BOOK REVIEW: The Art of the LP: Classic Album Covers 1955-1995 (Sterling)
By Robbie Woliver
The companion to co-author Johnny Morgan’s The Greatest Album Covers of All Time, The Art of the LP is an oversized coffee-table book that would suit anyone’s home, whether a java fiend or not. Chock full—actually, 350 worth—of iconic album covers (remember those? Albums?) our entire collective sense of being a part of a popular culture is summoned, as if by the Lord’s hand itself,as depicted on the cover of Bob Dylan’s Saved.
Readers will relive those moments in their past that are so closely related to the music that inspired those covers (a Freewheelin' Dylan and then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo walking down Greenwich's Jones Street kick-started a generation). You’ll speedily regress through one past-life memory after another. Set aside a lot of time for your first encounter with this book, and be prepared to be both exhilarated and emotionally drained. Memory Lane is a long pathway.
This is modern art at its best (Andy Warhol has two winners here: The Velvet Underground’s now-famous banana cover, and perhaps the most controversial of all, The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers zipper cover), because it is attached to more than the visual sense, it connects to all our senses—the visceral miracle of music.
To make it easier to compartmentalize the onslaught of so many covers (some images are outstandingly creative, some not so), the authors have been kind enough to create thematic sections: Rock and Roll (of course), Sex (kind of tame), Art (the most interesting), Drugs (dig on Thelonius Monk’s Underground image), Ego (have to love Patti Smith’s Horses pose), Real World, Escape, Politics and Death.
There is commentary that accompanies each cover, inconsistent but always worthwhile. Not all the accompanying stories provide insight into what went into the design of the cover (Billy Swan’s was pretty lame) as well as The Clash’s London Calling does. Much of the commentary is generic background on the artist and speculation regarding the design, and some is from the authors' critical perspective (guys, you’re wrong, Joni Mitchell’s Clouds self-portrait was just fine). Some of the images of the cover itself (which is really the cornerstone of the book) show wear (Boz Scaggs’ Silk Degrees is quite worn) and it’s a surprise considering what it must have taken to create this book. Somewhere they could have found more pristine cover images.
Nothing evokes memories the way music does, and the art connected to that music conjures rich feelings of joy, loss, nostalgia, melancholy and bliss. And, yes, the Who didn’t really pee on the monolith on Who’s Next. It was rainwater.
IN OTHER WORDS: Set aside a nice chunk of time, hunker down with the book and your iPod, and, as Cheap Trick said, “Surrender.”
RATING: 9/10
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