Recent Album Art.

The lost art of the album cover.

Like many music buyers there is no denying the sound, portability as well as durability of the compact disc. What is lost is of course really good art work..at least on a larger scale.

I am lucky in that when I first started buying music w/my own money I would buy vinyl lps. I had two older brothers so I needed to buy my own Kiss records. I'd look at them, smell them and get lost in the cool covers. As a young lad I loved the Love Gun cover shown below:



In the last few years artists have gone 50/50 it seems on the art work. Trent Reznor said of the last Nine Inch Nails cd that "cover art is a dead art, why waste the time". As you can see here zero effort was taken and a dull cover is the result.



Tuesday I grabbed three cds as noted. The first was Wolfmother Here is that cover.


Kinda fantasy meets medieval. It would be cooler on a record.

Pearl Jam



Okay don't judge a book by its cover I guess. Inside is a pretty decent lyric booklet too.

Finally Tool



What you don't see here is the cool "glasses" you get attached to the cd. You lay the booklet out and hold the glasses up and flop thru a few pages of liner notes and images. It freaking rules. The best is the disclaimer as you start it basically says if this messes you up you can't sue us or the label. The best image is the one of the fetus inside the skull. I need to see if I can find it on line. Here is one image of it "open"