Favorite Album Covers

[raintown boy]

Was that cover for The Beatles Yesterday & Today released as the official cover in the US? Although I know it, as far as I'm aware it was deemed in bad taste in the UK and an alternative had to be produced instead. I'm trying to think if there's been any other coverrs that have caused controversy, but it's too early in the morning and I have to leave for work shortly.

[gus danger]

Hi RB!
Yeah it was first printed with the butcher cover but was pulled back right away.
Only a few were actually released in that "first state" while the remainder were pasted over with the new cover sheet. This is called the "second state" and both a worth plenty to collectors. Especially the first state, of coarse.
Some people were able to peel the new cover sheet off to reveal the butcher cover. This "third state" condition varies from very good to poor.
I had one that had been peeled by steaming and was not much to look at but I still paid 75 dollars for it, in 1982. I guy gave me about 150 dollars worth of stuff I wanted, in trade for it, a couple years later.

This is easily the most sought after Beatle collectible out there. I hope to find another one, one of these days!

Later dude!
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Gus

[raintown boy]

Thanks for the info, Gus. I saw the butcher cover recently at the National Portrait Gallery in London which was a having an exhibition of Beatles images. There were variations of quite a few of the album covers - advanced editions for critics, that sort of thing - but it was the butcher one that stuck in my mind. It was the sort of thing you'd expect from Frank Zappa or Alice Cooper.

[SouthwestRanger]

When Capitol Records created a new Beatles album by assembling various leftover tracks and releasing them as a record entitled "Yesterday And Today" on June 15, 1966, the phenomenon was nothing new. In the 18-month period between January 1964 and June 1966, Capitol Records (and the United Artists record label) managed to release nearly twice as many Beatles albums in America as had been issued by Britain's EMI Parlophone, the Beatles' home label.



Capitol (and UA) had accomplished this feat through a variety of means: issuing fewer songs per album (typically 11, as opposed to 14 on UK LPs), adding tracks released as singles (typically not included on UK albums), and padding film soundtracks with instrumental versions of songs


The "Yesterday And Today" album was typical of this practice, comprising songs excised from the American versions of three other Beatles LPs, plus both sides of an earlier 45. What was *not* typical of this album, however, was its cover. Instead of the usual photos of four happy, smiling moptops, this album's cover offered something quite different indeed: the Beatles, dressed in butchers' smocks, adorned with slabs of raw red meat, glass eyeballs, false teeth, and nude, decapitated dolls, posing with sickly, sadistic leers on their faces.

When disk jockeys and others who had received advance copies of the album began to complain about its gruesome sleeve, Capitol quickly withdrew the record. All promotional material for the album was destroyed, and it was reissued five days later with a substitute cover photograph of the Beatles leaning on a steamer trunk.

As most every casual Beatle fan knows, many of the 750,000 or so original "butcher cover sleeves went back into record stores with a new cover pasted over the old one, and thousands of unwitting record buyers ended up purchasing albums whose covers could be peeled or steamed off to create what would become one of most sought-after pieces of Beatles memorabilia.....

What possessed the Beatles to create such a hideous, repulsive album cover? Over the years, the myth developed that the Beatles, tired of the way Capitol Records had been cutting up and rearranging their albums for the American market, deliberately planned the grotesque "butcher cover" as a means of protesting Capitol's "butchery" of their records.

The truth is, however, that the ghastly photograph featured on the "Yesterday and Today" sleeve was not intended as a protest against Capitol Records by the Beatles In fact, not only was the "butcher photo" never intended to be used as an album cover, it wasn't even the Beatles' idea.

A single photograph from an earlier photo session, taken for entirely different reasons, was used, unfinished and out of context, for the sleeve of Capitol's new release.

More at....

http://www.eskimo.com/~bpentium/whobutch.html

[gus danger]

Oh yeah! Here's a classic favorite of mine!



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Gus

[Sportyfan]

Some of my favorite covers are:

Suzi Quatro "Suzi and Other Four Letter Words" (and yes I have the poster of it too!)
Blue Oyster Cult "Spectres"
Madonna "True Blue"
Ozzy "Blizzard of Oz"
Motley Crue "Girls, Girls, Girls"
Rush "Hemispheres"
Cherie "Cherie Currie and Friends"
and my favorite
Joan Jett "Up Your Alley"

[ellanoize]

I've been thinking (and that's a hard thing for me to do lately) and I came up with a few more Lp covers that I liked.

Angel - Angel
Motley Crűe - Dr Feelgood
Alice Cooper - Love it to Death (unedited version w/ thumb)
Great White - Hooked (unedited cover w/ nude girl on hook)
AC/DC - Dirty Deeds
Megadeth - Rust In Peace
Grand Funk Railroad - E Pluribus Funk (original round cover)
Molly Hatchet - Flirting with Disaster
Motorhead - Orgasmatron
Grateful Dead - Blues For Allah