Ricky Nelson - Travelin' Man 1961
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Album Cover Art
Let's continue our look at Gigwise.com's list of the top 50 most controversial, the weirdest, best and worst album covers as compiled by their crack staff.
Controversial
17. The Exploited: ‘Jesus Is Dead’ (1986 EP)– Oh, yeah, this album cover will work, no controversy here. The Exploited is a punk band from the second wave of UK punk, formed in 1979. They started out as an Oi! band, before mutating into a faster street punk and hardcore punk band. From about 1987 on (around the time of Death Before Dishonour) they changed into a crossover thrash band. Formed in Edinburgh by ex-soldier Wattie Buchan, they signed to Secret Records in March 1981 and released their debut EP Army Life. The album Punks Not Dead followed in the same year. Despite many lineup changes, the band continued into the 2000s and has developed a worldwide following. The band has garnered a sizable hardcore audience in the U.K. for its anti-authoritarian stance and criticism of the government, particularly in the Reagan/Thatcher era, but their following is not quite as large in the U.S. and has declined somewhat in Britain over the years.
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Weirdest
17. Nurse With Wound: 'Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella' Great cover and I would agree just a bit on the weird side. But, I love leather and certainly a dominatrix complete with boobs hanging out gets on my list.
Nurse with Wound (or shortened as NWW) is the main recording name for British musician Steven Stapleton. Nurse with Wound was originally a band, formed in 1978 by Stapleton, John Fothergill and Heman Pathak. The band ranges in many genres such as avant-garde, industrial, noise, dark ambient, and drone.
The title comes from a sentence by Comte de Lautréamont. The album enjoys a reputation as one of the most singular debuts of all time. It is described by AllMusic as "one of the more glowing examples of late 70's industrial noise" and defunct UK music magazine Sounds summed up their response by abandoning their usual star rating system to award the album a full 5 question marks.
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Worst
17. Boned – ‘Up At The Crack’ On a list of all-time worst album covers? Yes, I agree and not much more needs to be said; a picture is worth a thousand words.
Prior to this album's release and under the pseudonym of 'AC/DD' the band placed some of the finished tracks on the internet.
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Best
17. Joy Division: ‘Unknown Pleasures’ Unknown Pleasures is the debut album by the English post-punk band Joy Division. Released in 1979, the album was recorded and produced for Factory Records by Martin Hannett at Strawberry Studios, Stockport, England. The album did not sell well, but due to the subsequent success of Joy Division with the hit single "Love Will Tear Us Apart," it is now much more well-known.
The front cover image comes from an edition of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy, and was originally drawn with black lines on a white background. It presents exactly 100 successive pulses from the first pulsar discovered, PSR B1919+21 (often referred to in the context of this album by its older name, CP 1919). The cover design is credited to Joy Division, Peter Saville and Chris Mathan. The back cover of the album contains no track listings, leaving a blank table where one would expect the listings to be.
The original LP release contained no track information on the labels, nor the traditional "side one" and "side two" designations. The ostensible "side one" was labeled Outside and displayed a reproduction of the image on the album cover, while the other side was labeled Inside and displayed the same image with the colors reversed (black-on-white). Track information and album credits appeared on the inner sleeve only.
Controversial
17. The Exploited: ‘Jesus Is Dead’ (1986 EP)– Oh, yeah, this album cover will work, no controversy here. The Exploited is a punk band from the second wave of UK punk, formed in 1979. They started out as an Oi! band, before mutating into a faster street punk and hardcore punk band. From about 1987 on (around the time of Death Before Dishonour) they changed into a crossover thrash band. Formed in Edinburgh by ex-soldier Wattie Buchan, they signed to Secret Records in March 1981 and released their debut EP Army Life. The album Punks Not Dead followed in the same year. Despite many lineup changes, the band continued into the 2000s and has developed a worldwide following. The band has garnered a sizable hardcore audience in the U.K. for its anti-authoritarian stance and criticism of the government, particularly in the Reagan/Thatcher era, but their following is not quite as large in the U.S. and has declined somewhat in Britain over the years.
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Weirdest
17. Nurse With Wound: 'Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella' Great cover and I would agree just a bit on the weird side. But, I love leather and certainly a dominatrix complete with boobs hanging out gets on my list.
