Every few years or so I rearrange, update and sort through the music collection. It inspired this blog to be dedicated to the greatest invention known to every creature, beast and alien who walks this earth... the Record. Aside from the record player, What is better than a record? The answer is more records. So whats better than more records? even more records of course! Sometimes the cover art has mesmerized me just as much as the sound that is trapped in the grooves.
To make this easier and more informative to any readers who want to research or track down these records more I have included a link to each album via the Discogs website at the end of the blog.
Here's 32 gate fold out record covers from my vinyl vault in celebration of the the sleeve graphics, art and photography. Black Sabbath seem to get a big mention here, but In no particular order or favorite lets take a look from front to back at some gate fold sleeves where the art that made me and maybe you go 'OH YEAH...TURN IT UP!'
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1 - THE ROLLING STONES - THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES REQUEST - The lenticular cover and psychedelic art opens up a world of occult madness and over the top insane trip out graphics via a intense collage with a maze to 'ITS HERE'. Can you imagine how many acid heads this cover fried in 1967?
2 - THE STOOGES - FUN HOUSE - Double exposure image in orange, yellow and red filter makes this cover light up like fire. Inside, the band lay around on a rug looking like they are waiting to score as soon as the photo gets taken.
3 - THE DOORS - MORRISON HOTEL - Iconic shot taken of the band in the window of the Morrison Hotel. Great cover and amazing inner bar shot that takes you back in time. Apparently the owners of the hotel did not grant permission to any photographs being taken. These photos were the result of not listening to the last sentence which makes this cover even better.
4 - THE DOORS - THE SOFT PARADE - Stark cover landscape of black and blue fade with the Doors looking at you with a camera and mirror reflection lettering. It gives me a strange feeling I cant describe, it's like the cover wants you to listen to it's contents. Surreal, almost odd, dream like in a way. The pale muted 60's inner cover art sums up that bizarre feeling.
5 - ALICE COOPER - BILLION DOLLAR BABIES - The cover replicates a snake skin wallet with fold out billion dollar bill. Great concept art for those with big jeans, then on the inner sleeve that's not pictured here there's the even more bizarre image of a terrified screaming baby, white rabbits and the band looking blasted with tons of cash. What the hell is going on in this picture is beyond the viewer. Summing up the excess of the 70's, this has a lot of weirdness going on. You can probably thank the alcohol and cocaine.
6 - BLACK SABBATH - BLACK SABBATH - Like an evil landscape straight out of a Hammer horror movie this cover represents foreboding heavy doom. Imagine walking through a forest, the raven in the trees, then the off green tinted witch type woman, look close enough you can see shes holding a cat. Even though they were warning the listeners about evil, many still cried 'What kind of satanic madness is this?'. Maybe due to the simple use of an upside down cross inside, a defining image placed there by the record company. Created without the bands knowledge, it was a surprise to them at the time. This record changed the course of standard rock music and invented many genres in its wake. The Vertigo press is black and silver and the Nems pressing is Black and white. Buy this record and change your life.
7 -BLACK SABBATH - PARANOID - Looks like one of Sabbaths Roadies in neon samurai fancy dress jumping out from a tree off his face, I always liked the vibe of this cover. I never knew what to make of the sleeve when I was a kid but I always liked the way it looked. Features great inner shot of the band stoned on a mountain somewhere.
8 - BLACK SABBATH - VOL 4 - Stylish font with print of Ozzy in classic stage pose, this cover has been replicated by many in homage to the legends, you gotta keep the sabbath dream alive! Full on stage shots of the band, having a blast going wild on the great COKE a cola. Classic!
9 - BLACK SABBATH - SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH - The most mystifying of all covers, the front a depiction of the dying on entrance to afterlife in Hell and the back cover the leaving on earth. Inside the most sinister of Black Sabbath photos, like your on bad medicine staring at ghosts. This is something from the world beyond... although there is nice furniture.
10 - HAWKWIND - X IN SEARCH OF SPACE - A wild fold out design taking you to the next level of your brain and beyond. The back cover is as real as it gets to how everything probably looked like if you were there. Inside it could be mistaken for Hawkwind playing at Rev Jim Jones's Jones town. Tripped out vibes to a time that will never exist ever again, It's all in this record, get dosed, just don't lick the cover.
11 - THE WHO - QUADROPHENIA SOUNDTRACK - Jimmy the mod stands in the alley reminiscing, glazed and bombed out. You all been there after days awake... paranoid feeling weird, this feeling is also captured on the back cover as He stares out to sea. Inside the four sides of Jimmy stares out from the cast of characters around him. Those familiar with the film will understand the concept of how great this is. This cover strangely resonates unease and mental health, the generally strange isolated feeling of being all or nothing and for what is right here.
