I, too was a bit shocked at this list and it is certainly up for debate. I think Nirvana's "Nevermind" deserves a higher ranking (I am not a big Madonna fan), but I think some greats have been missed. Where is the Band? What about a any Simon & Garfunkel LP? Where is the first Boston LP? And "Hotel California" at #91? No Zappa, Alice Cooper, ZZ Top? What about the Cars debut album? Buffalo Springfield or Jefferson Airplane or maybe Chicago's first LP? And as long as they inlcude Canada, what about the Guess Who? I think they need to rework this, but I am sure that anyone could argue about some of the bands on the list. There are some glaring omissions.
What do you get when you take the greatest albums ever made and remove any by the Beatles, Rollings Stones, Kinks, AC/DC, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Clash, Elvis Costello, etc.?
You get Blender's list of the 100 Greatest American Albums of All Time. This one should generate a lot of discussion because for every good thing about the list, there's something equally off.
Let's start with the good. Blender has managed to name a number of albums to the list that aren't usually recognized in such compilations. Albums by Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and Chic deserve to be recognized along with all the "regulars."
They've been adventurous in some of their selections within an artist's repertoire. For Steely Dan, it's Katy Lied that made the list instead of Aja. Off the Wall for Michael Jackson instead of Thriller. Let's Get It On for Marvin Gaye instead of What's Goin' On.
On the other hand, can a list that doesn't include classics like What's Goin' On really be taken seriously, especially when so many other lists include it in the top ten albums ever made in ANY country...and what's the deal with including Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town but omitting Born to Run?
There are also a great many greatest hits and compilation albums, including the Madonna album deemed to be the greatest by an American artist. While these albums sell in great quantities, the fact remains that they are mainly tracks taken from other works by the artists and the only real new "art", save for the occasional bonus track, is the sequencing and the liner notes. About the only good reason to include them on the list is to acknowledge acts that were never considered to be album artists like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Hank Williams, the Coasters and the Carpenters (but definitely not Madonna).
Finally, these are supposed to be albums by American artists. Joni Mitchell and Neil Young are Canadian and don't really belong here.
Here is the full top ten and all other listings for veteran artists.
1. The Immaculate Collection - Madonna
2. Licensed to Ill - Beastie Boys
3. Highway 61 Revisited - Bob Dylan
4. Innervisions - Stevie Wonder
5. Appetite For Destruction - Guns N' Roses
6. Ramones - Ramones
7. Parallel Lines - Blondie
8. The Great Twenty-Eight - Chuck Berry
9. Nevermind - Nirvana
10. Blue - Joni Mitchell
12. Metallica - Metallica
13. Off the Wall - Michael Jackson
14. Pet Sounds - Beach Boys
15. Let's Get It On - Marvin Gaye
16. Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music - Ray Charles
17. The Velvet Underground & Nico - Velvet Underground, Nico
18. Purple Rain - Prince & the Revolution
19. Rust Never Sleeps - Neil Young
20. Sex Machine - James Brown
21. Blonde on Blonde - Bob Dylan
22. King of the Delta Blues Singers - Robert Johnson
23. Murmer - R.E.M.
24. Mothership Connection - Parliament
26. Van Halen - Van Halen
27. Call Me - Al Green
28. Rocks - Aerosmith
30. Grooviest 17 Original Hits! - Little Richard
31. The Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings - Louis Armstrong
32. Superfly - Curtis Mayfield
33. 40 Greatest Hits - Hank Williams
34. Katy Lied - Steely Dan
35. The B-52's - B-52's
36. Risque - Chic
37. Paul's Boutique - Beastie Boys
38. I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You - Aretha Franklin
39. The Sun Sessions - Elvis Presley
41. Electric Ladyland - Jimi Hendrix
42. Horses - Patti Smith
43. There's a Riot Goin' On - Sly & the Family Stone
46. Raising Hell - Run-DMC
47. Back to Mono: 1958-1969 - Various Artists (Phil Spector)
48. Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
50. Destroyer - KISS
51. Court and Spark - Joni Mitchell
52. 12 Songs - Randy Newman
54. In the Wee Small Hours - Frank Sinatra
55. The Basement Tapes - Bob Dylan
58. American Beauty - Grateful Dead
60. Graceland - Paul Simon
61. 50 Coastin' Classics - Coasters
62. Darkness on the Edge of Town - Bruce Springsteen
63. At Folsom Prison - Johnny Cash
64. Grevious Angel - Gram Parsons
65. Lady in Satin - Billie Holiday
66. Modern Lovers - Modern Lovers
69. (Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd) - Lynyrd Skynyrd
70. Sign "O" the Times - Prince
71. Radio - L.L. Cool J
72. The Singles 1969-1981 - Carpenters
74. Lady Soul - Aretha Franklin
76. At Newport 1960 - Muddy Waters
78. From Elvis in Memphis - Elvis Presley
79. Dust Bowl Ballads - Woody Guthrie
81. Nuggets - Various Artists
83. Double Nickles on the Dime - Minutemen
84. Greatest Hits - Buddy Holly
85. Red Headed Stranger - Willie Nelson
86. After the Goldrush - Neil Young
87. Automatic For the People - R.E.M.
89. Remain in Light - Talking Heads
91. Hotel California - Eagles
92. Lucinda Williams - Lucinda Williams
95. Nilsson Schmilsson - Nilsson
97. The Doors - Doors
98. Let It Be - Replacements
99. Fulfillingness First Finale - Stevie Wonder
100. Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul - Otis Redding
SOURCES: http://winkscollectibles.blogspot.com
http://www.blender.com/
Saturday, October 18, 2008
This Date In Music History- October 18
Birthdays:
Charles ("Chuck") Berry was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1926.
Songwriter Cynthia Weil (wrote "Kicks", "On Broadway", "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" and many others, usually with then-husband Barry Mann) is 71.
Happy birthday to Russ Gugiere- guitarist/vocalist with the Association ("Along Comes Mary").
REO Speedwagon guitarist Gary Richrath was born in Peoria, Illinois in 1949.
Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis was born in New Orleans in 1961.
History:
Paul McCartney made his debut with the Quarrymen in 1957, a skiffle group founded by John Lennon. He blows the solo on “Guitar Boogie.” The Quarrymen eventually became The Beatles and Paul switched to bass.
'The Graduate', starring Dustin Hoffman and featuring a soundtrack by Simon and Garfunkel, was released in 1967.
Jimi Hendrix's version of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" was released in 1968. "Before I came to England, I was digging a lot of the things Bob Dylan was doing," Jimi said. "He is giving me inspiration."
John Lennon and Yoko Ono were busted for possession of marijuana in 1968. The bust, while not a major deal in England, was used in the 1970s as the reason the U.S. government didn’t want Lennon to immigrate. Actually, the government felt Lennon was a political radical/troublemaker.
'Easy Rider', starring Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson, was released in 1969.
The Band’s masterful self-titled second album - which contains such classics as “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” – entered Billboard’s album chart in 1969. It reached #9 and eventually went platinum (1 million copies sold).
The late songwriter Laura Nyro ("And When I Die", "Eli's Coming", "Wedding Bell Blues" and many others) was born in 1947.
Today in 1969, the song "I Can't Get Next to You" by the Temptations topped the charts and stayed there for 2 weeks.
In 1956, 21 year old Elvis Presley pulled into a Memphis gas station where he started to attract a crowd of autograph seekers. After repeatedly asking Elvis to move on so he could resume normal business, station manager Edd Hopper slapped Presley on the head and finds himself on the receiving end of a punch in the eye from Elvis. Station employee Aubrey Brown tries to help his boss, but is no match for Presley. After police are called, Hopper and Brown are charged with assault and are eventually fined $25 and $15 respectively.
The Jackson 5 made their US network TV debut on Hollywood Palace in 1968. The group included Jackie (18), Tito (15), Jermaine (14), Marlon (12) and Michael (10).
Dickie Goodman had the best selling single in the US in 1975, with the novelty tune, "Mr. Jaws", which mixed his rapid-fire mock interviews with answers that were snipped from contemporary hit singles. Goodman first entered the US charts in 1956 when he and his partner Bill Buchanan used a similar format on a record called "The Flying Saucer".
At a Rock 'n' Roll revival concert at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1968, Bill Haley was given an eight minute standing ovation.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience played its first major show backing Billy Hallyday at the Paris Olympia Theatre in 1966.
Richard Lester’s "How I Won The War” premiered in London in 1968. The anti-war film featured John Lennon as Corporal Gripweed. Lester directed the first two Beatle films (A Hard Day’s Night and Help!).
The Animals first UK tour as headliners opened in Manchester, England, in 1964 with Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, Tommy Tucker and the Nashville Teens as supporting acts.
Charles ("Chuck") Berry was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1926.
Songwriter Cynthia Weil (wrote "Kicks", "On Broadway", "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" and many others, usually with then-husband Barry Mann) is 71.
Happy birthday to Russ Gugiere- guitarist/vocalist with the Association ("Along Comes Mary").
REO Speedwagon guitarist Gary Richrath was born in Peoria, Illinois in 1949.
Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis was born in New Orleans in 1961.
History:
Paul McCartney made his debut with the Quarrymen in 1957, a skiffle group founded by John Lennon. He blows the solo on “Guitar Boogie.” The Quarrymen eventually became The Beatles and Paul switched to bass.
'The Graduate', starring Dustin Hoffman and featuring a soundtrack by Simon and Garfunkel, was released in 1967.
Jimi Hendrix's version of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" was released in 1968. "Before I came to England, I was digging a lot of the things Bob Dylan was doing," Jimi said. "He is giving me inspiration."
