Martinex1: UPDATE: It is funny this topic came up because just last week CBR.com (Comic Book Resources) ran their weekly "The Line it is Drawn" feature where artists take suggestions on various topics; and this past week, the suggestion was "favorite album covers meshed with comic books." Well, two of the works posted were suggested by Back in the Bronze Age... and here they are:
Matt Sandbrook created the Ego cover based on Yes's Fragile. I think this is just awesome.
And Nick Perks created the FF cover based on The Strangler's Black and White album. Isn't that a cool fit for the characters?
Check out CBR.com for fun topics on "The Line it is Drawn" each Friday. And check out Matt Sandbrook's and Nick Perks' websites as well. Cheers!
Check out CBR.com for fun topics on "The Line it is Drawn" each Friday. And check out Matt Sandbrook's and Nick Perks' websites as well. Cheers!
22 comments:
Which are the best album covers (regardless of whether or not you like the music) ?
I would have to say that given the excesses of the era :
Anything by Judas Priest. Comic book-y sometimes, without going full-on Iron Maiden.
Def Leppard Pyromania. Might not play so well post 9-11 now, but at the time I thought it was pretty cool.
Asia's first album. 'Cause, dragons.
The Fixx - Reach the Beach. Borderline kitsch, but there is still substance there.
Japan - Oil on Canvas. (Their live album, still a fan of David Sylvian)
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures, the image is now ubiquitous and has been riffed off of so many times, but the original is classic.
And I always thought the Bauhaus logo was pretty nifty, too.
Cheers!
Oh, come on now...
Bat Out of Hell
Is this even a question?!?
Yoyo
The one's that pop into my head first off;
DESTROYER- Kiss
SGT. PEPPER- Beatles
Boston's first album
Let me think on that some more...
Yoyo, yep, the Corben artwork on Bat Out of Hell is pretty good, but so is Wrightson's cover for Dead Ringer. For me, those are definitely cases covered by the second part of Colin's question, because I really don't like Meat Loaf's music.
For myself, I'd have to say my favorite album covers are any of those with Roger Dean's art. This means every Yes album on which he did the cover art, but especially Relayer, Fragile, Tales from Topographic Oceans, Yessongs and Union, and also the covers to Gentle Giant's Octopus and Osibia's Woyaya.
Gah! Osibisa, not Osibia...
I'm like Killraven and need time to think about it!
BUT... Beatles Red and Blue, collectively, could be my fav as I spent some time comparing back in my youth.
Klaus Coleman's cover for the Beatles "Revolver". Also always loved the cool Patrick Nagel art on Duran Duran's "Rio"...
Yeah, lots of Metal bands had cool covers: Metallica, Maiden, Priest, Motorhead. Scorpions and Ratt had some sexy (or prurient, depending on your point of view) covers. Some personal favourites:
The Wall - Pink Floyd (minimalist, but effective)
Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd (shaking hands with the burning dude, representing the absent Syd Barrett)
Houses of the Holy - Led Zep (weird and a bit disturbing)
Beggar's Banquet - Rolling Stones (love the graffiti-covered wall)
Velvet Underground and Nico (with Warhol's peel-off banana)
Small Change - Tom Waits (apparently the naked woman on the cover is Cassandra Peterson aka El Vira, though she says she doesn't really remember posing for it!)
and Germfree Adolescents - X-Ray Spex (with the band members in test tubes)
Wings - "Venus and Mars."
Paul McCartney - "New."
Supertramp - "Breakfast in America."
Supertramp - "Even in the Quietest Moments."
Supertramp - "Crime of the Century."
Joe Jackson - "Look Sharp."
Duran Duran - "Rio."
Yazoo - "Upstairs at Eric's."
The Clash - "London Calling."
Blondie - "Parallel Lines."
Tubeway Army - "Replicas."
Beatles - Revolver (as Redartz already said...)
Genesis - Nursery Cryme, Selling England by the Pound
Yes - Yessongs, Relayer (as Edo Bosnar already said...)
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols
The Clash - London Calling (as Steve Does Comics already said...)
Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run
Wow - what a great suggestion for a topic. And some great answers - keep them coming.
As a heads-up, take a look back at the main page; I added some pictures and commentary to today's post that I think is somewhat appropriate to the topic.
For my own personal favorites - I am with Edo on Roger Dean's art, from Yes to Asia and all the others.
I also have to say I liked Roxy Music's covers; they were definitely uniquely Roxy Music.
People always raved about "Who's Next" but I particularly liked "Who Are You?" I found a lot within the photography to admire on that cover.
