80s
Since forming in 1981, Metallica has become one of the world’s biggest selling bands, with over 50 million albums sold in the US alone. They’ve won 9 Grammy Awards and – from the battle over their first release through to the celebrated packaging for Death Magnetic – have created significant cover art as well.
In a classic Saturday Night Live Sketch in 2000, the show satirised the game show Celebrity Jeopardy – skewering both Robin Williams and Catherine Zeta Jones. But the breakout star of the sketch was comedian Darrel Hammond’s Sean Connery, who introduced the term “anal bum cover” in this memorable exchange:
I spent all of my teenage years listening and obsessing over metal. Then with the arrival of ‘Grunge’, I shamefully denounced the hair spray genre, swapping my denim jacket & cowboy boots for flannel shorts and Doc Martins. Then a few years later retired my flannel shirts for the indie/alternative music scene.
“One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting.” Gerhard Richter 1973
From the hard to make out lyrics (“They called the clip a two-headed cow / Your hate clipped and distant, your luck, pilgrimage,”) through to the murky, unattractive cover art – nothing is made too easy on R.E.M.’s debut album.
It’s always good to see the designers behind classic album covers getting critical and commercial recognition. And few designers could boast of a career as celebrated and prolific as Storm Thorgerson. Taken By Storm: The Album Art of Storm Thorgerson was published by Vision On in 2007. It’s a selection of some of his best [...]
In no particular order, we’re taking a look at the select few albums that are not only referred to as “landmarks” but have actually created new landmarks. For the passionate fans that love these albums, the places depicted on these sleeves have become sites of pilgrimage.
True Blue was released in 1986 and to this day remains the best-selling Madonna album. I remember my older sister buying it and listening to it constantly. Shortly afterwards she got into The Smiths and informed me that Madonna “was shit”. True Blue spawned a bundle of top-ten hits and boasted the pop star’s first [...]
Seminal British band The Stone Roses released their self titled debut album in 1989. The cover features artwork by band member John Squire, who was largely responsible for the band’s visual identity. Squire is an accomplished visual artist who at the time was heavily influenced by Jackson Pollock. The painting featured on the cover of [...]
This record cover from 1981 is a homage to Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (“The Lunch on the Grass”). The large scale oil on canvas painting by Edouard Manet was finished in 1863 and caused instant controversy, due to the scandalous combination of a naked women next to two fully dressed men. Their casual, relaxed [...]