John Lennon and Yoko Ono were busted for possession of marijuana in 1968. The bust, while not a major deal in England, was used in the 1970s as the reason the U.S. government didn’t want Lennon to immigrate. Actually, the government felt Lennon was a political radical/troublemaker.
'Easy Rider', starring Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson, was released in 1969.
The Band’s masterful self-titled second album - which contains such classics as “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” – entered Billboard’s album chart in 1969. It reached #9 and eventually went platinum (1 million copies sold).
The late songwriter Laura Nyro ("And When I Die", "Eli's Coming", "Wedding Bell Blues" and many others) was born in 1947.
Today in 1969, the song "I Can't Get Next to You" by the Temptations topped the charts and stayed there for 2 weeks.
In 1956, 21 year old Elvis Presley pulled into a Memphis gas station where he started to attract a crowd of autograph seekers. After repeatedly asking Elvis to move on so he could resume normal business, station manager Edd Hopper slapped Presley on the head and finds himself on the receiving end of a punch in the eye from Elvis. Station employee Aubrey Brown tries to help his boss, but is no match for Presley. After police are called, Hopper and Brown are charged with assault and are eventually fined $25 and $15 respectively.
The Jackson 5 made their US network TV debut on Hollywood Palace in 1968. The group included Jackie (18), Tito (15), Jermaine (14), Marlon (12) and Michael (10).
Dickie Goodman had the best selling single in the US in 1975, with the novelty tune, "Mr. Jaws", which mixed his rapid-fire mock interviews with answers that were snipped from contemporary hit singles. Goodman first entered the US charts in 1956 when he and his partner Bill Buchanan used a similar format on a record called "The Flying Saucer".
At a Rock 'n' Roll revival concert at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1968, Bill Haley was given an eight minute standing ovation.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience played its first major show backing Billy Hallyday at the Paris Olympia Theatre in 1966.
Richard Lester’s "How I Won The War” premiered in London in 1968. The anti-war film featured John Lennon as Corporal Gripweed. Lester directed the first two Beatle films (A Hard Day’s Night and Help!).
The Animals first UK tour as headliners opened in Manchester, England, in 1964 with Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, Tommy Tucker and the Nashville Teens as supporting acts.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Four Tops vocalist Levi Stubbs dies at 72
By Gary Graff
DETROIT (Billboard) – Arguably the most powerful voice in Motown's storied history has been silenced. Four Tops lead singer Levi Stubbs Jr. died Friday at his home in Detroit after a long series of health problems, including cancer and a stroke, that forced him to stop performing in 2000. He was 72.
Funeral arrangements were pending for Stubbs, who is survived by Clineice, his wife of 48 years, and five children.
"He had one of the most prolific and identifiably voices in American history," the Motown Alumni Association's Billy J. Wilson told Billboard.com. "It's a deep loss, to the entire Motown family and to the world."
(Stubbs, far left)
Stubbs' death leaves Abdul "Duke" Fakir as the Tops' only living member from the original quartet, which formed in 1954 as the Four Aims and signed with Motown nine years later. Laurence Payton passed away in 1997, and Renaldo "Obie" Benson died in 2005.
Fakir continues to lead a version of the Tops that includes Payton's son Roquel, former Temptations member Theo Peoples and Motown veteran Ronnie McNeir.
Stubbs -- born Levi Stubbles in Detroit -- gave voice to enduring hits such as "Baby I Need Your Loving," "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)," "Reach Out I'll Be There" and "Brenadette." The Tops have sold more than 50 million records and racked up 45 chart hits for the Motown, ABC Dunhill, Arista and Casablanca labels, and the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
Stubbs also provided the voice of Audrey II, the man-eating plant in the film version of the musical "Little Shop of Horrors" in 1986, and of Mother Brain in the 1989 animated TV series "Captain N: The Game Master."
Stubbs' last public appearance with the group was at the group's 50th anniversary concert July 28, 2004, at Detroit's Music Hall Center.
Reuters/Billboard
DETROIT (Billboard) – Arguably the most powerful voice in Motown's storied history has been silenced. Four Tops lead singer Levi Stubbs Jr. died Friday at his home in Detroit after a long series of health problems, including cancer and a stroke, that forced him to stop performing in 2000. He was 72.
Funeral arrangements were pending for Stubbs, who is survived by Clineice, his wife of 48 years, and five children.
"He had one of the most prolific and identifiably voices in American history," the Motown Alumni Association's Billy J. Wilson told Billboard.com. "It's a deep loss, to the entire Motown family and to the world."
(Stubbs, far left)
Stubbs' death leaves Abdul "Duke" Fakir as the Tops' only living member from the original quartet, which formed in 1954 as the Four Aims and signed with Motown nine years later. Laurence Payton passed away in 1997, and Renaldo "Obie" Benson died in 2005.
Fakir continues to lead a version of the Tops that includes Payton's son Roquel, former Temptations member Theo Peoples and Motown veteran Ronnie McNeir.
Stubbs -- born Levi Stubbles in Detroit -- gave voice to enduring hits such as "Baby I Need Your Loving," "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)," "Reach Out I'll Be There" and "Brenadette." The Tops have sold more than 50 million records and racked up 45 chart hits for the Motown, ABC Dunhill, Arista and Casablanca labels, and the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
Stubbs also provided the voice of Audrey II, the man-eating plant in the film version of the musical "Little Shop of Horrors" in 1986, and of Mother Brain in the 1989 animated TV series "Captain N: The Game Master."
Stubbs' last public appearance with the group was at the group's 50th anniversary concert July 28, 2004, at Detroit's Music Hall Center.
Reuters/Billboard
Vinyl records make comeback on local scene
I love articles about independent record stores and have found another gem for you to enjoy. I want to thank the author and publication for allowing me to reprint this material:
SOURCE: The Bakersfield Californian http://www.bakersfield.com
(Photo by Henry A. Barrios/ The Californian)
Vinyl records make comeback on local scene
By JOHN COX, Californian staff writer
For nearly 20 years World Records stocked no records. Unless you placed a special order, CDs were what you got.
Earlier this year, though, young people started asking for vinyl. Now World Records’ new home on downtown G Street boasts a record section with new releases and reissues by Amy Winehouse, Parliament, The Velvet Underground and others.
Vinyl’s back.
U.S. record sales were up 15 percent last year over the year before, fed by growing interest in independent record stores like World Records and Darkstar Records and Books, another newcomer to downtown Bakersfield.
The resurgence has many roots, ranging from purists’ ideas about sound quality to availability of turntables at major retailers to the desirability of belonging to an exclusive, anti-digital subculture.
Vinyl’s growing popularity could have side benefits for Bakersfield. Independent record stores tend to promote the local music scene more than chain stores do. And downtown’s cluster of music stores could make it more of a destination for out-of-town collectors, boosting local tourism.
What surprises many longtime record collectors is how vinyl appeals to so many young people born after much of the nation turned its back on records when CDs were introduced in the 1980s.
A THING FOR VINYL
Consider the enthusiasm of 19-year-old Brenndan Morlan. He has amassed 140 or so albums since he began collecting records three or four years ago, and now spends $100 a week on vinyl recordings of classic jazz, psychedelic rock and exotic funk.
His friends “don’t get it.”
“They’re just like, ‘How can you spend so much money on records?’” the Bakersfield sandwich shop employee said Thursday as he flipped through row after row of old vinyl at Darkstar on Truxtun Avenue.
Dan Robertson, the store’s co-owner along with his two sons, understands. His own collection numbers about half a million.
“I think (renewed interest in records) is almost a reaction against the digital,” said Robertson, a deadhead deejay who counted Buck Owens among his personal friends. He has been planning to open a record store for more than three decades.
DIGITAL DIVIDE
Distaste for digital music is common among record people. They tend to frown upon the carelessness others afford CDs, and relish the special care records require and the sense of history one gets when holding an album.
“It’s like having primary text from an author or a philosopher,” said 23-year-old Steven Koontz, the drummer for Bakersfield punk band Loser Life, which this week embarked on a European tour. Band members were planning to bring with them and sell more than 200 vinyl recordings of their music.
Then there’s the sound quality issue. Vinyl enthusiasts praise the medium’s warm sound as compared with digital recordings.
Listening to a record is “kind of like holding someone’s hand without a glove,” said Andrew Winton, a 29-year-old coffeehouse manager and regular at Going Underground, a punk music store on downtown G Street that sells and pays to have pressed many vinyl recordings that have never been transferred to CD format.
A RISING TIDE
The opening of two new record retailers so close in proximity has store owners hopeful that customers near and far will view Bakersfield as a hub for buying vinyl.
“The more the better,” said Alex Rodriguez, co-owner of downtown 19th Street’s Gigantic Vintage, which sells vintage clothing in front and records in back. “Kids aren’t just going to go to one (record store), they’re going to go to all of them.”
David Thomas, owner of Shafter’s Rockit Music, agreed. His 5,000-square-foot store, which has sold records since 1947, draws collectors from the Bay Area and the Los Angeles area. The more stores clustered in one area, he said, the more likely it is that serious collectors will come.
And when they drive in, collectors can drop big money. Jake Chavez, owner of Downtown Records on 19th Street across from Gigantic Vintage, said he once sold 200 records to a collector from Alaska driving on his way to a large show in Las Vegas.
STAYING POWER
Thomas suggested that independent stores such as those operating locally will outlast chains because of their personal touch.
“People want to go back (and) deal with neighborhood-type record stores where they can actually go in and talk about music,” he said.
