nfr;storm thorgeson

[spikey norman]

following his recent death i have been reading about the life of storm thorgeson probably one of the greatest iconic music album cover designers that ever lived
He together with artists such as peter blake and derek riggs  influenced me into listening to a variety of genres of music from jazz to metal, punk to blues, rock to pop over the last 5 decades
By this I mean that sometimes I bought an album just because I liked the art work on the cover and upon listening to the actual music I was often delighted that the music content was great too
During the 60's I was mostly into reggae, ska  and the beatles  but that started to change when I started to notice amazing album cover art work on posters in my local record shops and I became intrigued as to what kind of music went with the cover
Two in particular grabbed my attention and though I didn't know much about the band or their music I went and bought dark side of the moon and wish you were here by pink Floyd because of the covers – i was gob smacked by what I had heard ,absolutely brilliant and so different to the music I was used to
From that moment I was hooked into a mystery music adventure buying albums for the art work and discovering what music lay behind the cover some excellent but some I would want to forget about  (beauty is that then you could return the album and exchange for some other hopefully better one)

I have many favourite covers and can't choose an outright no1 but the best ones are

sgt.pepper's lonely hearts club band – beatles
never mind – nirvana
sticky fingers – rolling stones (with actual working zip)
in the court of the crimson king – king crimson
qudrophenia – the who
led zep 1 – led zep
never mind the bollock's– sex pistols
ziggy stardust – david bowie
dark side of the moon/wish you were here – pink Floyd
tubular bells – mike oldfield
and of course - viva el Fulham

and the worst cover I have seen (and there have been quite a few) must be millie jackson's back to the s**t – what was she thinking when she did that

(would have downloaded the album covers but not sure how to do this)

anybody else have a best and worst album cover or even bought an album just for the art work/design?

[God The Mechanic]

Travis Smith and Alex Grey are probably my favourites.  The former has a ridiculous number of album covers, and Alex Grey did the one for Lateralus by Tool.  Which is just awesome.

Hadn't realised how many covers Thorgeson had done, especially more contemporary bands.  Oh, and In The Court Of The Crimson King is a rather good album.

[The Equalizer]

I'm a massive fan of Storm Thorgerson's artwork. I happened upon a gallery up in Bristol a few years ago and they happened to have one of his exhibtions on. Seeing his artwork up close like that was incredible.

Fave covers: anything by Pink Floyd (although Ummagumma is probably my favourite).
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin
The Clash - London Calling
Tom Waits - Small Change
Kula Shaker - K

[spikey norman]

Would love to see an exhibition of his and also until now didn't realise how much art work he had done not only album and single's covers and as mentioned many by contemporary bands (check out biffy clyro's Saturday super house – a bit floydish) poster designs with pink floyd's back catalogue really good, record labels, photo's, illustrations and logo's – he will be a big loss to the music industry and to those of us who appreciate his work – didn't know he did London calling by the clash
peter blake and derek riggs are good but they are no storm thorgerson though blake's sgt.pepper's is a great cover
By the way what ever happened to king crimson – are they still performing?