12 - METALLICA - KILL EM ALL - The simplicity of this cover is what makes it one of the best Metallica covers. It stands out to me because it's like a video sleeve from the horror nasty era. Awesome live shots inside with red on black with lyrics. Also pictured is Merchandise leaflet for T-shirts that was pinned to my wall for years. Thrash brutality served on record, I got this double disc special edition when I was 9 years old and it tore my melon off, it still does every time I play it.
13 - SLAYER - HELL AWAITS - Another early record for me from my childhood, back then there was nothing like Slayer. This cover shows the descent into hell as bodies are being torn apart by demons what more did you need in the Satanic panic era? the lyrics inside that's what! See 'Kill again' and 'Necrophiliac' and you will understand why people lost it. Backed up with loads of on the road photos it made you want to be in a band because it looked like they had such a good time. Even better you could actually pretend to communicate with the devil and freak your friends out by playing the intro backwards which I did loads of times. It says 'Sign your heart' one way play in reverse to say 'Join us'. A gimmick that was sacred to Slayer fans once discovered at the time. This edition came with a poster also pictured.
14 - OZZY OSBOURNE - TALK OF THE DEVIL - Oh yeah this is it, whats better than Ozzy smashed, dripping gore jelly from his mouth with fangs, the ultimate evil front man. A great horror cover! The inside is straight up classic rock madness as the image of Ozzy behind the small corpse person who would get hung during the live shows is again probably an idea you can thank Cocaine and alcohol for.
15 - IRON MAIDEN - PIECE OF MIND - The artwork is outstanding, The crazed beast known as Eddie is here in a padded room that mysteriously opens the door to a dark night with the floating hand holding the band logo. The photo of the band waiting to dine on the brain with death in the background is an amazing concept shot. A piece of mind... Get it?
16 - IRON MAIDEN - LIVE AFTER DEATH - An astounding painting using just black, white, blue and yellow. Again many hours were lost staring at the rising zombie corpse of Eddie, the attention to detail is insane. Inside the live shots of Maiden with wild stage show and even wilder clothing, in the 80's metal fans were more freaked out by the bands horrifying spandex leggings than Eddie.
17 - DEAD KENNEDYS - BEDTIME FOR DEMOCRACY - I learned more from the Dead Kennedys than I did in school. This band switched up all levels of thinking outside the box and exposing the world corruption for what it was at the time. Intelligent lyrics delivered with sarcasm and a cover that still makes a classic social comment on the world. Also pictured is the newspaper curated by Winston Smith, that came with the release. This was when music really was trying to educate people to make a change and question the reality we lived in. Shame nothing much happened because the world still sucks.
18 - BEASTIE BOYS - LICENSED TO ILL - The plane looks like its flying on the front, open it up to see it's actually smashed into the ground, this sums up crash and burn attitude of the Beastie Boys at the time. Awesome concept art and great picture inside of the band in full on rap metal looks with attitude. This record was huge and probably sold just as many copies as the amount of VW badges stolen the year it came out, which was a lot.
19 - BAD NEWS - BAD NEWS - To a young metal child like myself this was the best thing ever as I was already a massive fan of the Young Ones t.v show, which actually lead me on my journey into heavy music due to Motorhead appearing on the Bambi episode, a lightning bolt moment for me. Bad News was part of the 'Comic Strip' series. It was easy to joke and rip on the metal genre in the 80's but it's safe to say Adrian Edmondson, Rik Mayall, Peter Richardson and Nigel Planer nailed it best with the Bad News documentaries that followed the band. The fold out front cover of the band is hilarious, even better is the inner shot of them in the tour van that was known as 'The Beast'. They sit among the sex, drugs and alcohol and it's another cover I have spent hours looking at, all the while cracking up and reciting the records content. There was always the wonder of who came first Bad news or Spinal tap.... This is like the chicken and the egg. Whatever it is they both have their own comedic qualities that cant be replicated.
20 - IRON MONKEY - OUR PROBLEM - Iron Monkey called upon controversial artist Mike Diana to create this cover and the results are something else, it's a straight up bad drugs nightmare, ill looking cartoons with elements of extreme drugs and violence. This has become a cult classic among covers, this one is not for the easily offended. The Black and white shot of the band looking unimpressed inside is cool because suits the nice angry music. Remember, just play loud and smash your own face in.
21 - CYPRESS HILL - TEMPLES OF BOOM - A triple fold out cover, with dark and satanic undertones. Images blur from temples to the streets, distorted visions of the group evoke the darkness that this record holds. This is my all time favorite Cypress Hill album, it's a bass heavy, slow trip sound that will make you want to get blazed and trance out. This record is like audible drugs and a timeless window into the realms of dark hip hop that rocked the 90's. Cypress Hill proved a million stoners can't be wrong.
22 - HIGH ON FIRE - LUMINIFEROUS - A bizarre cover that holds ancient elements of an unknown beast and a portal through the mind, or is it a cave tunnel to temples on a sea of distorted monsters or both. Cool artwork inside depicts hooded skull figures doing some ritualistic type of activity.