This appears to be the case recently. Entertainment research company Nielsen SoundScan reported that three-quarters of all vinyl album sales in 2007 took place at independent music stores.
SIDE BENEFITS
But even aside from the business they do, record store owners say there is a benefit to having independent shops around: They help introduce young people to artists new and old.
Robertson, Darkstar’s co-owner, hopes to support the local music scene much the way Going Underground does, selling albums produced locally. He said that would mean opening up his offerings to include many different genres.
For now, though, he said he’s satisfied to be broadening the musical horizons of customers like 17-year-old Jordan Aguirre, who spent time this week checking out Robertson’s diverse collection.
Since becoming interesting in vinyl, Aguirre said he has come to a fuller understanding of the musicians who have influenced many modern recording artists.
“It’s kind of like an education,” he said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the area? Here are some great vinyl shops:
BAKERSFIELD-AREA RECORD STORES
Darkstar Records and Books
1024 Truxtun Ave.
859-0241
Downtown Records
1518 19th St.
324-5235
Gigantic Vintage
1515 19th St.
859-1515
Going Underground
1822 G St.
477-8475
Midnight Music
1215 Olive Drive
399-3454
Rockit Music
429 James St.
746-0822
World Records
1824 G St.
831-3100
SOURCE: The Bakersfield Californian http://www.bakersfield.com
(Photo by Henry A. Barrios/ The Californian)
Vinyl records make comeback on local scene
By JOHN COX, Californian staff writer
For nearly 20 years World Records stocked no records. Unless you placed a special order, CDs were what you got.
Earlier this year, though, young people started asking for vinyl. Now World Records’ new home on downtown G Street boasts a record section with new releases and reissues by Amy Winehouse, Parliament, The Velvet Underground and others.
Vinyl’s back.
U.S. record sales were up 15 percent last year over the year before, fed by growing interest in independent record stores like World Records and Darkstar Records and Books, another newcomer to downtown Bakersfield.
The resurgence has many roots, ranging from purists’ ideas about sound quality to availability of turntables at major retailers to the desirability of belonging to an exclusive, anti-digital subculture.
Vinyl’s growing popularity could have side benefits for Bakersfield. Independent record stores tend to promote the local music scene more than chain stores do. And downtown’s cluster of music stores could make it more of a destination for out-of-town collectors, boosting local tourism.
What surprises many longtime record collectors is how vinyl appeals to so many young people born after much of the nation turned its back on records when CDs were introduced in the 1980s.
A THING FOR VINYL
Consider the enthusiasm of 19-year-old Brenndan Morlan. He has amassed 140 or so albums since he began collecting records three or four years ago, and now spends $100 a week on vinyl recordings of classic jazz, psychedelic rock and exotic funk.
His friends “don’t get it.”
“They’re just like, ‘How can you spend so much money on records?’” the Bakersfield sandwich shop employee said Thursday as he flipped through row after row of old vinyl at Darkstar on Truxtun Avenue.
Dan Robertson, the store’s co-owner along with his two sons, understands. His own collection numbers about half a million.
“I think (renewed interest in records) is almost a reaction against the digital,” said Robertson, a deadhead deejay who counted Buck Owens among his personal friends. He has been planning to open a record store for more than three decades.
DIGITAL DIVIDE
Distaste for digital music is common among record people. They tend to frown upon the carelessness others afford CDs, and relish the special care records require and the sense of history one gets when holding an album.
“It’s like having primary text from an author or a philosopher,” said 23-year-old Steven Koontz, the drummer for Bakersfield punk band Loser Life, which this week embarked on a European tour. Band members were planning to bring with them and sell more than 200 vinyl recordings of their music.
Then there’s the sound quality issue. Vinyl enthusiasts praise the medium’s warm sound as compared with digital recordings.
Listening to a record is “kind of like holding someone’s hand without a glove,” said Andrew Winton, a 29-year-old coffeehouse manager and regular at Going Underground, a punk music store on downtown G Street that sells and pays to have pressed many vinyl recordings that have never been transferred to CD format.
A RISING TIDE
The opening of two new record retailers so close in proximity has store owners hopeful that customers near and far will view Bakersfield as a hub for buying vinyl.
“The more the better,” said Alex Rodriguez, co-owner of downtown 19th Street’s Gigantic Vintage, which sells vintage clothing in front and records in back. “Kids aren’t just going to go to one (record store), they’re going to go to all of them.”
David Thomas, owner of Shafter’s Rockit Music, agreed. His 5,000-square-foot store, which has sold records since 1947, draws collectors from the Bay Area and the Los Angeles area. The more stores clustered in one area, he said, the more likely it is that serious collectors will come.
And when they drive in, collectors can drop big money. Jake Chavez, owner of Downtown Records on 19th Street across from Gigantic Vintage, said he once sold 200 records to a collector from Alaska driving on his way to a large show in Las Vegas.
STAYING POWER
Thomas suggested that independent stores such as those operating locally will outlast chains because of their personal touch.
“People want to go back (and) deal with neighborhood-type record stores where they can actually go in and talk about music,” he said.
This appears to be the case recently. Entertainment research company Nielsen SoundScan reported that three-quarters of all vinyl album sales in 2007 took place at independent music stores.
SIDE BENEFITS
But even aside from the business they do, record store owners say there is a benefit to having independent shops around: They help introduce young people to artists new and old.
Robertson, Darkstar’s co-owner, hopes to support the local music scene much the way Going Underground does, selling albums produced locally. He said that would mean opening up his offerings to include many different genres.
For now, though, he said he’s satisfied to be broadening the musical horizons of customers like 17-year-old Jordan Aguirre, who spent time this week checking out Robertson’s diverse collection.
Since becoming interesting in vinyl, Aguirre said he has come to a fuller understanding of the musicians who have influenced many modern recording artists.
“It’s kind of like an education,” he said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the area? Here are some great vinyl shops:
BAKERSFIELD-AREA RECORD STORES
Darkstar Records and Books
1024 Truxtun Ave.
859-0241
Downtown Records
1518 19th St.
324-5235
Gigantic Vintage
1515 19th St.
859-1515
Going Underground
1822 G St.
477-8475
Midnight Music
1215 Olive Drive
399-3454
Rockit Music
429 James St.
746-0822
World Records
1824 G St.
831-3100
Album Cover Art
Let's continue our look at Gigwise.com's 50 most controversial, weirdest, best and worst album covers as put together by their amazing staff:
Controversial
12. Regurgitate: ‘Carnivorous Erection’ This cover certainly makes my list of gross covers, this angry little man is certainly up for a fight. I looked up the band and their style is described as "Goregrind." Well that explains the cover I guess.
Line up for this recording:
Rikard Jansson: Vocals
Urban Skytt: Guitars and Bass
Jocke Pettersson: Battery
Additional Vocals: Rickard Alriksson and Mieszko
Picture LP version released by Morbid Records and has been banned in many retail outlets (although you can find it rather easily online- if you dare).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Weird
12. Mike Terry: 'Live At The Pavilion Theatre. Glasgow' While researching this gent, I found that he/she made a bundle of appearances on various websites worst album covers. Here are some comments:
He looks like L. Ron Hubbard in drag. www.worstalbumcovers.org
I can only imagine Mike Terry sounds a lot like he looks: like Elton John crossed with Liberace and fat, Vegas Elvis. www.mentalfloss.com
This is the only cover on the list that makes me laugh every time I lay eyes on it. Mike Terry appears to be having a great time playing his piano. Oh, and he's also stuffed like a beef sausage into a suit that Liberace gave up for being 'entirely too gay.' www.communistdanceparty.blogspot.com
Y luego dicen que Iniesta esta blanquito... www.fotolog.com
I guess that sums it all up.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Worst
12. Devastatin Dave The Turntable Slave- Zip Zap Rap was a 1986 single released by Devastatin' Dave, the Turntable Slave with some backing vocals performed by middle-to high-school-aged children. As part of the War on Drugs campaign by the Reagan Administration the single focuses on the effects of a cocaine addiction and alludes to possible alternate career paths rather than living a life of crime to pay for the drug. Furthermore the cover itself features a yellow stripe in the top-left corner reading "Hear our message: say no to drugs".
"Devastatin' Dave" Kurin currently lives as a music producer in California, and has appeared on the TV series Divorce Court.
The Gigwise staff thought so much of this single, they just had to include it in their worst album covers of all time. Apparently, they are not alone:
"Worst Album Covers Ever" Lists this single has appeared on:
RateYourMusic.com
The Guardian
Unofficial Worst Album Covers
WorstAlbumCovers.org - Fashion Victims
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Best
12. Supertramp: ‘Breakfast In America’ – Here is a direct quote from the staff at Gigwise.com (sounds to me like they have issues with the US): "The majority of the band may have hailed from UK, but this album cover said more about the vain, commercial obsessed country that America has become in contemporary times than a thousand words. The scary waitress standing in for the Statue of Liberty is a stroke of genius."
Breakfast in America is the sixth album by the band Supertramp, released in 1979. It was recorded the previous year at the Village Recorder in Los Angeles. The album featured four hit singles: "The Logical Song" (#6), "Goodbye Stranger" (#15), "Take the Long Way Home" (#10), and the title track (#16).
