Album art
Join Our Community Subscribe to Paul's PostsSay what you will about vinyl’s good and bad points but it’s hard to deny the joy of holding a 12″ album cover while you’re playing the treasures inside.
Album art and liner notes on the back cover are perfect in this format, something CDs and digital of any kind really lack. The closest we might get is on the iPad when we’re streaming through a well-designed music management app.
Still, the visceral feel of that album cover…the big front cover…the often well-written prose on the back. More than the special sound quality unique to vinyl, album art imparts a connection to the music we just don’t seem to get with digital.
My readers will know I prefer the dynamics, life, and sound quality of proper digital on a system specific to the medium.
But I don’t want to ignore the look, feel, and magical connection afforded by the album cover and its art.
Some things are just so right they cannot be improved upon.
Album art qualifies in spades.
I guess the passion of some aficionados for vinyl is based on the giant playground offered for individually optimizing quality of reading the grooves. You have to find the best position of the needle in the groove by precisely adjusting azimuth, VTA and tracking force as well as anti skating force. You have to find the cartridge best matching the tonearm both forming an oscillating system with eigenfrequencies. You have to find the best phone preamp settings and tonearm and phonocable. Platter weights and record cleaning machine are a must. What is the best solution for the cleaning substances? How to protect the turntable from vibrations and the cartridge and tonearm cable from hum and RFI? There are so much challenging tasks that in the end the satisfaction factor can be maximized! No wonder that the laser turntable with its auto calibration never had a huge commercial success!
This is also why new manual transmission cars have not completely disappeared. The tactile and visceral experience of a properly executed down shift when entering a turn; Heel and toeing the pedals, blipping the throttle, and speed matching the gears requires intimate involvement with the machine.
Sometimes when the best results come to easily and without sacrifice, the personal pleasure is diminished.
I couldn’t agree more. I drive a six-speed manual transmission Mini Cooper S. It is an absolute delight. Similarly, I enjoy the physical process of playing a record and re-reading the liner notes and enjoying the album art. CDs are phenomenal in their way, and I have many, but records have their own mojo that keeps me coming back.
It’s true, is a big factor, but is not the main one, is the inconvenience of vinyl…
Just to give an example: our group of friends is around 28-36. Every time we sit to listen to music, if is on vinyl, we get 40 minutes of full concentration, minus some comments.
If is on streaming, after the second song of the album the cellphone is passing around to select the next song, after the fourth track the songs are changed in the middle of the previous one, and after the sixth we are just talking over background music.
Vinyl release us of the (millennial) burden of compulsory choice.
“Vinyl release us of the (millennial) burden of compulsory choice.”
I totally agree with you isacatt. But don’t just include Millennials. We fat old 50 year olds nead to enjoy a full album spinning every once in a while to remind us of the joys of the medium. All ages are falling victims to compulsory choice and are missing out on some great music because we simply cannot wait for the next song.
This is an interesting analogy. I have 5 cars, 3 with sticks and 2 SUV’s that don’t offer them, otherwise they’d be sticks as well! Today, an automatic or dual clutch is faster around a track, but does that make it better? I don’t drive on a track on a daily basis, so the involvement of a manual transmission on public roads is far more gratifying (few things are as satisfying as a perfect heel/toe). Sometimes, it’s about the journey, not the finish line.
That said, I don’t know if the commitment involved with vinyl plays as integral a part versus the convenience of digital. The ability to personally optimize the sound through the methods paulsquirrel mentioned certainly plays a part, however many would argue whether digital is the fastest way around the track? Many still believe analog is better, in spite of digital’s clear superiority in plug n’ play convenience. I doubt either of us will ever believe a slushbox is better than a good manual.
I have a 1.6 golf diesel with manual transmission because I find driving so boring it reminds me that I actually have to concentrate on what I’m doing.
As per comments above album covers seem necessary to some to remind them they are listening to music.
