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?

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.

No. 29, Music Radar, The 50 Greatest Album Covers of All Time.

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

"Gimme Shelter" live from The Rolling Stones on YouTube.

            

  

www.rollingstones.com

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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. 

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,

Dylan liked that photograph." Jerry Schatzberg.

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

(D) Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

"Visions of Johanna" from dylanzimmer on YouTube.

            

  

www.bobdylan.com

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26. Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols

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This work is an experiment with the glass distortion and liquefy filters. The basis I chose is the album cover version which has pink instead of the more common dayglo red for the band's letters. It's the
pink as in punk that created the rush to add the bright blue bar at left and supplied the devilish creative adrenalin to arouse the X and drop the O. 

One can have it any which way but Jamie Reid's original album art has already gone down in history as one of the standards of punk visual aesthetic. 


Here's the original album cover art design.

No. 29, The Virgin all-Time Album Top 1000; No. 29, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 41, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

No. 2, Rolling Stone, The 100 Greatest Album Covers; No. 14, Music Radar, The 50 Greatest Album Covers of All Time.

Design concept by Jamie Reid, phrase supplied by Steve Jones. Album produced by Chris Thomas and Bill Price. Virgin 1977.

The album was originally going to be titled God Save Sex Pistols. The album's title changed in mid-1977, based on a phrase supplied by Steve Jones. Jones said he picked up the phrase
"Never mind the bollocks" from two fans who would always say it to one another. Johnny Rotten explained its meaning as a working-class expression to "stop talking rubbish".

In the UK, the album was subject to what (writer Clinton) Heylin described as "blatant acts of censorship exercised by media and retail outlets alike". London police visited the 
city's Virgin record stores and told them they faced prosecution for indecency if they continued to display posters of the album cover in their windows. The displays were either
toned down or removed. However, on 9 November 1977 the London Evening Standard announced on its front page headline "Police Move in on Punk Disc Shops", and reported 
how a Virgin Records shop manager was arrested for displaying the record after being warned to cover up the word "bollocks". 

An obscenity case was heard at Nottingham Magistrates' Court on 24 November. The defence presented the case as a matter of police discrimination. The arresting officer was 
asked why the newspapers The Guardian and Evening Standard (which had referred to the album's name) had not been charged under the same act. When the magistrate inquired 
about his line of questioning, the defence lawyer stated that a double-standard was apparently at play, and that "bollocks" was only considered obscene when it appeared on the
cover of a Sex Pistols album. The prosecutor conducted his cross-examination "as if the album itself, and not its lurid visage, was on trial for indecency. 

The lawyer produced expert witnesses who were able to successfully demonstrate that the word "bollocks" was not obscene, and was actually a legitimate Old English term 
originally used to refer to a priest, and which, in the context of the title, meant "nonsense". Full article


Case closed. 




(A) Holidays in the Sun - Liar - No Feelings - God Save the Queen - Problems

(B) Seventeen - Anarchy in the U.K. - Bodies - Pretty Vacant - New York - E.M.I.

"God Save the Queen" Live 2007 from djitras on YouTube.

            

  

www.sexpistolsofficial.com

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25. David Bowie - The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders from Mars

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It's not difficult to find the original album cover art design on this work. It is mirrored at right and partially reproduced at left. The mirroring doubled up what looks like a heap of radioactive garbage but
it has to be left lying there. The mirroring also inverted K. West so the original had to be cut and pasted and tilted and positioned where it should be. 

Here's David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust posing at 23 Heddon Street, London on a rainy night in January 1972.

No. 27, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000; No. 30, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 34, Entertainment Weekly, 100 Greatest Albums Ever; 
No. 35, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Design by Terry Pastor of George Underwood's company, Main Artery, photo by Brian Ward. Album produced by David Bowie and Ken Scott. RCA 1972.


The album cover photograph was taken outside furriers K. West at 23 Heddon Street, London, looking south-east towards the centre of the city. Bowie said of the sign,
"It's such a shame that sign was removed. People read so much into it. They thought 'K. West' must be some sort of code for 'quest.' It took on all these sort of mystical 
overtones." The cover was among the ten chosen by the Royal Mail for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamps issued in January 2010. Full article

Right where the Starman touched down: From left, Spiders from Mars members Trevor Bolder and
Mick Woodmansey join Spandau Ballet's Gary Kemp to unveil a plaque where Bowie's creation was
once photographed in Heddon Street, London. The Crown Estate, which runs a £7 billion property
portfolio on behalf of the Queen and the public estate, installed the plaque 28 March 2012. Article


(A) Five Years - Soul Love - Moonage Daydream - Starman - It Ain't Easy

(B) Lady Stardust - Star - Hang On to Yourself - Ziggy Stardust - Suffragette City - Rock n' Roll Suicide

"Five Years" live for BBC from sante3d on YouTube.

