1000 Record Covers (Klotz $$$) (Hardcover)

~ Michael Ochs (Author) "When rock and roll and I were both very young, we started a friendship that has had its ups and downs, but has lasted many..." (more)
Key Phrases: les rangs, Art Direction, Warner Bros, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Not just a look at the art of record cover design

Record covers are a sign of our life and times. Like the music on the discs, they address such issues as love, life, death, fashion, and rebellion. For music fans the covers are the expression of a period, of a particular time in their lives. Many are works of art and have become as famous as the music they stand for - Andy Warhol's covers, for example, including the banana he designed for The Velvet Underground.

In this book, Michael Ochs, owner of one of the largest private collections of record covers in the world, presents a personal selection of the thousand items that mean most to him. This is not just a look at the art of record cover design - the book also offers a fascinating survey of rock music genres and styles from their beginnings to the present day.

About the Author

Michael Ochs developed an addiction to rock and roll in the early fifties. To feed his habit, Ochs headed the puplicity departments of Columbia, Shelter, and ABC Records in the 60s and 70s. He has also been a disc Jockey, taught a rock-history course for UCLA and written for such magazines as Rock, Melody Maker, Cashbox, and Crawdaddy. Michael Ochs established the Michael Ochs Archives in the mid-70s. The archives currently house millions of photographs and over 100,000 albums and singles. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 767 pages
• Publisher: Taschen (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3822819786
• ISBN-13: 978-3822819784
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #490,991 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for remembering!, September 22, 2003

By	H. Row "in1ear" (Arvada, CO United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I don't know if there was a full size "coffee table edition of 1000 Record Covers produced. This is an undersized book but the reproduction of the album covers will bring back the excitement and creativity of each of the eras - 1950's, 60's,70's, 80's and 1990's.
The commentary is left to a minimum, without more than a few words of interest just every so often.
I guess I want my cake and to eat it too. The small size is easy to read in bed or while relaxing. But a full size (12" X 12") edition would be marvelous.
I spend a lot of hours looking through this intriqueing book.
John row

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cover Me, February 2, 2002

By	M. Elias (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: 1000 Record Covers (Hardcover)

This book of "just" album covers is put together so brilliantly, it seems to actually have a plot. As Ochs goes through his collection of covers, (some obscure, some not) they tell the story of Rock and Roll from the 50's, forward. His groupings of related covers accurately describe the many stages, styles, and trends that Rock music has gone through. You can pick it up and browse through it, but it really is better to go page by page. This is a work of love. Ochs (for all his success with his Archives) really gets it.

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars But...but...but...Vaughan Oliver?, July 25, 2004

By	M. Lepera (Boston USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As soon as I saw this title, I plonked it onto my amazon wish list, as it combines two of my main passions (music and design). But after flipping through a copy, I had to remove it from my list - maybe if rents plummet and I can afford more space for bookshelves it'll make a reappearance, but until then I'll do without it.

The title - "1000 Record Covers" - at least makes no false claims, e.g. "1000 Great Record Covers", or "1000 Essential Record Covers". However, such a claim is made on the back cover, and I must refute it. Too many of the entries are mediocre, and there are too many masterpieces that are ignored. I would blame this less on the author - all the choices come from his collection, which is by its nature limited - and more on the editors, who should have realized the shortcomings of such a scheme. My personal interest would be in covers from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and I can't forgive the absence of (for starters) Joy Division, Cocteau Twins, Gang of Four, the Slits, Buzzcocks, the Fall, Wire, the Pixies, Eno, Magazine, the Cramps, the Residents, the Pop Group, Pere Ubu, Avengers, Angry Samoans, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Romeo Void, Monochrome Set, Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, X-Mal Deutschland, Coil, Chrome, Crass, Delta 5 - all of whom released LPs with compelling cover designs.

Labels such as Z, Dischord, les Disques du Crepescule, Two Tone, Rough Trade, Factory, Postcard, TVT, are virtually or completely ignored, and designers such as Malcolm Garrett (his Duran Duran work doesn't count - not at the expense of "A Different Kind of Tension"), Vaughan Oliver, tomato, Peter Saville (Roxy Music's "Flesh + Blood" gets in, but it's one of Saville's weaker efforts and his name is misspelled!), Barney Bubbles, Neville Brody are similarly slighted.

The book could also use an index of designers.

It may seem like I'm harping on about bands from mainly one genre (punk/new wave/whatever), but the truth of the matter is that much of the really innovative cover design in the last 30 years has come from that area.

To be fair, the book does include covers of LPs by the Dead Kennedys, Clash, XTC, Ramones, Echo & the Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes, Public Image, Patti Smith, Altered Images (yay!), so some credit is certainly due.

Also happy to see the a Soft Machine record in there.

And this book did make me recognize what a subtle piece of work TheCure's "...happily ever after" is.

I'm writing this review not to slag the book off, but to inform people with similar expectations to what I had that while there is a lot of good material in here, there are gaping holes as well. Again, I think the weakness lies in limiting the choices to one person's record collection instead of directing the author to choose from the entire gamut of record covers available to him.