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Showing posts with label great albums. Show all posts
Showing posts with label great albums. Show all posts
Monday, August 17, 2015
Friday, June 19, 2015
29. Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
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This work is a combination of the front of the original album cover art design and part of the back cover. The brick wall at centre was cut and pasted at left to complete the 18X10 screensaver.
So here we have the artist stepping into the yellow brick road which is actually just a picture while looking back on the outside which has his own picture on the wall.
We read about the Yellow Brick Road in The Wizard of Oz from 1939.
We heard "this boy's too young to be signing the blues" back in 1973.
"Candle in the Wind", originally composed in honour of Marilyn Monroe, was re-written in 1997 as a to tribute Diana, Princess of Wales.
This is the original album cover art design.
No. 91, Rolling Stone, 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 171 Billboard, The 300 Best-Selling Albums of All Time.
Illustration by Ian Beck. Album produced by Gus Dudgeon. MCA (US) DJM (UK) 1973.
In 1973 there was no indication that one day Elton John would become one of the leading Friends of Dorothy, but he unintentionally hinted at the yet-to-be-invented
codeword with the metaphors in the title and on the cover of his album. The album’s title, also the name of the lead single, seems to be at odds with the artwork
on the cover. Both song and cover, take their imagery from The Wizard Of Oz, in which the yellow brick road played as much a central role as any thoroughfare
ever did in the movies. Where the song tells of disillusion at the end of that road, the cover promises the beginning of an escape from reality as Elton steps
into a poster and on to a yellow brick road.
The poster is on a tatty wall, covering a previous poster (the font of which suggests that it might have advertised a music hall), with chimneys in the background
telling of a drab existence, quite at odds with Elton’s flamboyant get-up. The cover was drawn by Ian Beck, who was 26 at the time. Beck has since illustrated
magazines, greeting cards, packaging and a few children’s books. He has also written a few novels. Beck came to LP cover design through John Kosh, whose
credits included the Abbey Road cover.
Beck was given tapes of the songs (which included future classics like Benny And The Jets, Saturday Night Is Alright For Fighting, Candle In The Wind and the
title track), and typed lyrics sheets, and began working on a concept. His friend, fashion illustrator Leslie McKinley Howell, stood in as a model for Elton
John in polaroids which Beck took (hence the long legs) in preparation for his watercolour, pastel, and coloured crayon pencils artwork. The piano on
the front cover and the teddy bear at the back were placed there at the request of Elsie, as Beck only later realised Elton was known to his staff.
More
(A) Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding - Candle in the Wind - Bennie and the Jets
(B) Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - This Song Has No Title - Grey Seal - Jamaica Jerk-Off - I've Seen That Movie Too
(C) Sweet Painted Lady - The Ballad of Danny Bailey (1909-34) - Dirty Little Girl - All the Girls Love Alice
(D) Your Sister Can't Twist (But She Can Rock 'n Roll) - Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting - Roy Rogers - Social Disease - Harmony
The Tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales from musicaltranslator1 on YouTube.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
28. The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed
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The album title says so.
There's the album cover art standing at right while a vinyl record with a blank label rolls down from the bottom in the same speed at the blood is dripping from top left.
You can keep the music playing while the blood starts to spill on the record and comes into contact with the tip of the needle.
Would you wish you could feel it?
Would you wish you could feel it?
Here's the Bleed without the blood.
No. 32, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 37, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 40, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000.
Art design by Robert Brownjohn. Album produced by Jimmy Miller. Decca (UK), London (US), 1969.
The Guardian reported on 22 November 2011 that the artwork for one of the most famous album covers – the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed –
is expected to fetch up to £40,000 at auction.
The album cover displays a surreal sculpture designed by Robert Brownjohn. The image consists of the Let It Bleed record being played by the tone-arm of an antique phonograph,
and a record-changer spindle supporting several items stacked on a plate in place of a stack of records: a tape canister labelled Stones – Let It Bleed, a clock dial,
a pizza, a tyre and a cake with elaborate icing topped by figurines representing the band. The cake parts of the construction were prepared by
then-unknown cookery writer Delia Smith. The artwork was inspired by the working title of the album, which was Automatic Changer.
The album cover for Let It Bleed was among the ten chosen by the Royal Mail for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamps issued in January 2010.
Full Article
(A) Gimme Shelter - Love in Vain - Country Honk - Live with Me - Let It Bleed
(B) Midnight Rambler - You Got the Silver - Monkey Man - You Can't Always Get What You Want
The Guardian reported on 22 November 2011 that the artwork for one of the most famous album covers – the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed –
is expected to fetch up to £40,000 at auction.
The album cover displays a surreal sculpture designed by Robert Brownjohn. The image consists of the Let It Bleed record being played by the tone-arm of an antique phonograph,
and a record-changer spindle supporting several items stacked on a plate in place of a stack of records: a tape canister labelled Stones – Let It Bleed, a clock dial,
a pizza, a tyre and a cake with elaborate icing topped by figurines representing the band. The cake parts of the construction were prepared by
then-unknown cookery writer Delia Smith. The artwork was inspired by the working title of the album, which was Automatic Changer.
The album cover for Let It Bleed was among the ten chosen by the Royal Mail for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamps issued in January 2010.
Full Article
(A) Gimme Shelter - Love in Vain - Country Honk - Live with Me - Let It Bleed
(B) Midnight Rambler - You Got the Silver - Monkey Man - You Can't Always Get What You Want
"Gimme Shelter" live from The Rolling Stones on YouTube.
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| Next: Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road |
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Sunday, June 14, 2015
27. Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
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This is a mean Dylan, meaner than him on the cover of Highway 61 Revisited. It was freezing when they took the shot. I read about it. The shot is out of focus. I readily noticed it.
And so I decided to crop the sides of the original photo to make a larger one and see how meaner Dylan could get. Then I remembered the texture of his photo on the cover
of Blood on the Tracks but on this one I experimented with rough pastels and angled strokes. That's just enough blurring without demeaning the original blur.
And, I guess, that's the meanest mean I could get. Out of a cold blonde.
And so I decided to crop the sides of the original photo to make a larger one and see how meaner Dylan could get. Then I remembered the texture of his photo on the cover
of Blood on the Tracks but on this one I experimented with rough pastels and angled strokes. That's just enough blurring without demeaning the original blur.
And, I guess, that's the meanest mean I could get. Out of a cold blonde.
Here's the original album cover art design.
No. 9, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 18, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time;
No. 33, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000.
Photo by Jerry Schatzberg. Album produced by Bob Johnston. Columbia 1966.
"I wanted to find an interesting location outside of the studio. We went to the west side, where the Chelsea art galleries are now.
At the time it was the meat packing district of New York and I liked the look of it. It was freezing and we were very cold.
The frame he chose for the cover is blurred and out of focus. Of course everyone was trying to interpret the meaning,
saying it must represent getting high on an LSD trip. It was none of the above; we were just cold and the
two of us were shivering. There were other images that were sharp and in focus but, to his credit,
This was the spot where they took the shot.
(A) Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35 - Pledging My Time - Visions of Johanna - One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)
(B) I Want You - Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again - Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat - Just Like a Woman
(C) Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine) - Temporary Like Achilles - Absolutely Sweet Marie - Fourth Time Around - Obviously Five Believers
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