edited by Storm Thorgerson
and Roger Dean
Paper Tiger / Dragon's World
1977
After the success of his 1975 book Views, which was published by Dragon's Dream (a UK company he founded with his brother Martyn), artist Roger Dean teamed up with Hubert Schaafsma to create Paper Tiger, another imprint devoted to publishing fantasy and science fiction artwork.
In 1977 Paper Tiger released Album Cover Album (160 pp), a collection of cover art for 33 1/3 rpm records - better known today as 'vinyl' albums.
The book was an instant hit, and few indeed were those 70s people who didn't have this book in their library. It was perfectly made for perusing while stoned, and listening to your favorite records. It wasn't at all unusual to see Album Cover Album lying beside the latest issue of Heavy Metal, High Times, Penthouse, or other books, like Eschatus by Bruce Pennington and Mythopoeikon by Patrick Woodroffe.
Eventually five volumes of Album Cover Album were published, the fifth in 1989, after which the switch from vinyl to CD in the early 90s doomed the enterprise of album cover artwork.
At 12 x 12 inches, the book is too big to accommodate on my scanner so I had to rely on taking pictures of the contents, which are roughly chronological in order, as well as grouped by genre / theme.
The format is varied, with some albums getting the full-page treatment, others two to a page, and still others, four or nine to a page. The quality of the photographs used in the book is quite high, something that likely isn't very clear in my own pictures.
Modern-day readers of Album Cover Album probably should keep in mind that many of the albums with the most striking and captivating artwork likely had the worst music. That's how things operated back then: there was no such thing as mp3s or iTunes or streaming to let the listener know just how good - or how bad - the tracks were. In the Vinyl Era, the attractiveness of the album cover had a lot to do with the saleability of the album.
And there are some amazing album covers in this compilation. Looking through the pages of Album Cover Album is to get an education on the excellence of commercial art in the Vinyl Era, a time of creativity and craftsmanship that, sadly, has receded into the realm of nostalgia as the Digital Music Era cements its hold on the marketing and distribution of music.
Summing up, with used copies in good condition, it's well worth your while to seek out Album Cover Album, and maybe its followup volumes, too. It's a great book to leaf through, and a great compendium of commercial art - as it was back in the days when there was no Photo Shop, and an air brush was considered a hi-tech art tool.............