The album's front cover is an overlook of New York City through an airplane window. It was designed by Mike Doud and depicted Kate Murtagh as a Statue of Liberty figure holding a glass of orange juice instead of a torch and the background featured a city made from cornflake box, ashtray, cutlery (for the wharfs), eggboxes, vinegar, ketchup and mustard bottles, all spraypainted white. The twin World Trade Center towers appear as two stacks of boxes and the plate of breakfast represents Battery Park, the departure point for the Staten Island Ferry. The back cover photo, depicting the band members having breakfast while reading their respective hometown newspapers, was taken at a diner called "Bert's Mad House."
Despite the turmoil, Breakfast in America became Supertramp's biggest selling album with over 4 million copies sold in the US alone to date (11 million copies worldwide) and was #1 on Billboard's Pop Albums Chart for six weeks in the spring and summer of 1979. The album also hit #1 in Norway, Canada and Australia.
I always hated the music and have been known to turn the radio station at the first note of a Supertramp song. Sounds like I have issues as well.
Controversial
12. Regurgitate: ‘Carnivorous Erection’ This cover certainly makes my list of gross covers, this angry little man is certainly up for a fight. I looked up the band and their style is described as "Goregrind." Well that explains the cover I guess.
Line up for this recording:
Rikard Jansson: Vocals
Urban Skytt: Guitars and Bass
Jocke Pettersson: Battery
Additional Vocals: Rickard Alriksson and Mieszko
Picture LP version released by Morbid Records and has been banned in many retail outlets (although you can find it rather easily online- if you dare).
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Weird
12. Mike Terry: 'Live At The Pavilion Theatre. Glasgow' While researching this gent, I found that he/she made a bundle of appearances on various websites worst album covers. Here are some comments:
He looks like L. Ron Hubbard in drag. www.worstalbumcovers.org
I can only imagine Mike Terry sounds a lot like he looks: like Elton John crossed with Liberace and fat, Vegas Elvis. www.mentalfloss.com
This is the only cover on the list that makes me laugh every time I lay eyes on it. Mike Terry appears to be having a great time playing his piano. Oh, and he's also stuffed like a beef sausage into a suit that Liberace gave up for being 'entirely too gay.' www.communistdanceparty.blogspot.com
Y luego dicen que Iniesta esta blanquito... www.fotolog.com
I guess that sums it all up.
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Worst
12. Devastatin Dave The Turntable Slave- Zip Zap Rap was a 1986 single released by Devastatin' Dave, the Turntable Slave with some backing vocals performed by middle-to high-school-aged children. As part of the War on Drugs campaign by the Reagan Administration the single focuses on the effects of a cocaine addiction and alludes to possible alternate career paths rather than living a life of crime to pay for the drug. Furthermore the cover itself features a yellow stripe in the top-left corner reading "Hear our message: say no to drugs".
"Devastatin' Dave" Kurin currently lives as a music producer in California, and has appeared on the TV series Divorce Court.
The Gigwise staff thought so much of this single, they just had to include it in their worst album covers of all time. Apparently, they are not alone:
"Worst Album Covers Ever" Lists this single has appeared on:
RateYourMusic.com
The Guardian
Unofficial Worst Album Covers
WorstAlbumCovers.org - Fashion Victims
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Best
12. Supertramp: ‘Breakfast In America’ – Here is a direct quote from the staff at Gigwise.com (sounds to me like they have issues with the US): "The majority of the band may have hailed from UK, but this album cover said more about the vain, commercial obsessed country that America has become in contemporary times than a thousand words. The scary waitress standing in for the Statue of Liberty is a stroke of genius."
Breakfast in America is the sixth album by the band Supertramp, released in 1979. It was recorded the previous year at the Village Recorder in Los Angeles. The album featured four hit singles: "The Logical Song" (#6), "Goodbye Stranger" (#15), "Take the Long Way Home" (#10), and the title track (#16).
The album's front cover is an overlook of New York City through an airplane window. It was designed by Mike Doud and depicted Kate Murtagh as a Statue of Liberty figure holding a glass of orange juice instead of a torch and the background featured a city made from cornflake box, ashtray, cutlery (for the wharfs), eggboxes, vinegar, ketchup and mustard bottles, all spraypainted white. The twin World Trade Center towers appear as two stacks of boxes and the plate of breakfast represents Battery Park, the departure point for the Staten Island Ferry. The back cover photo, depicting the band members having breakfast while reading their respective hometown newspapers, was taken at a diner called "Bert's Mad House."
Despite the turmoil, Breakfast in America became Supertramp's biggest selling album with over 4 million copies sold in the US alone to date (11 million copies worldwide) and was #1 on Billboard's Pop Albums Chart for six weeks in the spring and summer of 1979. The album also hit #1 in Norway, Canada and Australia.
I always hated the music and have been known to turn the radio station at the first note of a Supertramp song. Sounds like I have issues as well.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Album Cover Art
We made it to lucky number 13 on Gigwise.com's list of the 50 most controversial, weirdest, best and worst album covers of all time as voted on by their staff:
Controversial
13. Nurse With Wound / White House: ‘150 Murderous Passions’ – A weird cut-and-paste of a whole load of distasteful ideas and images were featured on the cover of Steven Stapleton’s fifth full-length release. Here, he is joined by Whitehouse's William Bennett during Stapleton's power electronics days (this album dates from 1981), recording thoroughly brutal, mind-wrenching ugliness.
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. Their early recordings, all made quickly, were heavily influenced by free improvisation and Krautrock and were generally considered industrial music, despite the objections of the group.
With a cover like this, it is a wonder they sold any copies at all, this has to be the worst cover I have seen on the Gigwise list (so far).
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Weird
13. Twiztid: 'Freek Show' This cover is tame compared to the last one, this is easily done with some make-up and imagination. "Freek Show" is the second studio album by Twiztid. Released on October 31, 2000, the album peaked at #51 on the Billboard 200. In his review of the album, Allmusic's Brad Mills wrote that "this kind of music appeals to a small sector of hip-hop listeners and will probably do well within their niche market, but the average hip-hop listener will just have to understand that this is a different kind of album." And a different kind of album cover as well.
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Worst
13. Heino – ‘Liebe Mutter…’: Another obscure musician, and another obscure album cover-maybe this artist is big in Germany, but I doubt it. Heino (born 13 December 1938 in Düsseldorf as Heinz Georg Kramm) is a German singer of popular music (Schlager) and traditional Volksmusik.
With his booming voice, bright blonde hair, and ever present sunglasses (due to exophthalmos), Heino is considered by many an icon of kitsch and in the English-speaking world the Latin American themes of many of his songs lending themselves to jokes about German emigration to South America after World War II.
Uhh, ok if you say so.
------------------------------------------------
Best
13. Pink Floyd: ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ Certainly one of rock & roll's most distinguished and recognizable covers of all time, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon certainly belongs here with the best. I would have even gone a bit higher.
The Dark Side of the Moon is a concept album by the British progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It was released on March 17, 1973 in the U.S. and March 24, 1973 in the UK.
The Dark Side of the Moon builds upon previous experimentation that Pink Floyd had explored in their live shows and recordings, but without the extended instrumental excursions that, according to critic David Fricke, had become characteristic of the band after founding member Syd Barrett left in 1968. Guitarist David Gilmour, Barrett's replacement, would later refer to these instrumentals as "that psychedelic noodling stuff." Gilmour and Roger Waters, the band's bassist (and principal lyricist on Dark Side), cite 1971's Meddle as a turning point toward what would be realized on The Dark Side of the Moon. The album's themes include conflict, greed, aging and mental illness (or "insanity"); the latter inspired in part by the deteriorating mental state of Barrett, who had been the band's principal composer and lyricist. The album is notable for its use of musique concrète and conceptual, philosophical lyrics, as found in much of Pink Floyd's other work.
The band's most successful release, The Dark Side of the Moon is often considered to be the group's defining work, and is still frequently ranked by music critics as one of the greatest and most influential albums of all time.
The album was originally released in a gatefold LP sleeve designed by Hipgnosis and George Hardie, of Nicholas Thirkell Associates, and bore Hardie's iconic refracting prism on the cover. Inside were two posters, one bearing pictures of the band in concert with the words PINK FLOYD broken up and scattered about, and the other being a slightly psychedelic image of the Great Pyramids of Giza taken on infrared film. Also included was a sheet of stickers of the pyramids. The album was also the first Pink Floyd album to have picture labels on the record where it depicted a blue prism with black background and the credits written either in grey lettering (European issues) or white lettering (US and Canadian issues). In a 1991 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine, the refracting prism album cover was #35 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest album covers of all time. In 2003, VH1 named the album's cover the 4th Greatest Album Cover of All Time on their 50 Greatest Album Covers of All Time special.
Controversial
13. Nurse With Wound / White House: ‘150 Murderous Passions’ – A weird cut-and-paste of a whole load of distasteful ideas and images were featured on the cover of Steven Stapleton’s fifth full-length release. Here, he is joined by Whitehouse's William Bennett during Stapleton's power electronics days (this album dates from 1981), recording thoroughly brutal, mind-wrenching ugliness. 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. Their early recordings, all made quickly, were heavily influenced by free improvisation and Krautrock and were generally considered industrial music, despite the objections of the group.
With a cover like this, it is a wonder they sold any copies at all, this has to be the worst cover I have seen on the Gigwise list (so far).
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Weird
13. Twiztid: 'Freek Show' This cover is tame compared to the last one, this is easily done with some make-up and imagination. "Freek Show" is the second studio album by Twiztid. Released on October 31, 2000, the album peaked at #51 on the Billboard 200. In his review of the album, Allmusic's Brad Mills wrote that "this kind of music appeals to a small sector of hip-hop listeners and will probably do well within their niche market, but the average hip-hop listener will just have to understand that this is a different kind of album." And a different kind of album cover as well.
