If you were a teenage boy in the 1970s, and Led Zeppelin wasn’t your favorite band, there was definitely something wrong with you. Incredible stuff. And pretty great covers too. We’ll definitely be seeing more of them here in this blog, but I thought I’d actually start us out with something a little less obvious.
John
Paul Jones, John Bonham, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant
The group wasn’t really too creative with their first few albums titles – Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III … The first two album covers also weren’t all that interesting either – just plays on the zeppelin theme (though I might be revisiting one of those).
The third album, though, was definitely different. It was designed by a graphic artist named Zacron (real name Richard Drew).
Interestingly, he went to art school with Jimmy Page at one school and Eric Clapton at another.
The original for this cover is at MoMA, and was actually something called a volvelle.
When the disc was rotated, different pictures would appear in the little circles, typically expressing some kind of theme (e.g., pix of the band members). Needless to say, this die-cut design was rather expensive to produce, and was eventually ditched.
This was the artist’s only album credit. Indeed, except for this album, he really didn’t leave much of a footprint. Here’s the only other decent piece of his I could find out there on the Interwebs:
The album itself was something of a departure for the group, emphasizing a lot more folk and acoustic than classic rock. It’s generally considered one of their less successful efforts.
Great, iconic album covers invariably invite parodies. Here’s three:
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