            

  

www.davidbowie.com

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24. Don McLean - American Pie

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"I met a girl who sang the blues and I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away.

I went down to the sacred store where I heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn't play."

"Do you believe in rock and roll?
Can music save your mortal soul?"

Design and photo by George S. Whiteman. Album produced by Ed Freeman. United Artists 1971.


"American Pie" has been said to be Don McLean's boyhood memories upon learning the death of Buddy Holly. "The day the music died" in the opening verse was the 1959 plane crash that ended the lives of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper. More  

It was also the story of America, or the evolution of the American music scene from the 1950s through the 60s. Thus "the jester on the sidelines" is Bob Dylan, "the king with the thorny crown" is Elvis,
"the quartet in the park" was The Beatles, and "Jack Flash" was Mick Jagger. Believing that an artist's work should stand by itself, McLean generally did not offer explanations for his work's
themes or meaning, though he did describe the title song as involving "a sense of loss".

On 13 February 2015, the Daily Telegraph reported that McLean's original manuscript of "American Pie," one of the most iconic songs of its time, could fetch up to $1.5 million 
when it is sold on April 7, auctioneers Christie's have said. The 16 pages of handwritten and typed drafts include notes and deletions for the recording that became a hit
after it was released in 1971. It was named a Song of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.

"Vincent" is a tribute to Vincent van Gogh. It is also known by its opening line, "Starry Starry Night", a reference to Van Gogh's painting The Starry Night. The song
also describes different paintings done by the artist. McLean wrote the lyrics in 1971 after reading a book about the life of the artist. The following year,
the song became the number one hit in the UK Singles Chart. In the US, "Vincent" also peaked at number two on the Easy Listening chart. 

Everyday, "Vincent" is played by the staff of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam for its visitors.


There is an often repeated claim that the song "Empty Chairs" was the inspiration for the popular song "Killing Me Softly with His Song". Lori Lieberman, who first
recorded the song, claims that she wrote a poem after seeing McLean perform "Empty Chairs" in concert and that co-authors Charles Fox and Norman
Gimbel re-worked it into the song, which she later recorded on her debut album. Fox denies this, saying that the song’s lyrical genesis was
found in a notebook of Gimbel’s that contained the phrase “Killing me softly with his blues.” They updated the phrase and wrote
the song which Lieberman liked and said reminded her of watching McLean perform. More

(A) American Pie - Till Tomorrow - Vincent - Crossroads - Winterwood

(B) Empty Chairs - Everybody Loves Me, Baby - Sister Fatima - The Grave - Babylon

"American Pie" video from TrueBlueCdnEh on YouTube.

            

  

www.donmclean.com

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23. Pink Floyd - The Wall

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The original album cover art design of The Wall is a white brick wall with no text. Roger Waters had fallen out with Hipgnosis designer Storm Thorgerson.
Later CD covers would bear the band's name and album title in either black or red text.

For this work, I have added two images from the movie The Wall and a fan-made calligraphy. The additional text is mine.


The Wall is a story of alienation, oppression, isolation, despair and bombing out. A wall is a symbol of separation, restriction and exclusion. It sends a message that means containment, 
debasement, lack of freedom and the forced imposition of someone else's will on another. Yet the human spirit is surprisingly insurmountable and history is replete with the fall
of famous walls. The walled city of Babylon was considered impregnable during its time until Cyrus the Great diverted the Euphrates River to lower its water level and thus 
enabled his army to enter the city through the river bed. The Storming of the Bastille was the flashpoint of the French Revolution. The Wall concert was one of the
events that marked celebrations over the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. 

Dynasties have built walls to contain themselves, exclude others or otherwise prove that what are within those walls are theirs. The erection of walls have
always been accompanied by blatant displays of power and have often been served in conflict and ushered in dominance and servitude. But for every
whack of the whip of authority is an echo of disillusionment, dismemberment and disintegration. The only man-made structure that is visible
from the dark side of the moon may yet be the next to fall.

"We don't need no thought control."

No. 16, Billboard, The 300 Best-Selling Albums of All Time; No. 30, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000;
No. 47, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 87, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.


