100 Best Album Covers

A brillant "100 Best Album Covers." People complain about the selection, but you can't please everyone. I got into rock art posters and now album covers, and the selection of the album covers is fine. It even includes BRUNO WALTER, Mahler - Symphony No. 9, on page 98.Each entry is a potpourri of information, consisting of the album cover and various vignettes of the music artist and the art artists. Each entry has "Specification; Artiste (sic); Title; Design; Illustration; and Record Co.; along with a myriad of other information in various boxes, along with many photographs.E.g. "CAPTAIN BEEFHEART, Doc At The Radar Station," pp. 52-53, has five of Don Van Vliet's (Captain Beefhart) paintings included in the two page spread: "Boat And Blue Bodagress," 1984; "Ghost Red Wire," 1967; "Bezoo, Bezoo," 1985; "Middle Flower," 1991; "Dreams In The Daytime Colored With Sunshine," 1995. You can find more of his art at: Don Van Vliet art (on Goggle).Buy it and enjoy!

For the price I was very happy with this book. However it is mostly geared toward British albums so you don't see as many of the well known American covers that I grew up with. Seems a little biased toward the 80's New Wave. But it is a very nicely composed book with lots of info about the artists and nice looking photos and illustrations. Fun read.

This is a fantastic gift for an album nerd (that's who we got it for)... he loved it. FABULOUS visually and with just enough in-depth info to inform the casual/intense scrutineer of album artwork and performer history.

I am old, I remember when an album cover was a 12 by 12 piece of art ...

The book came wayyy more worn than I expected it to be. It wouldn't even lay flat, the corners were curled up. But it is readable.

Corners were bent due to packaging. Book looked old, not suitable for a gift.

Although the information about each album cover is intriguing, I'd be hard pressed to agree that these are the top 100 best (or creative) album covers of all time. As a graphic designer, I feel that some of covers are downright dull - definately not worthy of the title bestowed upon them.

Bought as a gift, the recepient was extremely happy to get this book and raves about all the great content. Very good buy.

This book was recommended by a friend, and having always had a love for striking album covers, I tracked it down. Although there are quite a few sellers offering it, some are asking rather high prices, and I do not think it is something you want to pay a lot for, so hold on if there are no reasonably priced examples because others will crop up.So the first thing to point out is that the selection is highly subjective. The authors worked under the name Hypnosis, and delivered many memorable album covers themselves. They have selected some of their own work, but not necessarily their best IMHO. It was certainly interesting reading what they had to say about each choice in terms of why they considered it to be a good example, and the way it is organised means you can just pick it up, read a chapter and then put it aside until you are bored again. Consequently it will be sitting on my coffee table for some time to come, and should we ever get any visitors again it will be interesting to see how many of them immediately pick it up and start flicking through.So if you see it going cheap, grab it.

This book is very much in the Dorling Kindersley mould, if you are familiar with their books. They have a slightly cold and mechanical way of taking a subject and exploring it without passion. This book is no exception to this trend. Loads of detail, very clearly illustrated and a bit like a scientific dissertation.100 of the "best", as chosen by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, are nicely illustrated and are surrounded with small boxes containing information about key aspects of the design. Therein lies the problem. None of the boxes allow either of the authors to really get going as to what they feel about the design. There are no emotive rants, just cold facts. The facts are interesting and help to inform an appreciation of the designers choice of actions/processes undertaken.The introduction to the main body of the book is thoroughly enjoyable and is enlightening, because the two authors have space to rant. There is a great story about Rod Stewart, riots, machetes, scheming managers and fishing which only serves to make the lack of these storys elsewhere more obvious. More stories like this one would have made the book a much more all round enjoyable read.Plus points - good large images, key facts stated, genuinely talented and knowledgeable authors, wide range of sleeves chosen(50's right up to the 90's, Zappa to Prince), not too many sleeves printed across the spine, physically well put together book(even the paperback version I have), nice bits of anorak detail - font selection, methods of painting/printing, construction of props etc.....Bad points - some images printed across the spine, not enough emotive input or human aspect to the process, clinical in toneI have been spoiled by having read For The Love of Vinyl by the same authors before I read this book, so if you have not read the other book bear in mind that I have seen what these two can do when let loose on their own work.Not the best book on album design, that is For The Love Of Vinyl, but an informative, great value for money and straightforward read.

Some of Storms best work.It brought back so many happy memories flicking through the sleeves. I wish my copy was a hardback.a smashing Coffee table book.If you like this and all things Sixties why not pop across and join us at "Swinging Sixties+ beyond" on Facebook ?

Present for my husband

You might not agree that these are the 100 'best', but it's still a great book for record collectors and designers alike.