in light of the new no age album (amazon put it through ym door today, finallllly), which has AWESOME box art, such a cool package, I invite you to discuss albums that you think are made better for the fact that they have AWESOME cover art. You know how it is, you get hold of an album, and the whole package just makes you feel like it was so worth actually owning the record rather than pilfering it off the net, as I'm sure many do (including me, I must say, though I always like to own an album if i happen to like it to any extent.
SO DISCUSS YEAH???
My other nomination at present, off the top of my head, would have to be pretty much anything off constellation records, most notably DO Make Say Think's stuff - all hand-made cardboardfoldy things, with absolutely awesome cover art and inserts/photos etc. Lovely!!!
The Glow Pt. 2
by The Microphones
No Age
is the best at work I have come across in a while I'm strugeling to think of more at the moment for some reason.
Spank Rock - Put That Pussy On Me 12"
has wicked artwork of a booty so you can shake it to the base.
Most things on Warp have ace artwork.
I was thinking No Age when i sa the title
but what about Menomena Friend And Foe? (its also a treat of an lp thats didn't get much credit last year) Also their first album could be folded into a monster
cool
I might get those I like Manomena but haven't got round to buying the albums yet.
Also I have a GBV album
hand painted by Robert Pollard (he is a crap painter but its a bit of a treasured album)
mount eerie pts 6 & 7 by mount eerie
but for $90 so it should be
The reissue of the Glow Pt. 2
I love the pictures on the inside so much. I also love the reissues for Pavement's stuff.
So, in summary, I'm a sucker for reissues.
Pavement
top stuff, my fave is the wowee zowee one, love it
this is slightly unrelated
but whats different about the reissue? I find the microphones back catalogue rather confusing
bonus disc
of unreleased tracks / alternative versions.
TGUK - Something to write home about
Boris / Sunn O))) Altar
cost me £30 on vinyl, but it reminded me why I still buy really good stuff on vinyl. Three very heavyweight deep red coloured LPs in a beautiful gatefold box thing.
It weighs more than the hard-drive with all 80gigs of my electronic music on and I love it for that.
Lemon Jelly's 3 albums.
/thread
In all seriousness, I've never felt packaging and music connected so perfectly in all my life as their audio and visual output.
Efterklang's latest came awfully close, mind.
Also: Sigur Rós can usually be counted on, at least for initial prints.
i have lost it
but the medicine box version of ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space by spiritualized was pretty amazing. i didn't get the 12 CD giant box set though - that's just plain impractical.
agreed about sigur ros, especially ()
Ladies and Gentleman
is indeed superb packaging but it loses points for me due to the sheer fragility of it. I've had it since it came out and the box is somewhat 'foxed' now and I'm meticulous about caring for my CDs.
Ladies and Gentleman
was so brilliant in so many ways, and the packaging was jsut one of them. My mate bought the giant 12-mini-CDs-Pill-Packet one, and never opened it. Now it's worth, like, £100's more.
But I would have opened it if it was me, just for the nihilistic pleasure of popping each of those tiny CDs out! Weeee!
Joe - www.anewbandaday.com
not an album
but the three EPs released by The Sleeping Years last year had quite beautiful packaging. Seriously, they need to be seen to be believed - hand made and embossed with text burned into the paper and individually introduced and signed by the lead singer. I think two of them are still available and they're well worth buying.
What about
Beck.
I'm not a fan of his music, but the sticker thing was a pretty good idea.
oh yeaaaaah
wasn't there some thing about it not being allowed to chart because of that? Or did I make that up?
Cool cover though.... I can never bring my self to use the stickers.
nope
totally didn't make it up.... top ten usa, forbidden over here
how
bizzarre.
yeah
apparently the stickers were seen as a gimmick to get people to buy the album. Why would anyone just buy the album for the stickers?!
Casket Lottery
Choose Bronze.
Amazingly presented. From the artwork, to the kind of paper they've used.
The inlay of the new Torche album
is this huge amazing, fold-out cardboard monstrosity illustrated by Aaron Turner. It really is a thing of beauty.
Abattoir Blues / Lyre of Orpheus
in the cloth lined box
i proper doubt
that anything on Constellation is "hand made" these days!
the new reissue of The Glow Pt. 2 by The Microphones is the most aesthetically-pleasing record I've come across in a while.
Jacob's Stories - Undisciplined Art
one of 500 handmade copies.
Handmade, individual art piece. Lovely as well.
Lyrics on a single sheet of tracing paper, beautifully written.
And a breathtaking album.
the F#a# infinity..
vinyl has a penny pressed by a train inside the inlay. i liked that.
that little explorer 7" a while back had gorgeous packing too..
and mum always put some effort in
i like No Age's artwork
like the photo album style of Nouns - that's really cool.
my friend bought the album of a band called Everybody Else who are kinda forgettable and a bit Rooney-ish, but they had really great packaging. the cover is all folds and stuff and the paper is cut so that the folds weave into each other to hold the cd in. it's quite cool.
I quite like the packaging and sleeve for Ys
also as mentioned, Lost Horizons by Lemon Jelly.
Made In Mexico - Zodiac Zoo
From the band formerly known as Arab On Radar, the vinyl version of this album is a pop-up book style affair, so it looks pretty fly when you upen it up.
Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer
has great artwork, I think it said in the ATP booklet that it won an award..."its unique, die-cut packaging turned some serious heads-landing acclaim twice in PRINT magazine." There we go.
mr Beast by mogwai
the version I have is like a hardcover book and iv always liked the cover art
The Iliketrains album has nice cover art
Menomena ! awesome art!
I got No Age on vinyl today!
SO great, huh? Looks lovely. Vinyl FEELS lovely too.
Not a fan of vinyl
but yeah i can imagine..... the CD is lovely enough, Vinyl must be exquisite.
The Ocean - Precambrian
has most impressed me recently. Really nice black and grey digipac with circular cut outs on the front and back to reveal pieces of a fiery red image beneath. Inside when you open is a lovely print job with some nice spot varnishing. It's a double cd album and the cd's sit on top each other - the one on top (cd 1) is mostly clear apart from the actual cd bit which is small as this cd is only 22mins. The design on the clear bit matches what is on cd 2 which sits beneath it which is a black cd, but the design is in a different colour, so when sitting on top of each other it all aligns with 2 different colours. Plus cd2 is one of those cool all black cd's rather than reflective (this is an hour long). And to top it off there are 2 separate booklets, one for each of the cd's, both all in black and grey, and loads of spot varnishing and interesting artwork.
I really geeked out when I got this and was so impressed by the effort the band put into this - one of the nicest cd packages I have come across. Plus this all fits with the weighty concept of the album. Although this was only done for the European release - apparently Americans only get a jewelcase version because they don't care about things like this.
Oh and I also bought the Japanese version of Boris' Smile solely because the packaging was much cooler looking than the Southern Lord version. To me this was worth the extra money - put simply decent packaging makes a massive massive difference and I will spend more for it.