Some of Elton’s greatest album covers were a bit splashy, others a little somber. The one for Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player was just right, drawing from his soon-to-be-legendary love of movies. One does notice that each decade has its own 'looks', which can date it there a bit. Some with similar themes or style are grouped together. There is good, bad and ugly (sexism, underage person(s)) covers, though that might sometimes depend on the reader's taste. This album cover was more of a multimedia assemblage, incorporating the die-cut edges and the marble-swirled disc into the overall design and giving an instant visual image to the top-hatted Dave Mason. 50: Elton John: Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player (design by David Larkham and Michael Ross) The original cover was changed soon after release and a white couple was put on the cover to get the record carried in the South.

One of the many imaginative trips from the late 60s, this assemblage – by the band’s drummer – represents various personal dreams of the band members. 38: PJ Harvey: To Bring You My Love (design by Valerie Phillips) All the Ohio Players covers were legendary, and the early Westbound ones were considerably more daring than the hit-era ones for Mercury. As the band often claimed, fewer people would have bought the albums if they’d put themselves on the covers. 30: The Louvin Brothers: Satan is Real (design by Ira Louvin) Though Steely Dan was long associated with Los Angeles, the cover for Pretzel Logic (actually shot at Fifth Avenue and 79th Street) looks, feels, and tastes like New York.This is a collection of album covers, well-known and less-known. They are roughly grouped by the decade (1960s, 1970s, and 1980s-early1990s: all getting a short introduction), some appearing in other decade than their own. Each cover is accompanied by artist name, title, record label, your (or rough guess - I do wish there had been some more insisted searching), then design/collage/art/photo by, if known (but put sometimes just as 'unknown'). Sometimes there's a further comment added (these and the introduction are also in German and French). It was weird, it was witty, it was Warhol. The famous minimalism of The Velvet Underground & Nico peel-away banana album cover became an influence on punk visual style many years later and remains one of the greatest album covers. The Five Keys cover is rare because the thimb on the far left might have been misunderstood as an exposed penis. Most copies have the thumb airbrushed out.

Record Covers’ (2002) by Michael Ochs – is essentially an interesting photo collection of album covers throughout the decades – but ultimately this amounts to nothing more than a vanity project for its author/curator Michael Ochs. Okay, so it was a little graphic and provocative, but as the single most controversial thing The Beatles ever did (and the most expensive for an original), the cover of Yesterday and Today surely earns a place on a list of the greatest album covers. 66: Alice Cooper: School’s Out (design by Craig Braun) The ubiquitous Hipgnosis team outdid itself with this ultra-clever 10cc sleeve, which is not only inspired by one of the songs (the phone sex-themed “Don’t Hang Up”) but is full of hidden gags, with the same people turning up in each of the four main photos. 17: XTC: Go 2 (design by Hipgnosis) There were nearly as many copies of Alice Cooper’s School’s Out in 1970s high schools as there were actual school desks. Ten points if you got the original with the underwear inner sleeve. 65: Aerosmith: Draw the Line (design by Al Hirshfeld)Mr Ochs is a man of few words. 99% of these sleeves are presented without comment. The comment is all in the juxtaposition. But very occasionally he rouses himself to make an observation, usually on one topic : Beggars Banquet is a rare case where an album’s two famous covers really complement each other. Put the notorious bathroom cover together with the engraved invitation on the US replacement, and you’ve got the yin and the yang of The Rolling Stones at the time. There's not a lot to actually *read* in this 50-year survey of LP record-cover design, but the absence of text is more than compensated for by high-quality photo reproductions of a huge representative sample of what was a thriving art-form until the demise of vinyl records in the 1990s - and may yet become so again now the format has regained popularity.

Ochs also provides us with a written preface to each decade of covers, a resume of key developments in popular music which is somewhat cursory and futile to say the least. This famous album cover did wonders with its simple strategy. On his Dr. Dre’s solo debut The Chronic, the design assumed that Dre was already an icon and presented him accordingly.The image of a baby grasping at a dollar bill became one of grunge’s coolest and most enduring symbols, an album cover that captured the attitude of Nevermind and the era. The baby in question, Spencer Elden, even recreated the photo 25 years later. For her debut solo album, Courtney Love took the Cars’ concept a step further by enlisting the younger, edgier pin-up artist (known professionally as Olivia) to paint her. Of course, it got an extra dimension by playing with Love’s own image at the time. 89: The Rolling Stones: Their Satanic Majesties Request (design by Michael Cooper)

If you're coming to Coles by car, why not take advantage of the 2 hours free parking at Sainsbury's Pioneer Square - just follow the signs for Pioneer Square as you drive into Bicester and park in the multi-storey car park above the supermarket. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. You don't need to shop in Sainsbury's to get the free parking! Where to Find Us Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-07-26 14:01:31 Boxid IA40188504 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier Rush’s greatest album covers expressed both their grand concepts and their cerebral sense of humor. In this staged cover for Moving Pictures, which features many of the characters from the songs, we detect at least three different visual plays on the album’s title. Anyone who went to plays or read the New York Times in the 70s will recognize the work of the line-drawing caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, who did his magic on Aerosmith’s members here. As always, his daughter Nina’s name was hidden a few times in this famous album cover. 64: Eric B. & Rakim: Paid in Full (design by Ron Contarsy) Smashing Pumpkins’ album covers were often softer and prettier than the music, but this cover (created by Billy Corgan’s then-girlfriend) is the perfect translation of the obsessively romantic theme of Adore. 31: Ohio Players: Climax (design by Joel Brodsky)Listen here: 97: Ol’ Dirty Bastard: Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version (design by Alli Truch, photo by Danny Clinch) From 1st July 2021, VAT will be applicable to those EU countries where VAT is applied to books - this additional charge will be collected by Fed Ex (or the Royal Mail) at the time of delivery. Shipments to the USA & Canada: The album cover for Hüsker Dü’s final studio album is one of those cases where a cover is exactly like the album: vivid, colorful and jarring in a welcoming way. 44: Chelsea Wolfe: Hiss Spun (design by John Crawford) It may be a more glamorous cover after her first two, but this photo of PJ Harvey – in which she could easily be mistaken for Shakespeare’s Ophelia – implied that a newer, softer image comes at a cost.