Most turntables are plug and play these days. Mine came in bits but was up and running in under 2 hours and I had two tonearms to fit. Audiophiles use isolation platforms for loads of stuff. Many use integrated amplifiers with phono inputs. On mine the loadings can be changed using the remote. I do agree that turntables offer the best possibilities to fiddle around with stuff, but it’s totally unnecessary.
On Qobuz albums often come with with a PDF of ‘sleeve notes’, which I read on the tablet I use to control the streaming. Normally profusely illustrated with far more text about the composer and performers than one would get on an album cover. It is not the same, but it is a considerable consolation.
The thing is, even when using a big screen tablet and enjoying the more information digital meta data and cover art can give, the process of putting on vinyl and the physical cover itself leads to a very different approach to the album. I guess this is one main reason for the resurrection of vinyl. It’s somehow like the difference of eating in a fast food restaurant compared to the small Italian around the corner.
As you say, this can’t be replicated easily. Only the convenient access to a large digital music library offers some compensation.
I totally agree about ‘album art’ and cover notes…
… but I must be lucky, as all my CDs have the same artwork and cover notes as the vinyl, often more so with extra packaging. I just hold them closer and put my reading specs on 🙂
It’s all there, visceral, in my hand with the music sounding great, but then I didn’t rip my CDs and ditch them, I love them…
While I have started to purchase some DSD download files I try and make sure the art work is fully present and large iPad friendly. I’m not keen on 192KHz sampling – thought music should be multiples of 44.1KHz? – perhaps that’s why vinyl is getting more praise again?
P.S. – As my last edit got timed out – above I’d continued paragraph one above…
I’ve loved CDs since 1983 when I had the worlds first CD player, a U.K. Sony CDP-101. While no longer used I still have it to remind me when the world appreciated CDs and the music they delivered – before the nasties crept back in with bad mixes, equalisation and then poor recording and editing… 🙁
Unless you record to vinyl what folk choose to hear from them is just like using the tone controls on good CD setups – soft, mellow and worse with low dynamic range and emphasised bass – it’s all about the bass apparently.
Each to their own, the vinyl clicks, pops, surface and other ‘unwanted noise’ is too distracting for me. I just know unless Paul can win folk over, especially the music industry, with pure fine DSD recordings the future looks bleak to me…
As a young kid I was given a windup gramophone by a family friend as I liked music and couldn’t afford to go to venus of any sort. I though it was great but it wasn’t ‘music’. Later I had a Danset, an early UK monophonic vinyl player – that wasn’t ‘music’ either. Then I had my first stereo vinyl system which at last sounded ‘almost’ like being there with the music when I wanted. That’s until I first heard CDs, now that’s real music whenever I wanted – for me it’s been like that ever since. Yes, I’ve changed my system from time to time and always for the better, well I would say that…
For me, when I can’t buy a CD (or equivalent/ better including the artwork), for the few new music items I want to have – that’s when the ‘music’ dies for me 🙁
A lot of it over here is to do with Storm Thorgerson, of Hipgnosis fame, who reached his pinnacle of achievement with the YES triple album gatefold cover. He did the most well known covers there are, for Pink Floyd.
I think the most famous cover has to be Peter Blake’s cover for Sgt Pepper, now 50 years old, and was recreated for the 50th anniversary. He became the father of music pop art and is still active.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/apr/02/peter-blake-sgt-pepper-cover-revisited
The other interesting and sad one is Court of the Crimson King. Look it up on the internet.
Classical is often a total let-down in this regard, but for a long time classical outsold popular music. Some of my best records, on Archiv, have no cover art at all, but they then did beautiful linen covered box sets. They were all about liner notes.
https://www.joostvandernet.nl/favourite-records/bach-on-dg-archiv.html
I buy vinyl in part because I love good album art. I can only think of one I bought purely for the art, no regret, terrible album. Royal Blood.
Up to “Starless and Bible Black” all the King Crimson covers were colorful and interesting.
The early Tull jackets were unique too. “Stand Up” is the only LP I recall with that pop up when opened.