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Worst
13. Heino – ‘Liebe Mutter…’: Another obscure musician, and another obscure album cover-maybe this artist is big in Germany, but I doubt it. Heino (born 13 December 1938 in Düsseldorf as Heinz Georg Kramm) is a German singer of popular music (Schlager) and traditional Volksmusik.
With his booming voice, bright blonde hair, and ever present sunglasses (due to exophthalmos), Heino is considered by many an icon of kitsch and in the English-speaking world the Latin American themes of many of his songs lending themselves to jokes about German emigration to South America after World War II.
Uhh, ok if you say so.
------------------------------------------------
Best
13. Pink Floyd: ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ Certainly one of rock & roll's most distinguished and recognizable covers of all time, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon certainly belongs here with the best. I would have even gone a bit higher.
The Dark Side of the Moon is a concept album by the British progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It was released on March 17, 1973 in the U.S. and March 24, 1973 in the UK.
The Dark Side of the Moon builds upon previous experimentation that Pink Floyd had explored in their live shows and recordings, but without the extended instrumental excursions that, according to critic David Fricke, had become characteristic of the band after founding member Syd Barrett left in 1968. Guitarist David Gilmour, Barrett's replacement, would later refer to these instrumentals as "that psychedelic noodling stuff." Gilmour and Roger Waters, the band's bassist (and principal lyricist on Dark Side), cite 1971's Meddle as a turning point toward what would be realized on The Dark Side of the Moon. The album's themes include conflict, greed, aging and mental illness (or "insanity"); the latter inspired in part by the deteriorating mental state of Barrett, who had been the band's principal composer and lyricist. The album is notable for its use of musique concrète and conceptual, philosophical lyrics, as found in much of Pink Floyd's other work.
The band's most successful release, The Dark Side of the Moon is often considered to be the group's defining work, and is still frequently ranked by music critics as one of the greatest and most influential albums of all time.
The album was originally released in a gatefold LP sleeve designed by Hipgnosis and George Hardie, of Nicholas Thirkell Associates, and bore Hardie's iconic refracting prism on the cover. Inside were two posters, one bearing pictures of the band in concert with the words PINK FLOYD broken up and scattered about, and the other being a slightly psychedelic image of the Great Pyramids of Giza taken on infrared film. Also included was a sheet of stickers of the pyramids. The album was also the first Pink Floyd album to have picture labels on the record where it depicted a blue prism with black background and the credits written either in grey lettering (European issues) or white lettering (US and Canadian issues). In a 1991 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine, the refracting prism album cover was #35 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest album covers of all time. In 2003, VH1 named the album's cover the 4th Greatest Album Cover of All Time on their 50 Greatest Album Covers of All Time special.
Motown collects chart-topping hits on boxed set
NEW YORK (Billboard) - R&B label Motown will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a mammoth boxed set, "Motown: The Complete No. 1's."
Due December 9, the 10-disc package features 191 songs, all of which have topped a chart in the United States or internationally.
Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell, the Four Tops, Martha & the Vandellas, Mary Wells, the Temptations and Gladys Knight & the Pips are represented throughout "The Complete No. 1s."
Ten bonus tracks round up cover versions of Motown songs that reached the top of the charts, including singles from acts such as Vanessa Williams, Jodeci, Coolio featuring L.V., Blood, Sweat & Tears and David Bowie and Mick Jagger.
Reuters/Billboard
Due December 9, the 10-disc package features 191 songs, all of which have topped a chart in the United States or internationally.
Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell, the Four Tops, Martha & the Vandellas, Mary Wells, the Temptations and Gladys Knight & the Pips are represented throughout "The Complete No. 1s."
Ten bonus tracks round up cover versions of Motown songs that reached the top of the charts, including singles from acts such as Vanessa Williams, Jodeci, Coolio featuring L.V., Blood, Sweat & Tears and David Bowie and Mick Jagger.
Reuters/Billboard
This Date In Music History- October 16
Birthdays:
Bob Weir, guitarist and vocalist with the Grateful Dead, was born in Atherton, California in 1947.
Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea was born in 1962 in Melbourne, Australia, as Michael Balzary.
Born on this day in 1977, John Mayer, US singer and songwriter.
Fred Turner of Bachman-Turner Overdrive ("Let It Ride") turns 65.
Wendy Wilson of Wilson Phillips ("Hold On") was born to Beach Boy Brian Wilson and his wife, Marilyn (of the Honeys) in 1969.
History:
Jay & the Americans recorded "This Magic Moment" in 1968.
Today in 1976, the song "Disco Duck (Part 1)" by Ricky Dees & His Cast of Idiots topped the charts and stayed there for a week.
Sam Cooke released his single "You Send Me" in 1957. The No. 1, written by his brother Charles Cooke, becomes his first and biggest hit, selling 2.5 million copies.
The Elvis Presley film "Love Me Tender" premiered in 1956.
Chess Records founder Leonard Chess, 52, died of a heart attack in 1969 in Chicago.
In 1972, Creedence Clearwater Revival announced they are splitting up. They say in a statement, "We don't regard this as breaking up. We look at it as an expansion of our activities. We will devote our time to individual rather than group projects."
The New Yardbirds played their first concert in 1968. The band later changed their name to Led Zeppelin.
18 year old Richard Penniman, who was already using the stage name Little Richard, made his first recordings for RCA Camden in 1951, at the studios of Atlanta radio station WGST.
In 1954, two weeks after his appearance at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry, Elvis Presley performed on the Country music radio program, Louisiana Hayride, broadcast live on KWKH in Shreveport. After an enthusiastic reception from the audience, Presley was booked to appear every week for a year at $18 per show. His sidemen, Bill Black and Scotty Moore were paid $12 each.
In 1967, Folk singer Joan Baez was arrested, along with 123 others, for blocking the entrance to an Armed Forces Induction Center in Oakland, California.
Issac Hayes' "Theme From Shaft" was released in 1971. When Hayes sings "That John Shaft is a bad mother..." the voice you hear telling Hayes to "shut your mouth" is that of Thelma Hopkins of Tony Orlando and Dawn.
Stevie Wonder's "Song in the Key of Life" is released in 1976. It will immediately hit the Billboard Hot 200 album chart and stay there into 1978. It's Wonder's first release since his $13 million signing with Motown. The three record set goes platinum yielding the hits, "Sir Duke", "Isn't She Lovely" and "I Wish".
Be careful what you wish for: In 2001, two security guards were fired after refusing to allow Bob Dylan into his own concert. Dylan who had demanded that security on his 'Love and Theft' tour should be tighter than ever didn't have a pass when he arrived backstage.
1965- The Beatles recorded ‘Day Tripper’ at Abbey Road studio’s London in three takes, they then added vocals and other overdubs, completing the song before the end of the day.
1992- Two weeks after tearing up a picture of the pope on Saturday Night Live, Sinead O'Connor was booed at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden. She replied by reciting the words to Bob Marley's "War" before being escorted from the stage by Kris Kristofferson, who advised her, "Don't let the bastards get you down." George Harrison, Neil Young, Tom Petty, and Eric Clapton also performed, but in less controversial ways.
Bob Weir, guitarist and vocalist with the Grateful Dead, was born in Atherton, California in 1947.
Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea was born in 1962 in Melbourne, Australia, as Michael Balzary.
Born on this day in 1977, John Mayer, US singer and songwriter.
Fred Turner of Bachman-Turner Overdrive ("Let It Ride") turns 65.
Wendy Wilson of Wilson Phillips ("Hold On") was born to Beach Boy Brian Wilson and his wife, Marilyn (of the Honeys) in 1969.
History:
Jay & the Americans recorded "This Magic Moment" in 1968.
Today in 1976, the song "Disco Duck (Part 1)" by Ricky Dees & His Cast of Idiots topped the charts and stayed there for a week.
Sam Cooke released his single "You Send Me" in 1957. The No. 1, written by his brother Charles Cooke, becomes his first and biggest hit, selling 2.5 million copies.
The Elvis Presley film "Love Me Tender" premiered in 1956.
Chess Records founder Leonard Chess, 52, died of a heart attack in 1969 in Chicago.
In 1972, Creedence Clearwater Revival announced they are splitting up. They say in a statement, "We don't regard this as breaking up. We look at it as an expansion of our activities. We will devote our time to individual rather than group projects."
The New Yardbirds played their first concert in 1968. The band later changed their name to Led Zeppelin.
18 year old Richard Penniman, who was already using the stage name Little Richard, made his first recordings for RCA Camden in 1951, at the studios of Atlanta radio station WGST.
In 1954, two weeks after his appearance at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry, Elvis Presley performed on the Country music radio program, Louisiana Hayride, broadcast live on KWKH in Shreveport. After an enthusiastic reception from the audience, Presley was booked to appear every week for a year at $18 per show. His sidemen, Bill Black and Scotty Moore were paid $12 each.
In 1967, Folk singer Joan Baez was arrested, along with 123 others, for blocking the entrance to an Armed Forces Induction Center in Oakland, California.
Issac Hayes' "Theme From Shaft" was released in 1971. When Hayes sings "That John Shaft is a bad mother..." the voice you hear telling Hayes to "shut your mouth" is that of Thelma Hopkins of Tony Orlando and Dawn.
Stevie Wonder's "Song in the Key of Life" is released in 1976. It will immediately hit the Billboard Hot 200 album chart and stay there into 1978. It's Wonder's first release since his $13 million signing with Motown. The three record set goes platinum yielding the hits, "Sir Duke", "Isn't She Lovely" and "I Wish".
