While doing my annual re-evaluation of The Small Faces’ Odgen’s Nut Gone Flake album this morning, I couldn’t help thinking about how much mileage and forgiveness the album has probably garnered among rock fans thanks to the cool, die-cut cover sleeve in which it originally appeared. I’d show you a picture of it, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, but any 2-dimensional, digital image I can find doesn’t do it justice: the sleeve was die-cut to a circle, perfectly containing the album itself with no extra space around it. Very cool, and the motivation for saving up the spare pennies from my bookstore clerk years to buy an expensive used copy in the mid-80s!
Surely, I ran home that night, dusted off what seeds and stems I could gather, scraped out some resin from my bong, and braced myself for what would be one of those psych-rock fanboy moments a young music geek chases until he’s reached the end of the rainbow and has paid good money for one too many Idle Race albums, eventually hitting rock bottom with a desparate grab at the collected works of SRC.
Following a half dozen spins of Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake, I should have known I’d hit the beginning of the end of the rainbow. I tried to stick with it for a couple of years, but damn if the spoken-word bits and Steve Marriott trading in his set of massive balls to sing as if he were in the London cast of Oliver! didn’t sound like The Monkees featuring Davey Jones in a goofy, music hall romp that would showcase/capitalize on his cute British cred.
A few years later I sold the thing, extremely cool die-cut sleeve and all. A few years thereafter I bought another copy! By then I was convinced that the rest of The Small Faces’ catalog was, indeed, ACES! That album cover was still super cool and worth owning. The grooves would grow on me the second time around!
Sadly, the album was just as lame, and I sold it again. I’ve since reacquired more than enough of the tracks on the superb collection, Darlings of Wapping Wharf Launderette. I highly recommend this 2-CD collection to anyone in need of a starter set by this band (you can order it through the Amazon portal on our site and help keep Rock Town Hall strong and out of debt). I still skip over those songs unless I really want to try being fair and continually open minded.
My point is, thank heavens for that cool, die-cut album cover! I bought that album twice, so far, solely because of the album cover, and if I ever run across an affordable vinyl copy in a used bin, there’s a good chance I’ll buy it for a third time.
This led to me thinking about other albums that have probably sold consistently over the years based on their sleeve design more than the music within. Albums such as the octagonally sleeved Stones’ collection, Through the Past, Darkly; the 3-D album every rock nerd wishes was actually good, Their Satanic Majesties Request; and maybe even Led Zeppelin III, an album that I’ve always rated, perhaps, higher than need be.
For what other cool die-cut album covers should we thank (or curse, as might be the case) heaven?
…12 hours later…
So I’m getting the sense that the Good General Slocum and Tom Means are the only other people around here who’ve been excited to buy an album based on its cool, die-cut cover – or is someone holding back? No one’s too cool for school in the Halls of Rock. If you were, you’d be cruising third-generation links in search of snarky one-liners that you could have developed yourself and shared with a friend while at lunch. Who’s holding out on us, or is the record industry right in deciding that consumers don’t care about fancypants packaging? My question is, who’s going to download the overblown crap of today if we can’t be seduced by things like cool, die-cut sleeves?
Didn’t the Stones’ Some Girls LP originally come with the faces cut out on the front cover, and then the faces on the insert matched up with the openings when you slid it inside? Is that die-cut? How about the Sticky Fingers zipper cover?
This is completely different, but the original Capt Beefheart Clear Spot album came in a clear plastic sleeve, which you didn’t realize until later damaged the surface of the LP. But at least in those innocent days ill-advised marketing schemes didn’t trigger terror alerts.
Some others:
– Physical Graffiti
– The second Real Kids album
– Led Zep III
– The Cheech & Chong LP shaped like a big pill
– A Nod’s As Good As a Wink
Yes, Some Girls and Sticky Fingers are great, cool, die-cut sleeves, as are the ones hrrundivbakshi cited. However, there’s one big difference: you probably don’t think those albums suck and that you got suckered by the sleeve all these years. I’m looking for albums that initially hooked us and keep us coming back primarily for the appeal of their cool, die-cut sleeve. I know some will disagree that Ogden’s… is a turd, and that’s cool too. Sorry to the two of you if I read you wrong and you actually don’t like the albums you suggested so far. In that case, your points are as valid as my own.