I also thought "Sticky Fingers" by the Stones was clever with the zipper.
How about Joe Satriani and his Silver Surfer cover? Surely, that got some of our attention.
Again...fun topic.
Thanks for all the comments :)
Another cover I've always liked is "Atlantic Crossing" by Rod Stewart. A giant cartoon Rod steps across the Atlantic with his foot landing among the towers of New York. Back on the British side (on the back of the album) the Scottish flag (Saint Andrew's cross) is flying, rather than the British Union Jack.
Martinex mentioned the famous "Sticky Fingers" zipper album - in fascist Spain (ruled by the elderly General Francisco Franco at the time) that cover was banned, due to its' sexual innuendo I suppose. Instead the album had a cover showing a tin of treacle containing some fingers (literally sticky fingers) - a far more disturbing image than a zipper but acceptable to Spain's fascist rulers!
Just noticed my earlier comment got autocorrected.Should have read Klaus Voorman, of course. Wonder if you can deactivate that annoyance...
Marti- thanks for those images above. I love CBR's "Line it is Drawn"! Always good for some fun visual playtime.
Oh, another favorite cover: Thomas Dolby's "Golden Age of Wireless", with it's Pulp Magazine look...
ELO "Out of the Blue" had fantastic art, especially the inner gatefold. IIRC it was done by a Japanese artist that I read about in Starlog magazine.
Led Zeppelin "Houses of the Holy" or just about any of the covers Hipgnosis. They did many of Led Zeppelin's covers as wall as Pink Floyd. I had an art book featuring all the different covers they did.
Travis Morgan
From Terry in Virginia:
Good topic, considering that I used to collect vinyl albums just about as much as I collected comics... here are some that spring to mind (and yes, some duplication of what others have mentioned....
King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer: Brain Salad Surgery
Yes: Anything with art by Roger Dean!
Beatles: Sgt. Peppers, Abbey Road, Rubber Soul, and, just for its originality, The Beatles (aka The White Album)
Jefferson Airplane: Long John Silver (you could fold it up to make it a stash box)
Alice Cooper: School's Out (you could fold it out as a school desk)
Led Zeppelin III: You could spin round interior to show images of the band in the holes in the outer square)
Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers (you could... well, do whatever you wanted with it, I suppose)
Jean Michele Jarre: Oxygen (look it up on Google images if you aren't familiar with it -- really cool)
Jefferson Starship: Dragonfly
Moody Blues: Days of Future Past (you could stare at it for hours... back in the day....)
Pink Floyd: Ummaguma (an "infinity" style cover, something that was fairly common during the golden age of comics)
Santana: Abraxis (another stare at it for hours motif, but in black and white)
Jimi Hendrix: Electric Ladyland (the British import with all the ladies...)
Crosby, Stills, and Nash: That album with Southern Cross with the science fictiony citadel, circa 1979?)
Genesis: Nursery Cryme
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and the Wall
The Nice (Keith Emerson before ELP): Some were reissued with graphics by Hipgnosis, the premiere album cover design company of the 1970s)
Rolling Stones: Beggar's Banquet -- yes, that graffiti bathroom wall was the original concept, but it was banned and replaced with a bland white cover; the graffiti version was officially release decades later)
Beatles: Yesterday and Today (the banned butcher baby cover)
Grateful Dead: Blues for Allah (they had a lot of good covers; the albums weren't that great; even Deadheads didn't like their records, just their live shows...)
I could go on and on...
Great list Terry. Some I did not know about.
All of Peter Gabriel’s covers were pretty cool and interesting.
Ha! I love the Fragile Ego mash-up (and also the great pun).
And thanks for posting that here, so I don't have to go to CBR myself (I pretty much stopped viewing CBR after it changed about a year a and a half ago, when they basically dropped the best thing about it, the Comics Should Be Good blog, and it turned into this blingy pop culture portal like a gajillion others, complete with listicles and so forth...)
Edo I have the same feelings about CBR. I go for “Line it is Drawn” and “Comic Book Legends”. Brian Cronin’s work is the best part. When they changed format I pulled way back from daily reading. Now most of it had little interest to me, and it seems shallow in its reporting. I find it hard to navigate too. But I do still like the artwork like what was shown.
Some favorites have already been listed, so please forgive any redundancies...
The Clash - London Calling (This is #1 - everyone else is fighting for 2nd place)
The Who - The Kids Are Alright
Pink Floyd - Dark Side
Beatles - Abbey Road
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
Madness - One Step Beyond
Led Zeppelin - Led Zep I
Supertramp - Breakfast In America
Jimi Hendrix - Axis Bold As Love
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