Be careful what you wish for: In 2001, two security guards were fired after refusing to allow Bob Dylan into his own concert. Dylan who had demanded that security on his 'Love and Theft' tour should be tighter than ever didn't have a pass when he arrived backstage.
1965- The Beatles recorded ‘Day Tripper’ at Abbey Road studio’s London in three takes, they then added vocals and other overdubs, completing the song before the end of the day.
1992- Two weeks after tearing up a picture of the pope on Saturday Night Live, Sinead O'Connor was booed at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at Madison Square Garden. She replied by reciting the words to Bob Marley's "War" before being escorted from the stage by Kris Kristofferson, who advised her, "Don't let the bastards get you down." George Harrison, Neil Young, Tom Petty, and Eric Clapton also performed, but in less controversial ways.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Music News
AC/DC DEFENDS DECISIONS ON WAL-MART, iTUNES …AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson defended the band's decision to sell its new album, Black Ice, exclusively through Wal-Mart in a new interview with Reuters, explaining, "A lot of people were saying 'Ah man, you're going to the big Wal-Mart, you're selling out.' Wal-Mart were the only big store to stock all of our albums, every single one of them, and they've never deviated. And they sold AC/DC shirts and pajamas for kids, which we thought was really cool." As for the group's equally controversial stance on keeping its music off iTunes, Johnson said, "Maybe I'm just being old fashioned, but this iTunes, God bless 'em, it's going to kill music if they're not careful. It's a monster, this thing. It just worries me."
Guitarist Angus Young told the New York Times that the band objects to iTunes' insistence that songs must be available individually and not just as part of an album. He said, "It's like an artist who does a painting. If he thinks it's a great piece of work, he protects it. It's the same thing: this is our work."
Black Ice, AC/DC's first album in eight years, comes out on October 20th. It will also be available through acdc.com, with independent record stores selling a vinyl version.
AC/DC has sold 26.4 million albums since 1991, when SoundScan first began tracking record sales, making the group second only to the Beatles.
Wal-Mart has reportedly guaranteed that it will sell 2.5 million copies of Black Ice. The band's last effort, 2000's Stiff Upper Lip, has sold 940,000.
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METALLICA DRUMMER DOESN'T UNDERSTAND AUDIO COMPLAINTS …Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich told us that he doesn't understand the controversy that has broken out in recent weeks over the audio quality of the band's new album, Death Magnetic. Some fans and publications have accused the group and producer Rick Rubin of mixing the album at such a loud volume that the music is distorted and difficult to listen to. But Ulrich said that he's more than happy with the way it turned out: "I listen to this record, and I listen to it every couple of days. And when I hear it, it puts a smile on my face and it blows me away, and I don't understand what people are talking about. Somebody told me the other day that there were 12,000 people that had signed a petition to remix the record. We've sold two and a half million copies of Death Magnetic. You do the math yourself."
Death Magnetic has sold more than a million copies in the U.S. alone since coming out on September 12th.
A number of fans said online that they prefer the versions of the CD's tracks prepared for the Guitar Hero video game, which are mixed differently.
Metallica begins a North American tour on October 21st in Glendale, Arizona in support of Death Magnetic.
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U2 BRINGS NEW ALBUM TO NEW YORK …U2 has been hard at work on its next studio album, due out in early 2009. The set was expected to be released this year, but was pushed back after U2 members caught the creative bug while in the studio. Now one of the album's producers, Daniel Lanois, tells Canoe Jam! that he's been in New York City recently producing the set. He says "I enjoy the duality of my laboratory work and studio experiments I'm doing with U2 with my own musical career."
Lanois first worked on U2's The Unforgettable Fire and has teamed with Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Robbie Robertson and others.
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PETE TOWNSHEND EYEING FUTURE 'QUADROPHENIA' PROJECTS ..Pete Townshend said that he's looking forward to revisiting the Who's Quadrophenia, which celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. Townshend answered fans questions on thewho.com and said that future Quadrophenia-based projects still interest him, explaining, "I would love to see an orchestrated version of Quadrophenia. I would love to do a surround-sound version of the original recording. Roger (Daltrey) is keen to take the 1996 (extended band version of ) Quadrophenia on the road again one day and I'd like that too."
Townshend added, "I'm genuinely excited about the British theatrical production of Quadrophenia because the people involved... really understand the essential poetry of the story. In a rock piece, if you try to overcook the story, the dramatic narrative, you might break its very spine... In rock, narrative can really stop the listener from taking center stage."
He explained that older pieces need to constantly be infused with fresh ideas to continue to work: "What I do must stand to be revisited over and over again by a listener who is growing, changing, using the music like a scent. Rock musicians of all kinds are still struggling to understand how sometimes we pull it off without knowing how we did it."
Last week Roger Daltrey said that troubled British singer Amy Winehouse and Carl Barat -- the former Libertines' bandmate of the equally troubled Brit rocker Pete Doherty -- would make a great addition to a proposed West End musical of Quadrophenia.
Quadrophenia, which was released on October 19th, 1973 featured such classic Who songs as "The Real Me," "5:15," "I'm One," The Punk And The Godfather," "Sea And Sand," and "Love Reign O'er Me," among others. A film version based around the Who's album was produced by the band and released in 1979.
The Who kicks off their 10-date North American mini-tour on October 21st in Auburn Hills, Michigan at the Palace Of Auburn Hills.
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TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS MULTI-DISC DOCUMENTARY HEADING FOR BEST BUY …Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are reissuing a two-DVD version of their Peter Bogdonovich-directed documentary Runnin' Down A Dream: Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers. The new edition, which features the entire four-hour film -- with newly added bonus material, will be sold exclusively though Best Buy stores. Runnin' Down A Dream was originally released on DVD last year as four-disc set.
The new two-DVD edition features the new bonus performances:
"Too Much Ain't Enough," recorded live on December 31st, 1978 in Los Angeles, California at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.
"The Waiting" featuring Eddie Vedder, recorded live July 3, 2006 in Denver, Colorado at the Pepsi Center.
A cover of Van Morrison's "Mystic Eyes" recorded live on October 27th, 2006 at Los Angeles' Greek Theatre.
Runnin' Down A Dream features interviews and appearances by such heavyweights as Stevie Nicks, Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, Jackson Browne, Roger McGuinn, Dave Stewart, Jeff Lynne, Rick Rubin, Jimmy Lovine, and others.
The movie also features footage of Petty recording with his Traveling Wilburys bandmates, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison.
Petty says the key to keeping the Heartbreakers a living, breathing unit, is having them spend more time on the road than holed up in recording studios: "I've seen people that have been around a long time, and they just fall into routine and self-parody, and that's just not where we want to wind up. We want to keep this thing fresh, and we really believe in this music -- this rock and roll music that we're playing -- and we want to keep it fresh and contemporary, you know, and avoid any sort of routine to it."
Guitarist Angus Young told the New York Times that the band objects to iTunes' insistence that songs must be available individually and not just as part of an album. He said, "It's like an artist who does a painting. If he thinks it's a great piece of work, he protects it. It's the same thing: this is our work."
Black Ice, AC/DC's first album in eight years, comes out on October 20th. It will also be available through acdc.com, with independent record stores selling a vinyl version.
AC/DC has sold 26.4 million albums since 1991, when SoundScan first began tracking record sales, making the group second only to the Beatles.
Wal-Mart has reportedly guaranteed that it will sell 2.5 million copies of Black Ice. The band's last effort, 2000's Stiff Upper Lip, has sold 940,000.
=======================================
METALLICA DRUMMER DOESN'T UNDERSTAND AUDIO COMPLAINTS …Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich told us that he doesn't understand the controversy that has broken out in recent weeks over the audio quality of the band's new album, Death Magnetic. Some fans and publications have accused the group and producer Rick Rubin of mixing the album at such a loud volume that the music is distorted and difficult to listen to. But Ulrich said that he's more than happy with the way it turned out: "I listen to this record, and I listen to it every couple of days. And when I hear it, it puts a smile on my face and it blows me away, and I don't understand what people are talking about. Somebody told me the other day that there were 12,000 people that had signed a petition to remix the record. We've sold two and a half million copies of Death Magnetic. You do the math yourself."
Death Magnetic has sold more than a million copies in the U.S. alone since coming out on September 12th.
A number of fans said online that they prefer the versions of the CD's tracks prepared for the Guitar Hero video game, which are mixed differently.
Metallica begins a North American tour on October 21st in Glendale, Arizona in support of Death Magnetic.
=======================================
U2 BRINGS NEW ALBUM TO NEW YORK …U2 has been hard at work on its next studio album, due out in early 2009. The set was expected to be released this year, but was pushed back after U2 members caught the creative bug while in the studio. Now one of the album's producers, Daniel Lanois, tells Canoe Jam! that he's been in New York City recently producing the set. He says "I enjoy the duality of my laboratory work and studio experiments I'm doing with U2 with my own musical career."
Lanois first worked on U2's The Unforgettable Fire and has teamed with Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Robbie Robertson and others.
=======================================
PETE TOWNSHEND EYEING FUTURE 'QUADROPHENIA' PROJECTS ..Pete Townshend said that he's looking forward to revisiting the Who's Quadrophenia, which celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. Townshend answered fans questions on thewho.com and said that future Quadrophenia-based projects still interest him, explaining, "I would love to see an orchestrated version of Quadrophenia. I would love to do a surround-sound version of the original recording. Roger (Daltrey) is keen to take the 1996 (extended band version of ) Quadrophenia on the road again one day and I'd like that too."