And Steppenwolf’s At Your Birthday, an album who’s die-cut cover provides at least as much enjoyment as the music within. Of course Billion Dollar Babies in the huge billfold cut out with creepy baby pictures. There was a CCR album where their profiles were cut out and opened like pages. Foghat’s very forgettable live album, where the next record on the shelf always caught on the die-cut lettering.
Hey. Let me add, that Zep III is my favorite Zep album, even on CD with no textural anomalies to sell it!
I too love Zep III. I just felt the need to throw that out there in case my own bullshit detector wasn’t functioning. Your other examples are spot on!
I once bought a Soft Machine album for a die-cut cover. I think it was their third album The album was a bust. The cover is cool to this day.
No you’re right, I don’t think they suck. I misunderstood, probably because I can’t imagine having the experience you’re describing. I agree with you about the nonsense narration ruining Ogden’s. At one time I made a CDR with all that stuff edited out, and that made it listenable.
I think I like the songs of that era more than you do too. Though I like the early Small Faces just fine, I find Marriott’s willful self-emasculation fascinating to observe, and to me it’s much preferable to the over-reaction in the other direction that followed.
I think Steve Marriott, in Humble Pie mode, may be the ultimate practitioner of the Power & Glory Of Rock. I can’t quite describe the buzz I get listening to “Hot and Nasty” — I mean, is it embarassing? Does it kick ass? Is it a white-lightning distillation of what makes rock and roll outrageous and ridiculous and interesting? I answer yes and no to all these questions!
Re: comments by BigSteve and hrrundivbakshi
Fascinating!
So I’m getting the sense that the Good General Slocum and Tom are the only other people around here who’ve been excited to buy an album based on its cool, die-cut cover – or is someone holding back? No one’s too cool for school in the Halls of Rock. If you were, you’d be cruising third-generation links in search of snarky one-liners that you could have developed yourself and shared with a friend while at lunch. Who’s holding out on us, or is the record industry right in deciding that consumers don’t care about fancypants packaging. My question is, who’s going to download the overblown crap of today if we can’t be seduced by cool, die-cut sleeves?
did anybody mention ‘Ooh La La’ by the Faces? You can make the gent in the top hat on the front smile.
and there are good tunes on the inside.
mmmmm….good die cut.
re. ogden’s. self-emasculation, wha? i’m not sure what you’re on about there. maybe there are some effeminate moments relative to the trajectory of marriot’s career personae, but in the bigger picture, there were other guys doing much more emasculating stuff than anything on ogden’s.
i’m a fan of wordplay, so i like stanley unwin’s narration.
they could’ve packaged that album in an all white cover and i would’ve liked it. ‘song of the baker’ and ‘rollin’ over’ are righteous!
mod, i like your question, and don’t mean to ignore it. it’s a hard one to answer. it’s the physical aspect of die cut artwork that you’re missing. it can’t be physical in the virtual realm. but in a new way, art work has a potential to become more physically interactive. people just have to be willing to print the stuff. and bands have to be willing to give consumers options about what images they’re presenting go on the cover, on the cd, on the back, and on the gatefold. then people could customize they’re own artwork. or album artwork just becomes this image that goes in a digital file that pops up on the screen when you play it. maybe computers are REALLY where the mtv prophecy — that video and music will be inseperable in the future — will really come to roost. and it won’t be about “album covers” anymore, but it will be about the imagery associated with entire albums…imagery that streams as the album plays. it could be anything from performance footage on the one hand, to something totally abstract on the other.
hmmm….
I hear you about the potential for using digital imagery to replace the fetishistic quality of album cover art. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet. You’d think those iPods with the 2-inch square video screens would pick up on the potential. Maybe the need to develop “eyebuds” first.