Design by Gerald Scarfe. Album produced by Bob Ezrin, David Gilmour, James Guthrie and Roger Waters. Harvest/EMI 1979.


Pink Floyd's the Wall is one of the most intriguing and imaginative albums in the history of rock music. Since the studio album's release in 1979, the tour of 1980-81, and the subsequent
movie of 1982, the Wall has become synonymous with, if not the very definition of, the term "concept album." Aurally explosive on record, astoundingly complex on stage, and visually
explosive on the screen, the Wall traces the life of the fictional protagonist, Pink Floyd, from his boyhood days in post-World-War-II England to his self-imposed isolation as a 
world-renowned rock star, leading to a climax that is as cathartic as it is destructive. Full article


(A) In the Flesh? - The Thin Ice - Another Brick in the Wall (Part I) - The Happiest Days of Our Lives - Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) - Mother

(B) Goodbye Blue Sky - Empty Spaces - Young Lust - One of My Turns - Don't Leave Me Now - Another Brick in the Wall (Part III) - Goodbye Cruel World

(C) Hey You - Is There Anybody Out There? - Nobody Home - Vera - Bring the Boys Back Home - Comfortably Numb

(D) The Show Must Go On - In the Flesh - Run Like Hell - Waiting for the Worms - Stop - The Trial - Outside the Wall

"Another Brick in the Wall" from mongchilde on YouTube.
         

              

    

www.pinkfloyd.com

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22. Paul Simon - Graceland

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The original album cover art design depicts Saint George from an ancient Ethiopian manuscript called a harag dating back to the late 15th century. Saint George is the patron saint of Ethiopia. There is a

cathedral of Saint George in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Saint George is often depicted in Ethiopian Orthodox Christian art where his icons are placed next to the Virgin Mary. One such

depiction is a mural in the church of Mengitsu Berhan Selassie in Gondar.

African art was the main influence of Proto-Cubism. The Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), one of the early cubist works of Pablo Picasso, the co-founder of the Cubist movement,

is classified under his African-influenced period.

The work above is a primitive study in cubism and an experiment of the use of the craquelure texturizing tool. The original album cover art design was halved and pasted at left.

The other half was pasted at right. It was reduced so that its outer frame would fit into the borders of the left half. My intention was not clear as I was doing this, but it 

transformed the horse into a galloping mood.

Here is the work of Pablo Picasso. The eyes are always facing up front even if the head is facing to the side.

Saint George slaying the dragon, a popular subject in Ethiopian Orthodox Christian iconography.

This is the original album cover art design.

No. 18, Entertainment Weekly, 100 Greatest Albums Ever; No. 43, The Virgin All-Time Album Top 1000; No. 71, Rolling Stone, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time;
No. 85, Rate Your Music, The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time; No. 124, Billboard, The 300 Best-Selling Albums of All Time.


Centre image from Ethiopia, The Christian Art of an African Nation: The Langmuir Collection, Peabody Museum of Salem by Elizabeth Cross Langmuir,
Stanisław Chojnacki, Peter Fetchko, Peabody Museum of Salem. Photo by Mark Sexton. Album produced by Paul Simon. Warner Brothers 1986.


Recorded between 1985–86, Graceland features an eclectic mixture of musical styles, including pop, rock, a cappella, zydeco, isicathamiya, and mbaqanga.
Simon created new compositions inspired by the recordings made in Johannesburg, collaborating with both African and American artists. Simon faced controversy
for seemingly breaking the cultural boycott imposed by the rest of the world against the apartheid regime in South Africa at the time. In addition, some critics
viewed Graceland as an exploitive appropriation of their culture. Following its completion, Simon toured alongside South African musicians, combining the
music of Graceland and their own music.

Despite the controversy, Graceland was a major commercial hit. His highest-charting effort in over a decade, Simon's return to the forefront of popular music was
considered a remarkable comeback. It attracted rave reviews from music critics, won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and sold over 16 million copies
worldwide. Graceland has been called one of the best albums of the 1980s, and is present on list of "greatest" albums by multiple publications. It was added to
the National Recording Registry in 2007 for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important." More


(A) The Boy in the Bubble - Graceland - I Know What I Know - Gumboots - Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes

(B) You Can Call Me Al - Under African Skies - Homeless - Crazy Love, Vol. II - That Was Your Mother - All Around the World or The Myth of Fingerprints

"Township Jive" (not in album) live from benbruch on YouTube.

              

     

www.paulsimon.com

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