Townshend added, "I'm genuinely excited about the British theatrical production of Quadrophenia because the people involved... really understand the essential poetry of the story. In a rock piece, if you try to overcook the story, the dramatic narrative, you might break its very spine... In rock, narrative can really stop the listener from taking center stage."
He explained that older pieces need to constantly be infused with fresh ideas to continue to work: "What I do must stand to be revisited over and over again by a listener who is growing, changing, using the music like a scent. Rock musicians of all kinds are still struggling to understand how sometimes we pull it off without knowing how we did it."
Last week Roger Daltrey said that troubled British singer Amy Winehouse and Carl Barat -- the former Libertines' bandmate of the equally troubled Brit rocker Pete Doherty -- would make a great addition to a proposed West End musical of Quadrophenia.
Quadrophenia, which was released on October 19th, 1973 featured such classic Who songs as "The Real Me," "5:15," "I'm One," The Punk And The Godfather," "Sea And Sand," and "Love Reign O'er Me," among others. A film version based around the Who's album was produced by the band and released in 1979.
The Who kicks off their 10-date North American mini-tour on October 21st in Auburn Hills, Michigan at the Palace Of Auburn Hills.
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TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS MULTI-DISC DOCUMENTARY HEADING FOR BEST BUY …Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are reissuing a two-DVD version of their Peter Bogdonovich-directed documentary Runnin' Down A Dream: Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers. The new edition, which features the entire four-hour film -- with newly added bonus material, will be sold exclusively though Best Buy stores. Runnin' Down A Dream was originally released on DVD last year as four-disc set.
The new two-DVD edition features the new bonus performances:
"Too Much Ain't Enough," recorded live on December 31st, 1978 in Los Angeles, California at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.
"The Waiting" featuring Eddie Vedder, recorded live July 3, 2006 in Denver, Colorado at the Pepsi Center.
A cover of Van Morrison's "Mystic Eyes" recorded live on October 27th, 2006 at Los Angeles' Greek Theatre.
Runnin' Down A Dream features interviews and appearances by such heavyweights as Stevie Nicks, Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, Jackson Browne, Roger McGuinn, Dave Stewart, Jeff Lynne, Rick Rubin, Jimmy Lovine, and others.
The movie also features footage of Petty recording with his Traveling Wilburys bandmates, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison.
Petty says the key to keeping the Heartbreakers a living, breathing unit, is having them spend more time on the road than holed up in recording studios: "I've seen people that have been around a long time, and they just fall into routine and self-parody, and that's just not where we want to wind up. We want to keep this thing fresh, and we really believe in this music -- this rock and roll music that we're playing -- and we want to keep it fresh and contemporary, you know, and avoid any sort of routine to it."
Aretha Franklin Releases First Christmas Album Through Borders
Aretha Franklin released her first-ever Christmas album today in an exclusive arrangement with Borders. This Christmas Aretha is available at Borders and Waldenbooks stores and at Borders.com.
The album contains eleven holiday themed tracks of which three were produced by Franklin and two more include the singer on piano. The balance of the tracks were produced by Tena Clark who has worked with Natalie Cole, Dionne Warwick, Patti LaBelle and others.
Franklin is also joined by her sons, singer Eddie and guitarist Teddy, on This Christmas and The Lord Will Make a Way. On the latter, Franklin said "It's one of those old time, good time recordings. It's so smashing, right there on the front burner. Check out that groove!"
The track list for The Christmas Aretha:
Angels We Have Heard on High
This Christmas
My Grown-Up Christmas List
The Lord Will Make A Way
Silent Night
Ave Maria
Christmas Ain't Christmas (Without The One You Love)
14 Angels
One Night With The King
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
'Twas The Night Before Christmas
SOURCE: http://winkscollectibles.blogspot.com/
The album contains eleven holiday themed tracks of which three were produced by Franklin and two more include the singer on piano. The balance of the tracks were produced by Tena Clark who has worked with Natalie Cole, Dionne Warwick, Patti LaBelle and others.
Franklin is also joined by her sons, singer Eddie and guitarist Teddy, on This Christmas and The Lord Will Make a Way. On the latter, Franklin said "It's one of those old time, good time recordings. It's so smashing, right there on the front burner. Check out that groove!"
The track list for The Christmas Aretha:
Angels We Have Heard on High
This Christmas
My Grown-Up Christmas List
The Lord Will Make A Way
Silent Night
Ave Maria
Christmas Ain't Christmas (Without The One You Love)
14 Angels
One Night With The King
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
'Twas The Night Before Christmas
SOURCE: http://winkscollectibles.blogspot.com/
Don’t Sell Your LPs!
By Scott Westerman - Curator - Keener13.com
My first 45: Limbo Rock by Chubby Checker. My first LP: Shut Down Vol II by the Beach Boys. LPs who’s grooves I wore out with repeated play: Crosby, Stills & Nash, Blood, Sweat & Tears and Earth, Wind & Fire. The number of LPs and 45s in my library now: 672
Remember the sound of putting a needle to vinyl and waiting for the first track to vibrate out of the grooves, through the cartridge and the pre-amp, across the amplifier’s power transistors (after adding appropriate bass and pressing the ‘loudness’ button) and along the two pairs of copper wires towards those expensive speakers that were the heartbeat of that stereo system that cost almost as much as your first automobile?
In the day, exploring an album often meant discovering a deep track, about three cuts in, that would never be selected as a single, but touched something at your emotional core (Quatermass - Good Lord Knows is one of my faves). If the LP was Abbey Road or Dark Side of the Moon, it meant 45 minutes of bliss, interrupted only by the amount of time it took to flip the disk to side two. If it was The Firesign Theater’s “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pilers”, it was something you replayed until the Adventures of Porgie and Mudhead were burned, line by line, into your long term memory.
Vinyl was an experience you shared. Listening to the Bridge Over Troubled Water LP while exploring the heights of passion with a half dozen other junior high couples in the dark corners of a friend’s basement. Wondering what the heck the obscure band was that the guys at Discount Records always liked to play while you and your testosterone charged buddies were trying to sneak a peak at banned Jimi Hendrix “Electric Lady Land” album cover. Or running Funkadelic’s “I Got A Thing” over and over so your band could learn the nuances of a bass line, a wah wah peddle, and some drum licks in a hopeless attempt at imitation.
Vinyl, when mixed with the 12AX7A vacuum tubes that powered your stereo created a warmth that added an indescribable something that the best digital Pro Tools plug-in could never recreate. The LP’s cover became a work of art in itself. Sgt. Pepper’s cover launched a hundred analytical dissertations, fed the Beatle rumor mill and became fodder for trivia buffs who memorized the names and faces of every image thereon.
Vinyl, in the hands of the right disc jockey became an instrument that could create a symphony where disparate artists came together in a seamless harmonic whole to take you on an emotional roller coaster ride.
Then came one turn of the evolutionary road, where it was thought that Vinyl was as anachronistic as a pterodactyl, technically deficient and ultimately too fragile to be a permanent part of the audio archive. CDs and their successor, the MP3 were pure digital storage devices that could be identically cloned without the generational losses inherent in the magnetically arranged iron filings on strips of Mylar or the vibratory bands encircling black plastic.
For three decades we’ve believed that digital perfection was the be all and end all. But now, it seems that everything old is new again. Even as CD sales continue to decline, vinyl is in a renaissance.
The Chicago Tribune quotes Ken Shipley, co-owner of the Numero Group, a Chicago label that specializes in reissues of underground soul music. “We’re seeing the (vinyl) resurgence in all walks of life: from 50-year-old guys who want high-quality product to match their high-end stereos to 19-year-old kids who are sick of the minimalist Ikea design that has plagued dorm rooms for the last decade..Vinyl is the new books.”
Pressing plants are being brought out of mothballs and limited edition vinyl box sets are selling out, at price points that would make CD manufacturers salivate. Bill Gagnon, senior vice president of catalog marketing at EMI Music told the Trib that he expects vinyl to eventually make up about 4% of EMI’s revenue. As with everything else, it’s the younger generation that is driving the demand.
Will the LP supplant digital? Nope. The pure ease of carrying your entire record library around in a cigarette box that renders it perfectly and pristine first time, every time ensures a digital future.
But like the Keener generation, new audiences are discovering the same magic we remember from that first time we put needle to groove.
SOURCE: http://scottwesterman.com/
My first 45: Limbo Rock by Chubby Checker. My first LP: Shut Down Vol II by the Beach Boys. LPs who’s grooves I wore out with repeated play: Crosby, Stills & Nash, Blood, Sweat & Tears and Earth, Wind & Fire. The number of LPs and 45s in my library now: 672
Remember the sound of putting a needle to vinyl and waiting for the first track to vibrate out of the grooves, through the cartridge and the pre-amp, across the amplifier’s power transistors (after adding appropriate bass and pressing the ‘loudness’ button) and along the two pairs of copper wires towards those expensive speakers that were the heartbeat of that stereo system that cost almost as much as your first automobile?
In the day, exploring an album often meant discovering a deep track, about three cuts in, that would never be selected as a single, but touched something at your emotional core (Quatermass - Good Lord Knows is one of my faves). If the LP was Abbey Road or Dark Side of the Moon, it meant 45 minutes of bliss, interrupted only by the amount of time it took to flip the disk to side two. If it was The Firesign Theater’s “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pilers”, it was something you replayed until the Adventures of Porgie and Mudhead were burned, line by line, into your long term memory.