Other great covers included the first two Blodwyn Pig albums. Savoy Brown’s “Street Corner Talking” and how about “Sticky Fingers”, I have never seen a CD with an actual zipper. The Faces “Ooh La La” with the moving eyes, and Rod’s covers starting with “Gasoline Alley” through to, including “Atlantic Crossing”.
I have noticed a common cover in the last year of close ups of the artist, and not great photos. Three were the latest releases of Brandi Carlile, John Prine, and Juliana Hatfield’s “Pussycat”.
I can remember being about 15 and having an acquaintance freak out, worried his Mother would see the “Cricklewood Green” cover with the tits on a bottle that were part of the cover.
We grew up in an era of great creativity, at a time when boundaries were being pushed, and tested.
I have most of Jethro Tull on vinyl plus a box set and the remastered Passion Play. They tend to be quite rural. I have the zipper as well, in OK condition. There were some weird ones, the Gentle Giant mask and The Enid’s In A Glass House with a transparent inert, appropriately pretentious.
Let’s not forget the White album.
The majority of my analogue vinyl collection will probably never see a digital equivalent so I’m happy to continue enjoying vinyl whilst taking advantage of SACD & downloads as well. Whilst cover art etc. is a bonus its essentially the SQ that wins out. I’m still firmly in the vinyl tube camp but I’ll always remain open to change my choices in the future.
Paul, I am a member of your generation, being a proud 68 years old. When I have the album cover for Days of Future Past, by the Moody Blues, in hand (Released in 1967, if I remember correctly), I still find things than I haven’t noticed before in the 50+ years I have owned it. Album covers are art, some good, some not, some friggin’ fantastic. The best of them draw you into the cover, the same way great music draws you into it. If both draw you into them, like this album, THAT is a clear winner!
Yep, big gatefold albums with artwork by Hipgnosis combined with easily read lyrics helped me escape into the worlds created by the music playing away on the old vinyl… (a lot of Gabriel era Genesis for this now 53 year old..) It is indeed a very unique experience but times have and have to, move on.
One of the real benefits of purely digital music is the reduction of ‘stuff’ you need to create, distribute and play it – plastic, cardboard, paper not to mention the packaging for shipment and transport impact. I’m happy to enjoy my music playing from files, it’s not a big deal to find and put up on a decent display any artwork/lyrics if you want to. No not the same but greener I think.
The Genesis with PG, Trespass, Wind and Wuthering, Lamb Lies down, we’re they Hipgnosis? The only one I like is Seconds Out.
Steven, you made me go and check…yep just The Lamb is the only Gabriel era album by Hipgnosis, Trick of the tail, W&W, And then there were three (all Collins) all Hipgnosis.
This is 1 of the reasons I have Roon. Beside SQ and the best in integrating/presenting streamed music with your ripped music, you get all the history of the artist and current info like upcoming concerts.
To me, vinyl is about convenience: lack thereof.
Perhaps what older generations don’t get, is that for us, the millennial crowd, the convenience of everything has made us impatient. The ability to swap songs and records and artists on the fly distract us from enjoying the here and now. I’m not enjoying the “now”, I’m thinking “what I want in 30 seconds”.
The inconvenience of vinyl records remove the burden (freedom) of choice, of thinking: what do I want to hear in the next 5 seconds, 1 minute?
Vinyl is a blissful hassle.
The forceful removal from the immediate power of choice, allow us to have a mentally uninterrupted connection to music.
What use have those 30 dB of DR if I’m not mentally “there”?
I know it’s not optimal, I know is psychological, but is the reality, is how society has rise us and shape us. It’s a fact. The question is: How do we deal with that fact?
And………. the physicality of the BIG records helps too, of course ❤️
Very well put. I’m 62 and have some millennial friends and kids, and this is their experience as well. It also happens that in addition to the commitment to listening involved, good vinyl systems are often simply more involving musically.
If you can’t suspend disbelief or stop thinking about how amazing this or that technical aspect of the reproduction is, I don’t really care how convenient digital is.
Having said that, I love them both for different reasons. I just think it often depends on stuff that has little to do with music.
