, balladry, and breathtaking arrangements were showcased exquisitely on tracks like “When Doves Cry,”
“I Would Die 4 U,” and “Let's Go Crazy.” Purple Rain was the first album to formally credit The Revolution on the album's sleeve, and
more importantly, it was Prince's first proper foray into film.

This was the moment “Prince” became a household name. The cover has Prince boldly on a motorbike, wearing purple and on
a purple bike, surrounded by fog and a floral cover. Only Prince could pull it off. More

(A) Let's Go Crazy - Take Me with U - The Beautiful Ones - Computer Blue - Darling Nikki

(B) When Doves Cry - I Would Die 4 U - Baby I'm a Star - Purple Rain

  

"Purple Rain" movie trailer from Movieclips Trailer Vaut on YouTube.

            

  

www.princevault.com

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58. Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy

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After decades of utopia under rule by space aliens, the children of the Earth have now lost their identity and culture. They are gathered here in order to be taken away to the star where
the aliens came from.  And this happens before the Earth explodes, never to exist again. So goes the story of Childhood's End, a science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke from 1953.


Attempts to adapt the novel into a film have been made without success. Director Stanley Kubrick expressed interest in the 1960s, but collaborated with Clarke on 2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968) instead. In 2014, the Syfy Channel announced they were producing a six-hour television mini-series of Childhood's End, which will be broadcast in December 2015. Full article


Led Zeppelin's surreal cover for Houses Of The Holy, featuring golden-haired children crawling across an apocalyptic landscape, is one of the most iconic images in rock history. But
while the sleeve design is familiar, what no one knows is that the young boy who appears in the photo montage is television presenter Stefan Gates, of BBC2's Cooking In The Danger
Zone, who was just five when he and sister Sam were innocently snapped in the nude for the shoot on the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. The cover art was the brainchild of 
Aubrey Powell and Storm Thorgerson of legendary album-sleeve designers Hipgnosis. They took several multiple-exposure shots of Stefan and Sam to create the image of more children
clambering over the rocks. More


Here's the original album cover art design.

No. 94, Billboard, The 300 Best-Selling Albums of All Time; No. 117, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000; No. 148, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

No. 28, Music Radar, The 50 Greatest Album Covers of All Time; No. 50, Rolling Stone, The 100 Greatest Album Covers. 

Album cover art design by Aubrey Powell and Storm Thorgerson (Hipgnosis), photography by Aubrey Powell. Album produced by Jimmy Page. Atlantic 1973.


Gavin Edwards, Rolling Stone: "The epic scale suited Zeppelin: They had the largest crowds, the loudest rock songs, the most
groupies, the fullest manes of hair. Eventually excess would turn into bombast, but on Houses, it still provided inspiration."


 In February 2010, Stefan Gates presented a half-hour BBC Radio 4 documentary entitled Stefan Gates's Cover Story, about his part in the making of the album cover. Gates claimed
in the documentary to have felt there was something sinister about the image, although his sister disagreed. He also admitted never having heard the album. The programme ended
with Gates returning to Giant's Causeway (in Northern Ireland where the photos were shot) and listening to the album on a portable player, after which he claimed that a great weight
had been lifted from him. More

Stefan Gates returns to the Giant's Causeway after 37 years. dangerousminds.net

(A) The Song Remains the Same - The Rain Song - Over the Hills and Far Away - The Crunge

(B) Dancing Days - D'yer Mak'er - No Quarter - The Ocean

"The Rain Song" live from Jimmy Karlsson on YouTube.

         
            

  

www.ledzeppelin.com

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