Customer Reviews

Classic Album Covers of the 60s

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I came across this book as a remnant item at my local Borders book store and for ten bucks it was a bit of a steal. One of the worset things about the CD format is the diabolical way the artwork is shrunk down so you miss a lot of the details. i mean how can you explain to your kids about the cover art for UmmaGumma when you look at the CD inlay. You must be joking.

I really want a big coffe table sized book of all of the posters that graced the Filmore but that is another story.

So getting back to this, i am a glutton for this type of book about the times when i was growing up. I did not realise until reading this book that the author was once a partner in the company of Hipgnosis who produced some marvellous album covers in the sixties and seventies.

The author looks at the album covers of the period as a development of the commercial aspects of the pop culture and as, always in a book of this nature, the selections reflect the standpoint and the predilictions of the author with whom most, if not all of us will disagree to some extent. As my own bias lies with the Grateful dead and all things bay area I applauded the inclusion of so many of the Dead covers but that notwithstanding, I was suprised that there was only one cover by the Jefferson Airplane. The orientation is primarily American although there is a balancing acknowledgement of the British scene very reminiscent of the later book, Hippie. I was particularly appreciative of the picture of the lost artwork of the Harvey Mandel album, Christo Rendentor, included in this package. The book concludes, as did the sixties with the introversion, as it were, to the more roots based material of the space cowboys which originated in Dylan, through the Byrds into CSN and beyond but disappointed with the non-inclusion of American Beauty. Shame on you.

We can all find good and bad with such a book but I think it is a wonderful diary of the time and will be a fascinating memento for many of us to show our grandchildren in future years if indeed albums as we currently know them are still around.

I gave the book four stars because it does not include some of my personal favourite covers but would heartily recommend this to baby boomers and those who continue to hold the sixties in high regard. It was in hindsight, a remarkable decade, regardless of the nature of some of the events of the time and this is a compelling record of some of the popular culture of the period as epitomised by the music and it's pictorial representation.