I have been looking at the few albums I still possess as I am preparing to visit a friend who still has a turntable. His playback system uses multiple Quad Electrostats and Decca ribbons with subs and sound great. The big deal is that my 31 year old son recently said to me that he had never actually heard any vinyl. I said that is something that needs my attention.
Attractive packaging and the tactile sensations of using phonograph records cannot make up for inferior technology. If you like art, buy a coffee table book about art. I’ve got many of them. My favorite is French Impressionism. There are also inexpensive copies of famous paintings available on the internet at low cost painted by excellent Chinese art students. Pick your favorites and fill your home with them as wall hangings. Then go back to listening to CDs or streaming or whatever you do.
This is another reason a music server should have a video out. It’s great to listen to music and have high quality album art on a video screen at the same time. I scan my album art to my hard drive and store it in a file to use as a screen saver and I only use high quality scans with JRiver. Using JRiver in Theater mode let’s one see the album being played in full screen and/or search through the rest of your collection while listening to another. I scan everything at 600 DPI or above and try to use at least 1000×1000 pixels.
Anyone feel free to use any of my submissions on these two sites. Better yet, sign up and post your own high quality scans. But be warned it is time consuming and often difficult and addictive. My screen name is rwwear for both sites.
https://albumartexchange.com/covers?q=rwwear&fltr=UPLOADER&sort=DATE&status=&size=any
https://fanart.tv/music-fanart/
Agreed 100%.
I wear reading glasses, but CD’s still, occasionally, force me to find my headband magnifier to see the lyrics or who’s playing bass. I must look pitiful!.
“My readers will know I prefer the dynamics, life, and sound quality of proper digital on a system specific to the medium.“
I have great respect for your accomplishments, Paul, but I find your preference inexplicable. I understand this preference for convenience, and for your business strategy, but I do not understand it for “life and sound quality.”
Are you certain that you have paid as much time, money and effort to your analog playback system, whether vinyl or tape, as you have to your digital playback system?
Alternatively, have you felt obligated to adopt this view since PS Audio presently seems to focus more on digital playback than it does on analog playback?
I am baffled that this truly could be your honest preference.
I can’t wait to hear the two new PS phono stages
RonRes, have you listened to a digital front end consisting of the PS Audio DMP & DSD, especially playing SACD’s…?
I’m not at all “baffled” by Paul’s preference…
I have not listened to that specific combination. But I have listened to systems built around MSB DACs, and they have sounded very good.
But your comment is not responsive to my question to Paul. You are barking up the wrong tree. I am not suggesting that digital doesn’t sound good, which is the subject of your comment to me. There is no doubt some digital systems are musically engaging and sound good. I did not challenge Paul’s implication that digital sounds good.
Does Paul have in his IRS V listening room right now a top tier vinyl playback system to compare directly to the digital system to which you are directing me? If Paul, focusing purely on sound quality (not on convenience, not on consistency of manufacturer demonstrations, not on cost, not on practicality), prefers the digital playback system over a top tier vinyl playback system then I completely (of course) respect his personal preference.
I wouldn’t recommend to let the bass towers of the IRSVs in music room one attack any delicate tonearm-cartridge combination with their heavy sound pressure waves – even if these are the best bass waves ever! 🙂
I thought about this a few times. I understand that one is bugged by all the hassle a vinyl setup and playback can mean and prefers the relative plug and play of digital and the lack of problems of handling it all.
I can also understand that one (even more if one‘s not an intensive music collector but rather a professsinal/voicing listener) sees a DAC as the DS as so lacking previous digital artifacts (and has many positive sides vinyl setups lack) that it’s more than good enough to not necessarily need certain still nice characteristics of vinyl.
And Paul sees and knows them (see his feedback when listening to Fremers setup buried in the Paul‘s posts years ago which was modified shortly after)
What I never understood is that someone with this listening experience prefers digital quite since shortly after it was invented, as at least to me regarding sound high end vinyl was so much superior up until just some years ago, that claiming anything else is weird in my perception. But afaik Paul also avoided tubes until some years ago and I think this also must have been more from a business/reliability/dogmatic point of view than from a sound point of view. At least I have no other explanation.
