#54 - Live Through This: Hole (1994)

Hole was Courtney Love’s band, and also probably the most popular and influential female-fronted group of all time (sorry Go-Gos; hate to break it to you, Bangles). Needless to say, gender issues were a main theme.

Interestingly, though, the band was originally mostly Courtney and some guy, one Eric Erlandson. Over the years, though, the rest of the band really was pretty much all girl power. 

Melissa Auf Der Mar, Courtney, Patty Schemel, Eric

The band name is interesting, isn’t it? Courtney claimed it was from Euripides. Yeah, and all those Georgia O’Keefe flowers are strictly botanical in nature too, right?

Live Through This was the band’s second album. It was something of a departure from the punk noise of their first, Pretty on the Inside. LTT was released just weeks after Kurt Cobain’s suicide (which may, ironically, have helped sales).

The cover photographer was Ellen von Unwerth, with the model being Leilani Bishop. Love explains it as “the look on a woman's face as she's being crowned... this sort of ecstatic, blue eyeliner running, kind of 'I am, I am—I won! I have hemorrhoid cream under my eyes and adhesive tape on my ass, and I had to scratch and claw and fuck my way up, but I won Miss Congeniality!”

Leilani on a slightly different gig

Von Unwerth is actually a rather interesting photographer, with most of her stuff being rather erotically charged (and probably NSFW).

On the other hand, the back cover of the album is probably by Courtney’s mom, and is pretty darn cute:

This parody’s pretty darn cute too:

Von Unwerth had a couple of other good covers (and 145 credits in total):

As did Hole:

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#55: Axis: Bold as Love - Jimi Hendrix Experience (1967)

And now it’s back to Jimi Hendrix and Karl Ferris. Painter Roger Law used this photo by Ferris to come up with the final artwork: 

Roger Law only has 5 covers to his credit, but this one by The Who has always been one of my favorites. 

Law later went on to do the TV puppet show Spitting Image:

Interestingly, there was some controversy about this one. Not too surprisingly, Hindus protested. At the same time, it was also not very popular with the band. Hendrix himself had wanted something that would have expressed his own Indian (i.e., Native American) heritage. A poster by the Hapsash graphic design firm would actually honor that request.

Personally, I think there is nothing cooler than Hindu devotional art, and actually started collecting it while I was still in my teens.

A:BAL was a bit of a comedown from the band’s debut (but, heck, so would any band’s effort). Indeed, the album was one of those contractual deals – the band was supposed to do two albums in 1967, and this is that second one. That said, it did make Rolling Stone’s Top 100. I’m afraid there really aren’t any big hits on it.

Couple of other decent Hendrix covers

Always liked this pic of the group:

God, Jim Henson was a genius:

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#56 - Rubber Soul: The Beatles (1965)

I am a true Beatlemaniac, so do bear with me – you’ll be seeing a lot more of them in this blog. Now, that’s not really the only reason why, of course. They were indeed groundbreakers, with their music, their attitudes, and their album covers.

Take this one, for example. By today’s standard, it’s nothing super special. Back in 1965, though, this was really out there.

First, you’ve got the tilted and elongated photo, plus all those dark, broody colors. Then, there’s the psychedelic title, the first I’m really familiar with. Finally, there’s no band name (pretty much unheard of at the time).

Just to give you some idea of what the standard fare was back then, here are some pretty lame offerings from some actually pretty cool groups:

Though Bob Freeman (photography) and Charles Front (typography) are credited with the art on this one, it’s really the first cover where the boys took over, directing the whole effort. Freeman did some other work for group. You may be seeing some more of him here.

The album itself was also the band’s first venture into being something more than just the lads from Liverpool. In it, they introduced a more folk feel, with a real emphasis on more meaningful lyrics. It’s also a wonderful example of the things that can be accomplished in the studio, as well as one of the first albums that wasn’t just a string of singles, but had a real feel and theme of its own.

It was actually pretty transitional, not only for the Beatles, but for rock and pop music in general. It is invariably ranked between 5 and 10 on numerous greatest album lists. / The hits of course were many – “Nowhere Man,” “Norwegian Wood,” “Michelle” ... On a personal note, my first record ever was a 45 of that last one.

A couple more nice covers from that era (and both Freemans as well):

Yes, he did so some stuff for people other than the Beatles:

All great covers invariably generate parodies:

This one, though, is real (and is a ukulele version of the album to boot):

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#57 - The Best of the Doors: The Doors (1985)

Let’s face it. The Doors were basically Jim Morrison. 

Yeah, they had some great songs (mostly written by Robby Krieger, by the way), but it was really all about this guy. He was handsome, charismatic, a decent poet, and something of a modern day Rimbaud. 

Hence, any Doors album cover worth its salt is going to feature The Lizard King front and center. This one was the most effective, by far. In fact, this one is actually pretty terrible.

Interestingly, both were done by Joel Brodsky. 

Overall, Brodsky did an incredible 450-some album covers. With numbers like that, it’s not surprising that he did work for acts as diverse as Isaac Hayes, KISS, The Ohio Players, Country Joe & the Fish, Percy Sledge, and The Stooges.

And then there's this:

The Doors were extremely popular, selling over 100 million albums. They were quite creative, and covered a lot of ground – art-rock, jazz-influenced pop, blues …

It really was all about Jim though. I highly recommend the bio No One Here Gets Out Alive (hmm, does that pic look familiar?).

Here's the whole band - John Densmore, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, and that other guy:

And here’s a nice parody by John C. Reilly (AKA Dewey Cox)

And some more, from this pretty funny Muppets site:

And this pretty silly Bored Panda post:

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#58 - Horses: Patti Smith (1975)

It’s super simple, but super effective. And that’s probably because the photographer was no less than Robert Mapplethorpe. He and Patti just so happened to be roommates, meeting for the first time on Patti’s first day in NYC.

Another thing I like about this cover is the punk theme – the black & white, the minimal titles, the skinny tie … There are interesting – and pretty sophisticated – themes of androgyny and confidence/reticence going on too. It was actually done on a Polaroid, in natural light, at a friend’s apartment.

Surprisingly, Mapplethorpe actually did no less than 43 covers, with several more of Patti’s, as well as ones for Joan Armatrading, Phillip Glass, and Peter Gabriel. 

He is, of course, mostly known for his very transgressive and controversial homosexual – well, let’s call it what it is – pornography (I won’t be showing any of that here).

How to describe Patti Smith? She’s kind of one of those artists who no one listens to, but everyone acknowledges their importance. Indeed, she was more of a poet than a musician (and a little famous for being famous to boot). All that said, she is in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame and made it onto Rolling Stone’s Top 100 … but also won a National Book Award and received a medal from the French.

Horses was Patti’s first album, and probably her best. Critics loved it, and it has been cited by acts such as The Smiths, REM, Courtney Love, and PJ Harvey.

Patti doesn’t really have any other great covers - most were just other portraits:

Here, though, are those that are not. I rather like the first one, and have always been fascinated the second:

That’s her dad, by the way.

Hard to believe, but even Patti gets a send up:

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