Vinyl was an experience you shared. Listening to the Bridge Over Troubled Water LP while exploring the heights of passion with a half dozen other junior high couples in the dark corners of a friend’s basement. Wondering what the heck the obscure band was that the guys at Discount Records always liked to play while you and your testosterone charged buddies were trying to sneak a peak at banned Jimi Hendrix “Electric Lady Land” album cover. Or running Funkadelic’s “I Got A Thing” over and over so your band could learn the nuances of a bass line, a wah wah peddle, and some drum licks in a hopeless attempt at imitation.
Vinyl, when mixed with the 12AX7A vacuum tubes that powered your stereo created a warmth that added an indescribable something that the best digital Pro Tools plug-in could never recreate. The LP’s cover became a work of art in itself. Sgt. Pepper’s cover launched a hundred analytical dissertations, fed the Beatle rumor mill and became fodder for trivia buffs who memorized the names and faces of every image thereon.
Vinyl, in the hands of the right disc jockey became an instrument that could create a symphony where disparate artists came together in a seamless harmonic whole to take you on an emotional roller coaster ride.
Then came one turn of the evolutionary road, where it was thought that Vinyl was as anachronistic as a pterodactyl, technically deficient and ultimately too fragile to be a permanent part of the audio archive. CDs and their successor, the MP3 were pure digital storage devices that could be identically cloned without the generational losses inherent in the magnetically arranged iron filings on strips of Mylar or the vibratory bands encircling black plastic.
For three decades we’ve believed that digital perfection was the be all and end all. But now, it seems that everything old is new again. Even as CD sales continue to decline, vinyl is in a renaissance.
The Chicago Tribune quotes Ken Shipley, co-owner of the Numero Group, a Chicago label that specializes in reissues of underground soul music. “We’re seeing the (vinyl) resurgence in all walks of life: from 50-year-old guys who want high-quality product to match their high-end stereos to 19-year-old kids who are sick of the minimalist Ikea design that has plagued dorm rooms for the last decade..Vinyl is the new books.”
Pressing plants are being brought out of mothballs and limited edition vinyl box sets are selling out, at price points that would make CD manufacturers salivate. Bill Gagnon, senior vice president of catalog marketing at EMI Music told the Trib that he expects vinyl to eventually make up about 4% of EMI’s revenue. As with everything else, it’s the younger generation that is driving the demand.
Will the LP supplant digital? Nope. The pure ease of carrying your entire record library around in a cigarette box that renders it perfectly and pristine first time, every time ensures a digital future.
But like the Keener generation, new audiences are discovering the same magic we remember from that first time we put needle to groove.
SOURCE: http://scottwesterman.com/
Album Cover Art
Let's continue our look at Gigwise.com's look at the 50 most controversial, weirdest, best and worst album covers as put together by their staff:
Controversial
14. Mortad Hell: ‘There’s A Satanic Butcher In Every One Of Us’ Who, what? Well this cover certainly would explain the music, death metal. And who doesn't love blood and a butcher on any album cover?
-----------------------------------------------
Weirdest
14. Kjell Kraghe: 'Vind I Seglen' Again, the staff has pulled out some obscure artwork from some obscure artist. Wouldn't make my list, but they seem pretty smitten with it.
-----------------------------------------------
Worst
14. ManOwar – ‘Anthology’: Anthology is the second "best of" album by the heavy metal band Manowar.
This 1997 compilation album of ManOwar’s greatest hits perhaps belonged to the Eighties for it’s pure cheesiness value. The boys must clearly have worked out to get that authentic Conan the Barbarian look. After doing some research about the band, all I could find was this cover making list of the 'worst' album covers of all time on a variety of web sites. We get the picture, I don't think that their music mattered.
--------------------------------------------
Best
14. The Beatles: ‘Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band’ Not in the top five? A real slip up for Gigwise, this cover is iconic.
The Grammy Award-winning album packaging was created by art director Robert Fraser, mostly in collaboration with McCartney, designed by Peter Blake, his wife Jann Haworth, and photographed by Michael Cooper. It featured a colourful collage of life-sized cardboard models of famous people on the front of the album cover and lyrics printed on the back cover, the first time this had been done on an English pop LP. The Beatles themselves, in the guise of the Sgt. Pepper band, were dressed in custom-made military-style outfits made of satin dyed in day-glo colours. The suits were designed by Manuel Cuevas.
According to Blake, the original concept was to create a scene that showed the Sgt. Pepper band performing in a park; this gradually evolved into its final form, which shows the Beatles, as the Sgt. Pepper band, surrounded by a large group of their heroes, rendered as lifesized cut-out figures. Also included were wax-work figures of the Beatles as they appeared in the early '60s, borrowed from Madame Tussauds. The wax figures appear to be looking down on the word "Beatles" spelled out in flowers as if it were a grave, and it has been speculated that this symbolises that the innocent mop-tops of yesteryear were now dead and gone. At their feet were several affectations from the Beatles' homes including small statues belonging to Lennon and Harrison, a small portable TV set and a trophy. A young delivery boy who provided the flowers for the photo session was allowed to contribute a guitar made of yellow hyacinths. Although it has long been rumoured that some of the plants in the arrangement were cannabis plants, this is untrue. Also included is a Shirley Temple doll wearing a sweater in homage to the Rolling Stones (who would return the tribute by having the Beatles hidden in the cover of their own Their Satanic Majesties Request LP later that year).
The collage depicted more than 70 famous people, including writers, musicians, film stars and (at Harrison's request) a number of Indian gurus. Starr reportedly made no contribution to the design. The final grouping included Marlene Dietrich, Carl Gustav Jung, W.C. Fields, Diana Dors, Bob Dylan, Marilyn Monroe, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Sigmund Freud, Aleister Crowley, Edgar Allan Poe, Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, William S. Burroughs, Marlon Brando, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and controversial comedian Lenny Bruce. Also included was the image of the original Beatles bass player, the late Stuart Sutcliffe. Pete Best said in a later NPR interview that Lennon borrowed family medals from his mother Mona for the shoot, on condition he not lose them. Adolf Hitler was requested by Lennon, but ultimately he was left out.
This cover belongs in any top ten list, why it ranks so low with Gigwise is anyone's guess.
Controversial
14. Mortad Hell: ‘There’s A Satanic Butcher In Every One Of Us’ Who, what? Well this cover certainly would explain the music, death metal. And who doesn't love blood and a butcher on any album cover?
-----------------------------------------------
Weirdest
14. Kjell Kraghe: 'Vind I Seglen' Again, the staff has pulled out some obscure artwork from some obscure artist. Wouldn't make my list, but they seem pretty smitten with it.
-----------------------------------------------
Worst
14. ManOwar – ‘Anthology’: Anthology is the second "best of" album by the heavy metal band Manowar.
This 1997 compilation album of ManOwar’s greatest hits perhaps belonged to the Eighties for it’s pure cheesiness value. The boys must clearly have worked out to get that authentic Conan the Barbarian look. After doing some research about the band, all I could find was this cover making list of the 'worst' album covers of all time on a variety of web sites. We get the picture, I don't think that their music mattered.
--------------------------------------------
Best
14. The Beatles: ‘Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band’ Not in the top five? A real slip up for Gigwise, this cover is iconic.
The Grammy Award-winning album packaging was created by art director Robert Fraser, mostly in collaboration with McCartney, designed by Peter Blake, his wife Jann Haworth, and photographed by Michael Cooper. It featured a colourful collage of life-sized cardboard models of famous people on the front of the album cover and lyrics printed on the back cover, the first time this had been done on an English pop LP. The Beatles themselves, in the guise of the Sgt. Pepper band, were dressed in custom-made military-style outfits made of satin dyed in day-glo colours. The suits were designed by Manuel Cuevas.
According to Blake, the original concept was to create a scene that showed the Sgt. Pepper band performing in a park; this gradually evolved into its final form, which shows the Beatles, as the Sgt. Pepper band, surrounded by a large group of their heroes, rendered as lifesized cut-out figures. Also included were wax-work figures of the Beatles as they appeared in the early '60s, borrowed from Madame Tussauds. The wax figures appear to be looking down on the word "Beatles" spelled out in flowers as if it were a grave, and it has been speculated that this symbolises that the innocent mop-tops of yesteryear were now dead and gone. At their feet were several affectations from the Beatles' homes including small statues belonging to Lennon and Harrison, a small portable TV set and a trophy. A young delivery boy who provided the flowers for the photo session was allowed to contribute a guitar made of yellow hyacinths. Although it has long been rumoured that some of the plants in the arrangement were cannabis plants, this is untrue. Also included is a Shirley Temple doll wearing a sweater in homage to the Rolling Stones (who would return the tribute by having the Beatles hidden in the cover of their own Their Satanic Majesties Request LP later that year).
The collage depicted more than 70 famous people, including writers, musicians, film stars and (at Harrison's request) a number of Indian gurus. Starr reportedly made no contribution to the design. The final grouping included Marlene Dietrich, Carl Gustav Jung, W.C. Fields, Diana Dors, Bob Dylan, Marilyn Monroe, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Sigmund Freud, Aleister Crowley, Edgar Allan Poe, Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde, William S. Burroughs, Marlon Brando, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and controversial comedian Lenny Bruce. Also included was the image of the original Beatles bass player, the late Stuart Sutcliffe. Pete Best said in a later NPR interview that Lennon borrowed family medals from his mother Mona for the shoot, on condition he not lose them. Adolf Hitler was requested by Lennon, but ultimately he was left out.
This cover belongs in any top ten list, why it ranks so low with Gigwise is anyone's guess.
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