So I’d take such preference expressions as a mixture of various interests, considerations, priorities and readiness for compromises.
Just my own explanation.
And yes for sure Paul‘s vinyl setup we saw on some pictures was not comparable to his digital at all…but for sure he experienced more top vinyl setups than most of us.
It is absolutely my preference not because I prefer digital but because on even the best vinyl systems in the world, like Michael Fremer’s, I find it too colored and limited in what I consider the sound of live music.
It’s perhaps good to remember I grew up with vinyl and have heard the best systems in the world. When all there was was vinyl, listening to HP’s system was an absolute revelation to me – almost like going to Mecca. But after building a digital based system like I have now vinyl just simply cannot compare. It is different. Many find it better. I get that. Our engineer, Darren Myers likes his vinyl better than the IRS. I just find it too colored and lacking in frequency extremes and dynamics.
All that said, your comment about building a system around the medium is spot on. My system was tailored to the digital medium that drives it. Placing an excellent turntable and phono preamplifier in place of the digital system is bound to be disappointing. Just as throwing in a DS and DMP into your system would be equally disappointing. Which is why Fremer finds digital lacking when he plays it into his vinyl tweaked setup.
There are no systems I am aware of that can properly handle both. You set up for vinyl or digital. Everything is then based on the source: cables, speaker positioning, subwoofer settings, on and on. You can’t just plop a different source in and then say one is better than the other. Doesn’t work that way.
My judgment on vinyl is based on how it should be—evaluating a proper setup for the source medium. And on that basis, I hear the romance people like in vinyl systems but it isn’t real (to me) and it feels contrived—kind of like an over sugared food. Good on first bite but leaves me wanting to scrape off the sweet.
I know this won’t sit well with many but let’s agree there aren’t any absolutes and let’s further agree that evaluations of either source mediums can only be done through systems dedicated to that medium.
Thank you very much, Paul, for your very thoughtful, detailed and introspective reply.
I certainly agree with you that in audio there aren’t any absolutes.
I am having trouble agreeing intuitively that one tailors a system to the source medium. I am not understanding why one source medium rather than another would occasion the selection of certain speakers or a certain amplifier or a certain line stage or certain cables (unless one were attempting merely to alter tonal balance). I would think that a better system betters all sources.
Which is not to say that some systems are not optimized for vinyl or optimized for digital; many systems are optimized for one or the other. I am just not presently seeing that it has to be this way — that a system organized around one medium is necessarily detrimental to the sonic qualities of another medium.
What is more obvious to me is that not everyone is equally committed to optimizing both digital and vinyl. Most people focus on one medium. I think very few people are truly committed to both digital and vinyl in a truly equal and impartial way.
If you find even top-tier vinyl playback to sound colored and to be limited in its ability to reproduce the sound of live music then I understand your source preference for digital. Knowing that dynamics and extension at the frequency extremes are among the sonic attributes which are of great importance to you also helps me to understand better your source preference for digital. Digital, to my ears, excels at dynamics and at the frequency extremes.
I can only imagine how visiting Harry in Sea Cliff must’ve been like going to Mecca!
Thank you, again, for elaborating on your opening post!
I’m quite on the same track as you are.
Most are not willing to optimize a setup for both (even if this is not possible to the very point, there I’m with Paul) and just plugged in either a turntable or a digital source. But if one was willing, the differences are less than between DAC firmwares.
I fully understand if a preference for digital is based on todays gear (ignoring the way how masterings matter). Then the good characteristics of digtal are simply more important for one than the good of vinyl, same vice versa with the bad (which are not really essential anymore in digital). I think I couldn’t even decide myself.
What I don’t understand is how a preference with the named reasons can have been even in the HP and pre pre HP era, as by then, digital performance at least at the upper frequency extreme and other characteristics was more than slightly worse in terms of natural presentation etc. compared to vinyl of the time. Preferences for digital by then must have been very strong and compromising many aspects imo. To say digital was the benchmark in most aspects already by then would be a bold claim.