Nurse with Wound (or shortened as NWW) is the main recording name for British musician Steven Stapleton. Nurse with Wound was originally a band, formed in 1978 by Stapleton, John Fothergill and Heman Pathak. The band ranges in many genres such as avant-garde, industrial, noise, dark ambient, and drone.
The title comes from a sentence by Comte de Lautréamont. The album enjoys a reputation as one of the most singular debuts of all time. It is described by AllMusic as "one of the more glowing examples of late 70's industrial noise" and defunct UK music magazine Sounds summed up their response by abandoning their usual star rating system to award the album a full 5 question marks.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Worst
17. Boned – ‘Up At The Crack’ On a list of all-time worst album covers? Yes, I agree and not much more needs to be said; a picture is worth a thousand words.
Prior to this album's release and under the pseudonym of 'AC/DD' the band placed some of the finished tracks on the internet.
-----------------------------------------
Best
17. Joy Division: ‘Unknown Pleasures’ Unknown Pleasures is the debut album by the English post-punk band Joy Division. Released in 1979, the album was recorded and produced for Factory Records by Martin Hannett at Strawberry Studios, Stockport, England. The album did not sell well, but due to the subsequent success of Joy Division with the hit single "Love Will Tear Us Apart," it is now much more well-known.
The front cover image comes from an edition of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy, and was originally drawn with black lines on a white background. It presents exactly 100 successive pulses from the first pulsar discovered, PSR B1919+21 (often referred to in the context of this album by its older name, CP 1919). The cover design is credited to Joy Division, Peter Saville and Chris Mathan. The back cover of the album contains no track listings, leaving a blank table where one would expect the listings to be.
The original LP release contained no track information on the labels, nor the traditional "side one" and "side two" designations. The ostensible "side one" was labeled Outside and displayed a reproduction of the image on the album cover, while the other side was labeled Inside and displayed the same image with the colors reversed (black-on-white). Track information and album credits appeared on the inner sleeve only.
This Date In Music History- October 12
Birthdays:
Sam Moore of Sam & Dave ("Soul Man") is 73.
Status Quo guitarist Rick Parfitt was born in Woking, England in 1948. The English rock act scored more than 20 top 10 hits in the U.K., but is known in the U.S. only for the 1968 psychedelic classic "Pictures of Matchstick Men."
The Smithereens Pat DiNizio was born in 1955.
History:
In 1955, the Chrysler Corporation introduces high fidelity record players for their 1956 line-up of cars. The unit measured about four inches high and less than a foot wide and mounted under the instrument panel. The seven inch discs spun at 16 2/3 rpm and required almost three times the number of grooves per inch as an LP. A set of 35 classical recordings were available that provided between 45 and 60 minutes of uninterrupted music. The players would be discontinued in 1961.
In 1957, Little Richard announced to an audience at a concert in Sydney that he's giving up rock 'n' roll. He tells the audience, "If you want to live for the Lord, you can't take rock 'n' roll, too. God doesn't like it." Later in the day, he throws four of his diamond rings into Hunter River to prove his faith. Richard later says he decided to turn to God after an engine on his plane caught fire.
Having decided rock 'n' roll isn't so bad after all, Little Richard played Brighton Town, England in 1962. He's supported by the Beatles.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience were formed in 1966, with Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell joining Hendrix in the studio.
B-52's guitarist Ricky Wilson, 32, died of complications from AIDS in 1985.
A motion picture called "Don't Knock The Rock," featuring Little Richard and Bill Haley And His Comets, opened in US theatre in 1956. The movie tells the story of a disc jockey, Alan Freed, who tries to prove to teenagers' parents that Rock 'n' Roll is harmless and won't turn their kids into juvenile delinquents.
The "Paul is Dead" craze began in 1969 when a radio DJ played "Revolution #9" backwards.
The LP "Cheap Thrills" by Big Brother and the Holding Company hit #1 on the Billboard album chart in 1968.
John Denver was killed when the handmade, experimental airplane he was flying ran out of gas and crashed off the coast of Monterey Bay, CA in 1997. The 53 year old star of the 1977 film Oh God, had placed 15 songs on Billboard's Top 40 Pop chart, ten of which reached number one on either Billboard's Adult Contemporary or Country chart.
