The Beatles made career decisions that came from being working-class kids. They hated the idea of teenagers with little pocket money buying albums with a couple of singles, the rest filler. So they were insistent on putting a quality album out that was worth the purchase.
This attitude was also reflected in their cover art. They were always looking for something more. And as I was indulging in the rereleased deluxe boxed sets for Abbey Road, the White Album, and Revolver, I asked myself: what were my favorite album covers?
Since I'm some sort of Parlophone/EMI purist snob, I'm not going to include the U.S. releases (Beatles made their thoughts known with the butcher cover) nor the anthologies, although I think it was crappy to cut Pete off the cover of volume one, Klaus.
With the Beatles gets my top spot. It was inspired by Astrid Kircherr's half-lit photo experiments from their days in Germany, the image taken by Robert Freeman. It captures their youth, the playfulness of wearing beatnik turtlenecks, their handsomeness, and a bit of aloof coolness. Iconic. I had the t-shirt and a mousepad I used at one job after another until I wore Ringo’s face off.
I've always loved the Abbey Road album cover, as it appeared that the band, in lock-step, was heading into the studio. Dressed differently from one another, they represented each one bringing something new and individualistic with them. Then someone pointed out to me that they were walking AWAY from the studio, and the image became even more poignant. What an ending.
The
White Album has sold 24 million copies, and the serial number was a joke, a limited edition in the millions. This is the point where they were really getting tired of being Beatles, and the look, or lack thereof, inspired people to listen closer.
Recently, the album was part of an
art installation that looks like a small record shop featuring nothing but White Albums recovered from thrift stores and garage sales, the wear and tear of each telling its own story. When the remastered box set was released, I got number 0020828 and
made my own t-shirt.
Rubber Soul's cool factor, as told by McCartney, is a happy accident. The photographer was showing the band images from this photo shoot, and the cardboard he was projecting on slipped and tilted, resulting in an elongated image. They loved it.
How does my favorite album slip to number 5? I don't know Revolver, I'm sorry. Klaus Voorman's pen and ink art is wonderful, the collage is clever, and even the name is a play on what a record does on a turntable. I love this but this is where you are. It's like judging a competitive group of Senior Ladies, no matter how many clean triple/triples, sometimes even the best finish off the podium.
Stills from a photo shoot that was used over the end credits to A Hard Days Night. Another look that has been imitated and duplicated, which may lead to why it's a little lower in my rankings. Still love it, but it’s been done.
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is so familiar, that I think it suffers in my ranking as a result. It's been parodied time and again. It has been featured I don't know how many times on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, including a version that moves, I still have it. I'm glad Stu is there.
George Harrison hated it, but Please Please Me still managed to squeak into iconic status for various reasons. This was reused for the Greatest Hits 62-66, known among fans as the Red Album. There's more to this in reference to Let it Be, below. Plus, any garage band with access to a stairwell has replicated this.
Beatles for Sale tells the tale in their weary, cautious faces of the price they paid early on for being Beatles. It's the last original studio album to feature them performing covers of other artists' work, showing they didn't have the time to create. Even the ones that aren't so great are intriguing.
You think HELP! is clever until you realize that they are actually spelling NUJV. C'mon lads, flag semaphore aficionados needed accuracy with this one.
They dialed it in for the Yellow Submarine cartoon, and thus the album cover was too. Still, this was a cool piece of avant-garde animation for the late 60s. I told Dave we could get a Blu-Ray player as soon as they cleaned this up and released it. Promises kept. I did get a limited-edition poster with it too.
Oy, this cover is lazy. Let it Be as a title works better than the original Get Back; one signifies an end while the other is a return to the beginning, which we know was not the case with this album. Still, George looks hot. How well it would have bookended their career had they used the hippie stairwell photo as intended.
Instead, it was used for Greatest Hits 66-70 or The Blue Album. The two photos superimposed over each other were used for the eventual release of last year's documentary and looking back 50 years ago, Get Back works as a title. Whew.
And finally...
Magical Mystery Tour is a dog to me in more ways than one.
