Aubrey Powell

This is a great book which looks at album covers as works of art apart from the music contained in it. This is a book on graphic design. The authors cover the details that went into the production elements of the “packaging” and the design and photography. I have many of these albums on CD. I knew I couldn’t carry around albums for the rest of my life. But albums are, of course, better because they can be easily read besides being tactile. Some of the universally known albums included here are: Strange Days, The Doors; Some Girls, The Rolling Stones; Houses of the Holy, Led Zeppelin; London Calling, The Clash; Never Mind the Bollocks, The Sex Pistols; Breakfast in America, Supertramp; Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd; Candy-O, The Cars; Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles; A Broken Frame, Depeche Mode; Trans-Europe Express, Kraftwerk; Power, Corruption and Lies, New Order; In No Sense? Nonsense!, Art of Noise; How to Be a Zillionaire, ABC.… (more)

Strange to say the least, but there are some nice bits and some of the music is good. The dialogue incorporates some of the best lines from Life of Brian--but in a knowing manner for an audience (like me) that probably has most of it memorized. The Royal Albert Hall looks great, and certainly it's a very British thing to turn a film in to an oratorio with a classical orchestra and choir. Idle is the star here and one of the main singers, but the other four are not Python members, but actuall professional singers. And the show is better for it.… (more)

I'm giving this one 4 stars only because of the superb images, which is, ultimately, why I purchased this book.

But overall, I found this book a frustrating disappointment.

First, the layout. The images are discussed in the first half of the book, and displayed in the second half, so there was a constant flipping back and forth to equate the words with the pictures, which is a bit of a feat with a book of this size. It would have been much more impactful to simply put the image on one side and the commentary across from it.

Next, the overall lack of commentary on exactly how each image came to be. Yes, there's some stories behind them, sometimes the inspiration is discussed, such as when Pink Floyd's Ummagumma is talked about. But for the most part, we're given more of the technical details. Also welcome, but I came for the creativity.

Finally, while much of the imagery is absolutely stunning, including some amazing shots of McCartney and Wings, The Rolling Stones, and The Who, this is by no means the definitive Hipgnosis collection, which was what I was looking for.

Here's hoping there will be a companion release that collects all the published Hipgnosis covers. I'd pay a ridiculous amount of money for that.… (more)