To say digital is more restricted than a top vinyl rig in reproducing the sound of live music imo is even a bold claim today, as there are many characteristics to consider that are weaker and stronger on either side. But sure…a preference is a preference…
RonRes – I find myself making an improvement to one that then makes me want to improve the other. I don’t like feeling that one or the other is lacking in some way – other than the ways the two methods intrinsically “lack” ; )
I just want to be able to spin whatever I want to spin (any type of disc, including HD and streaming) at the moment/today/this week and not feel that any of the options are “weaker” than another.
I suppose I could become morose and forlorn over having “only” digital files based music in my 4Tb of storage.
But, likewise, if I am already on my computer–I have no use for Roon or Qobuz–there is this wonderful tool called Google.
Not only will it find all the information that used to be printed on the album cover, but it also opens doors through Wikipedia, to a vast resource of information about the album, the context of its release, the top rankings it achieved, the names of every living soul recorded on it, the place and time frame in which it was recorded, et al.
When my CD collection was ripped and sold, and a well-meaning friend donated my box of albums to Goodwill while helping move, I realized that I had no interest in vinyl or new CDs, and limited Dynamic range of a phonograph.
At age 62, I remember scratches, pops, crackles, and getting up to flip the record every 20 minutes. My recall of those days past is certainly not euphoric.
The convenience of creating a playlist, popping it into a player and enjoying the music far outweighs any tactile pleasure of handling a fragile, scratchable, breakable, and drop-able record.
And although I appreciate the cover art and photography, those are available to look at, right in that computer.
For convenience there is no contest, and there never was: digital is far more convenient than analog.
I should have asked, Paul: What are the components of your vinyl replay set-up in your new listening room?
With Pauls propensity to all things digital I expect maybe a few vinyl cover art on the listening room walls 😉
A Clear Audio Master Solution table (still can’t believe a German company would call their product this) and arm with a Lyra cartridge. The phono preamp is Darren’s new Stellar which is amazing.
Again, it’s hard to imagine how specific systems are to their sources but in my experience they are all set up to optimize the source. Decisions as major as speaker and amplifier choices are made on the basis of the source medium. Think about it for a moment. If you’re into vinyl then you will judge everything based on how your vinyl sounds. If a new amp it’s put into that system and evaluated with that source. If it doesn’t suit then it goes bye, bye. That same amp or speaker might have sounded perfect with a different source.
Thank you very much, Paul, for answering the question about your current vinyl set-up. I am grateful to you for taking my questions seriously and for having the patience and the grace to reply thoughtfully.
Clearaudio makes wonderful turntables and tonearms, and Lyra makes great cartridges.
I share your amusement at the name of the your turntable! It’s name might have been formed by the combination of a prefix representing the number of rotating platters and a suffix representing the horsepower of the turntable’s motor!
I think that name came like trying to translate a german saying into English vice versa …which then makes absolutely no sense anymore 😉
But regarding your amp example…I really never would do that, especially not in case of a vinyl source which from cartridge over arm to phono amp is so easily tweakable with so many options towards an existing amp setup.
I’d really try to get the best pre or power amp and if it doesn’t fit exactly tonality wise, I’d tweak at another place…just as you so often recommend when the DAC firmware changes noticeably in tonality for many.
According to your argument, people would have had to switch amps so many times along the various firmware upgrades, which in my experience sounded partly even more different from each other than a matched vinyl setup would from a digital one.
Quite sure it’s possible to arrange a combination of solid state phono amp and vinyl rig that has a coloration perceived between a very anemic sounding DAC and the DS and not above…
In the modern form of “album art” in this digital age is the expression of artists who used to devote time to creation of a cover, to the modern realm of video. There is tons of new album art to admire, it’s just in a different format…
Paul,
Thank you for this post. Obviously you have struck a chord with a lot of people. Good job!
