The Greatest Album Covers Of All Time

By Johnny Morgan, Grant Scott, Barry Miles

Book Overview

2006 will see the 50th anniversary of the LP chart. At a time when music is increasingly being downloaded and uploaded, with people creating play lists on portable MP3 players served from web sites, the art of packaging music is being lost. For the past five decades musicians have displayed their work inside packages that were often as integral as the music itself. As a visual representation of their musical sound, these packages were often chosen by the artists and in many cases were designed by them too. This book brings together 500 of the greatest album covers of all time and is arranged chronologically, beginning in 1956, ending in 2005. There is a 50-strong judging panel selecting the final 500 entries, those judges having been drawn from the great and the good of the music industry. The panel includes famous designers, musicians, producers and record company executives whose reasons for choosing covers will accompany the illustration of the sleeve. From rock 'n' roll to pop, R&B to jazz, blues and even folk some of the album sleeves included are obvious and essential to such a volume, while others will surprise readers and jog memories. included because someone more famous will have later 'borrowed' the style of the sleeve for one of their own releases. The chosen entries might not necessarily be of a best-selling release, but they will be important artistically, stylistically or culturally. This book will undoubtedly be an object of discussion and argument for music fans the world over.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1843403013
• ISBN13: 9781843403012
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Collins & Brown
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 4.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 11.8" x 1.0" x 12.0"

Customer Reviews

Interesting Read

Finding a lot of albums that I had forgotten about and many more that I never knew about. Already marked a couple pages with albums I want to hunt for. One thing though - the book I got has a different dust cover than the one pictured. The design is the same but many of the album covers depicted are different. No big deal, but it makes me wonder if the book I got is an older or newer version.

very nice hardcover coffee table book

great for browsing - loved the artwork!!! A great buy!!! Bought several as x-mas gifts and will buy more for B-day gifts

Just what my husband wanted!

I ordered too late for my husband to receive this one for Christmas but he was delighted anyway! Arrived is great shape and was what he expected. Thank you much.

For Fun or the Music Enthusiast

I received this book for the holidays and wound up reading it cover to cover in 3 hours. The book does a great job of explaining the evolution of the album cover. It also gives great background into what the artist's was trying to portray with the cover. The book covers all genres, as well as, explains covers that were giving social commentary to covers that are just plain silly. Great purchase for anyone that loves not only the music but everything that goes into it.

Fun Book, brings back the memories

If I had known, this would have been the last gift my husband opened. We could not get him away from this book on Christmas morning. It was fun to see him sit with our daughter and tell her about which titles he had and some of his memories to go along with the album covers. Neat book!