23 - AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS - COMFORT TO ME - This cover is a distorted ball face mess that has a dreamy, LSD like effect look to it that's pleasing to the eye. The back has a rough digital edge showing the flaws in the art, it defines the era of what album art has become in the modern age. I love the inside picture as it reminds me of the early days where bands would stare at the camera off their face. Amy looks like shes been up for days and the band look just as wired, I also like that you cannot tell if it's late evening or morning. Class.
24 - WEEDEATER - JASON THE DRAGON - The way the dragon swirls across the front looks calm and surreal in muted colors, the back unveils that it's the smoke of massive skull pipe full of mind numbing substances. Lyrics and the band pictures inside with Chinese dragon sketch accompany a magnificent record of overdosed sludge that will shake your speakers and teeth loose .
25 - GORE ELOHIM - ELECTRIC LUCIFER - A mix of digital, possibly painted and mixed media art make this cover look like something from another dimension. The aliens have taken over and it is a well executed concept. The full inside image is pure modern day sci fi horror as bodies are drained of energy and souls in pods, leading infamous figures from the past are being examined by aliens who are in control of massive machines that wreak havoc in the forest doing the work of electric Lucifer. When I had this it was the first time in years that I really got lost in the art just like i did when i was younger, an album to really lose your mind to. I reviewed this in a previous Bloglizard, check it out as I highly grade this lost underground hip hop classic.
26 - ANTHRAX - WORSHIP MUSIC - The color and style of this image creates a feeling of movement as the restless souls and the Not man grapple around the pentagram like they are in an Anthrax mosh pit. Another example of why artwork is way better on the vinyl format as you can appreciate the whole feel and look into the concept more closely.
27 - SLEEP - THE SCIENCES - An astronaut getting stoned in space on some interplanetary high powered weed boulders while viewing the universe and that's exactly how listening to Sleep should be done, in fact listening to Sleep will make you feel like this astronaut. I stared at the inner cover for ages looking for an answer in the image. A nice touch is Butler instead of Butter and the missing guy on the milk looks like him although I came to the conclusion that it's (A) The missing guy on the milk carton could have been blasted through space and time while eating breakfast because the milk carton is manufactured by CERN, hence removing him from the picture into another dimension because of their super collider happened to create an alternate reality that morning (B)The last breakfast of the astronaut who left for the journey on the cover (C) Someone who got abducted by the men in black for knowing to much while eating as the food is mostly untouched and the juice is spilled (D) maybe they got too stoned with the weed and the bong on the table and just had to go and lie down because they got up too early! In fact I could go on and on, a picture can lead your imagination to run wild, as you see this one did it to me. The intro to the album draws you in, get blasted and go with it.
28 - GWAR - SCUMDOGS OF THE UNIVERSE - This is an updated new version of 'Scumdogs' that was an awesome upgrade to my extremely over played single vinyl edition I had since the early 90's. Nice thick card sleeve with classic original photos and graphics that became a legend. Inside the amazing pop out logo of Gwar and the gore and innards logo makes this a super touch to this ultimate classic album from the Gwar catalog.
29 - MOTORHEAD - CLEAN YOUR CLOCK - This one encapsulates and re creates one of Motorhead's last shows in pop out format, complete with amps, drum kit and crowd making it look like a fold out stage. Nice crisp photographs documenting the power of a Motorhead show and a really cool advancement in vinyl design packaging. Ace!
30 - MONSTER MAGNET - A BETTER DYSTOPIA - What more do you need on a Monster Magnet cover than esoteric day glow neon psychedelic graphics featuring the bull god flanked by a topless space queen and an ancient being? Well you need dinosaurs and portals to another realm topped off with a fold out cover depicting Monster Magnet playing a show to loads of manic fans, monsters, huge beings and chaos all around that's what.
31 - DEVIL'S WITCHES - VELVET MAGIC - Its like a mixture of porn magazines i would find pages of in the forest or in a gutter when I was a kid, mixed with some Vietnam footage this sleeve was enough to give me a flashback. I like the vintage look to this art and witch like imagery as its very striking and retro at the same time. The poster was also included in this release, It makes one thing very clear and that sex is way better than war.
32 - SPINAL TAP - SOUNDTRACK - Look as much as you like it's none more black. Featuring all the classic tracks from the movie, the inside has images of the 6 albums you may have missed but actually they never existed, another classic comedy take on metal where the joke really is on you if you took it seriously. Spinal Tap like Bad News are timeless because like art imitating life the similarities to how metal was portrayed by these two fictional bands was actually very real and that's why its so funny. There have been countless comedy metal acts since Spinal Tap and Bad News and nothing has ever come close. They were true originals in their own way, America had Spinal Tap and Britain had Bad News. I gotta say it... but This one goes up to 11.
For full information on the above albums, inner covers, alternate pressings go here -
STAY UNTUNED FOR THE NEXT BLOGLIZARD COMING SOMETIME SOON!
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