Still, in 1968 the album was shocking, with the gatefold sleeve featuring no less than 18 naked women, each holding pictures of Hendrix in ways that preserved their modesty. Surely not – a rock ‘n’ roll album with (gasp) nudity. Warhol didn’t learn from the production fracas, as his work on The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers would demonstrate. When peeled, it revealed a flesh-coloured banana underneath – shocking at the time, quite passé today.
Warhol used his trademark painting style to create a ripe banana - itself a distinctive, suggestive icon – but Warhol went further, and the final design was peelable.
The first of two Warhol’s efforts in the top 25 album cover designs, and this typically ambitious design witnessed massive production problems, and delayed the album itself by over a year.
Bonus fact: it was the first gatefold album ever produced. Shame the legal eagles didn’t spot the fact that the plants lined-up in front of the band were of the wacky-baccy variety. The art team created life-size cut-outs of the celebrities to stand behind the band, and then took the picture. The design resulted in a legal minefield for EMI, who needed approval from all the celebrities, but the final result was a colourful, celebratory image. The cut-&-paste collection of people lined up behind The Beatles included an eclectic mix of The Beatles’ heroes, including Bob Dylan, Laurel and Hardy, and Karl Marx – plus H G Wells, Edgar Allan Poe, and former Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe. Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’s cover – probably the most instantly recognizable in album-cover history – is steeped in controversy. You can blame the CD case and the death of the vinyl LP for that. And the downside – nothing in this century has come close to producing album art from the 1970s heyday. The album features seminal recordings from the artist’s coffeehouse era (Gerde’s Folk City, 1962), his mythic 1963 breakout concerts at New York’s Town Hall and Carnegie Hall, a duet with Joan Baez from the historic March on Washington (August 28, 1963), definitive performances from his European and world tours of 19, incandescent moments from the 19 Newport Folk Festivals and more.It's caused anguish, joy, rage, and controversy at Digit Bungalow, but here are the titles we reckon are the greatest examples of album cover art ever.
Most of the performances on the album have been previously available only on the extremely limited edition “50th Anniversary / Copyright Extension” albums (three highly-collectible compilations–released in 2012, 20–of rare early Dylan recordings).Īcross two discs-worth of music, Live 1962 – 1966: Rare Performances from The Copyright Collections chronicles Dylan’s transformation from groundbreaking acoustic “folk” artist to iconic force of pop culture. Bob Dylan’s Live 1962 – 1966: Rare Performances from The Copyright Collections is now available digitally or as a 2-CD set.
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