The Album Cover Art of Soundtracks [Paperback]

Frank Jastfelder (Editor), Stefan Kassel (Editor), Saul Bass (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1997

Thunderball. Breakfast at Tiffany's. Barbarella. The soundtrack albums of these and other classic movies are among the most prized LP collectibles today -- recordings that summon up the secret agents, starlets, glamour, and exotica of the past and set the mood for the "cool modern" lounge scene of today.

This unique book pictures nearly 300 of the greatest soundtrack album covers of all time, including hits by Henry Mancini, John Barry, and other retrocool composers. For record collectors, graphic designers, and anyone into the new easy-listening scene, The Album Cover Art of Soundtracks captures the essence of a style that has excited people for forty years.

Editorial Reviews

Review

It was such a grand way to take home the "look" and "feel" of a movie. Not only were soundtrack composers like Henry Mancini much better than today's saccharine John Williamses, but the disc jacket provided a superior canvas for poster art--often, with its Pucci colors and cut-n-paste shapes, more creative than the flicks it advertised. Check out Saul Bass's herky-jerky designs for Hitchcock and Preminger; marvel at how an entire era can be so readily conjured up by a single typeface. -- Entertainment Weekly

Product Details

• Paperback: 126 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co (P); 1st edition (August 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316482404
• ISBN-13: 978-0316482400
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 11.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,053,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sound art., October 28, 2003

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Album Cover Art of Soundtracks (Paperback)

You can see three hundred LP covers in this fascinating survey of sound track albums. The large size format (almost twelve inches square) means that the many whole page covers are just a bit shorter than life size, others are four to a page. The reproduction is excellent.

Plenty of these covers use the original movie poster illustrations, done by such greats as illustrator Bob Peak or designer Saul Bass. Ace cartoonist Jack Davis has seven covers including his most famous, for the 1963 movie "It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world". Strangely many great illustrations used on the poster or LP cover have no artist credits. Perhaps more than any other type of record cover sound tracks used a wider range of graphics and design and this certainly comes across looking through these colorful pages.

There are probably more than twenty of these large size paperbacks devoted to LP cover art published over the last few years and this sound track edition is worth adding to your collection.

+++LOOK INSIDE THE BOOK by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT!, February 5, 2003

By 

j.mart (Hampton, VA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Album Cover Art of Soundtracks (Paperback)

Great book, with large 11 x 11 cover reproductions. Too bad they aren't actual 12 x 12 size, but other than that, this one's a perfect 10. The best album art collection I've seen, without a doubt.