Take Care,
Bill
Thanks for reading!
Santana ABRAXAS
Santana
Columbia, 1970
Designer: Mati Klarwein
’nuff said.
If music is a way to relive the past, records offer a unique way to get there. Vinyl appeals to touch, sight, hearing, and SMELL (there’s probably even a group that tasted them thanks to Licorice Pizza). As anyone that has thumbed through the stacks at a used record shop knows, you’re about to ride an olfactory time machine. Some smells are good, some not so much, but that’s just part of it, isn’t it? If you grab an Allman Brothers record that reeks of cigarettes, you’re immediately transported to a time when bell bottoms, open shirts, and smoking were the norm before you’ve heard one note. Once you put the record on, grab the liner notes, pour over the cover art, and breath in the full experience, you’re back in ’76!
Absolutely! Could Bat Out of Hell or the first Boston album had the same impact on our imaginations without their outstanding cover art?
When I went full digital with PS Audio kit a few years ago, I passed along all my vinyl to a good friend and vinyl aficnadoio. I can visit whenever I want. I kept select albums; sentimental, first pressings, discontinued and recalled covers etc.
When were loading them up, I had to check something. Every double album had “crumbs” in the crease. Double albums were great for seed extraction and rolling platforms. Try that with a FLAC file! (Deep Purple – Made In Japan appears to have seen the most action.)
I do miss having the covers, but I don’t miss getting up every 18 minutes.
The only way you can record a piano is digitally. That’s because the piano is a digital instrument. Most instruments are. And sometimes those digits fly. Paul, can a PS Audio DAC make digits fly?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTueGo7bMu0
Some electric piano’s are digital, acoustic piano’s are stringed percussion instruments, also classified as chordophones.
It was a pun. Fingers = digits.
Funny you’d mention that, i worked in a record store during high school in 1973 and every copy of Sticky Fingers (working zipper edition) had torn plastic wrap from curious inquiring fingers.
Other classic album art that comes to mind along with Sgt. Peppers & Abraxas, Hendrix Axis Bold as Love, Janis Joplin’s Cheap Thrills, American Beauty and Aoxomoxoa, Yesterday and Today (banned butcher cover), Cream Disraeli Gears, Little Feat Waiting for Columbus & Time Loves a Hero, Eat a Peach, Harvey Mandel Shengrenade, Jerry Garcia Cats Down Under the Stars, Miles Davis Bitches Brew, Bob Dylan Self Portrait, Traffic Low Spark of High Heeled Boys & Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory, Time Out Dave Brubeck Quartet.
That pretty much covers it for now …
How could you possibly forget this one, a classic lenticular 3-D image …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Their_Satanic_Majesties_Request
I agree Paul. Not only is the art great you have a collectible in your hands kind of like baseball cards that are rising in price if you have the original pressings in excellent condition. You would not believe the price of some of those on the collectors market. Condition like card collecting is important. I love the nostalgia. Many people have their albums signed by group members which is impossible if your music is bought and stored online. There’s a connection to the band and their music that is missing in other formats. CD’s also share some of nostalgia and collectible benefits that LP’s do if you have the original CD pressings from the best analog sources. Sure digital does somethings analog cannot do but not by very much and analog captures the soul of the music in my opinion.
I mean what are we really doing with music that was originally recorded and forever stored on analog sources when we transfer it to a CD? We are not trying to get it to sound digital, what we are doing is trying to get the best possible analog sound that we can extract from the analog source onto a CD without the CD altering the original flavor and soul of the music originally captured on analog.
From the microphone to the record player cartridge or tape deck to the speakers there are magnets or mechanical movement involved in the recreation of the sound made from musical instruments that are also mechanical in nature. Only digital doesn’t use magnets or some form of physical movement creating the sound. I’m not sure what that means? Probably nothing at all, I’m just throwing that out there.
So maybe the next time you feel the need to upgrade your components because you feel something is missing from what you remember back in the day get a good analog copy of the music and play it on a good phonograph player with a quality cartridge, you might very well find what is missing.