Gene Vincent ("Be Bop-A-Lula") died in 1971.
The "Columbus Day Riot" occurred outside New York's Paramount Theatre in 1944 when 25,000 Frank Sinatra fans scuffled with police.
Twenty-five years after his death, an album of Elvis Presley's best selling songs entitled "Elvis - 30 #1 hits,” topped the Billboard album chart in 2002.
The Sex Pistols` Sid Vicious was arrested in New York in 1978 for the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. He dies from a heroin overdose while out on bail.
1965-The Beatles recorded "This Bird Has Flown," which later was re-titled "Norwegian Wood." George Harrison uses a sitar on a Beatles recording for the first time.
1991- Mariah Carey breaks the Jackson 5's record of four straight number one hits when "Emotions" becomes the fifth of her first five singles to reach the top of the Billboard chart in 1991. In April, 2008, she would pass Elvis Presley's record when she achieved her 18th Billboard chart topper, second only to The Beatles 20.
Sam Moore of Sam & Dave ("Soul Man") is 73.
Status Quo guitarist Rick Parfitt was born in Woking, England in 1948. The English rock act scored more than 20 top 10 hits in the U.K., but is known in the U.S. only for the 1968 psychedelic classic "Pictures of Matchstick Men."
The Smithereens Pat DiNizio was born in 1955.
History:
In 1955, the Chrysler Corporation introduces high fidelity record players for their 1956 line-up of cars. The unit measured about four inches high and less than a foot wide and mounted under the instrument panel. The seven inch discs spun at 16 2/3 rpm and required almost three times the number of grooves per inch as an LP. A set of 35 classical recordings were available that provided between 45 and 60 minutes of uninterrupted music. The players would be discontinued in 1961.
In 1957, Little Richard announced to an audience at a concert in Sydney that he's giving up rock 'n' roll. He tells the audience, "If you want to live for the Lord, you can't take rock 'n' roll, too. God doesn't like it." Later in the day, he throws four of his diamond rings into Hunter River to prove his faith. Richard later says he decided to turn to God after an engine on his plane caught fire.
Having decided rock 'n' roll isn't so bad after all, Little Richard played Brighton Town, England in 1962. He's supported by the Beatles.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience were formed in 1966, with Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell joining Hendrix in the studio.
B-52's guitarist Ricky Wilson, 32, died of complications from AIDS in 1985.
A motion picture called "Don't Knock The Rock," featuring Little Richard and Bill Haley And His Comets, opened in US theatre in 1956. The movie tells the story of a disc jockey, Alan Freed, who tries to prove to teenagers' parents that Rock 'n' Roll is harmless and won't turn their kids into juvenile delinquents.
The "Paul is Dead" craze began in 1969 when a radio DJ played "Revolution #9" backwards.
The LP "Cheap Thrills" by Big Brother and the Holding Company hit #1 on the Billboard album chart in 1968.
John Denver was killed when the handmade, experimental airplane he was flying ran out of gas and crashed off the coast of Monterey Bay, CA in 1997. The 53 year old star of the 1977 film Oh God, had placed 15 songs on Billboard's Top 40 Pop chart, ten of which reached number one on either Billboard's Adult Contemporary or Country chart.
Gene Vincent ("Be Bop-A-Lula") died in 1971.
The "Columbus Day Riot" occurred outside New York's Paramount Theatre in 1944 when 25,000 Frank Sinatra fans scuffled with police.
Twenty-five years after his death, an album of Elvis Presley's best selling songs entitled "Elvis - 30 #1 hits,” topped the Billboard album chart in 2002.
The Sex Pistols` Sid Vicious was arrested in New York in 1978 for the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. He dies from a heroin overdose while out on bail.
1965-The Beatles recorded "This Bird Has Flown," which later was re-titled "Norwegian Wood." George Harrison uses a sitar on a Beatles recording for the first time.
1991- Mariah Carey breaks the Jackson 5's record of four straight number one hits when "Emotions" becomes the fifth of her first five singles to reach the top of the Billboard chart in 1991. In April, 2008, she would pass Elvis Presley's record when she achieved her 18th Billboard chart topper, second only to The Beatles 20.