Results tagged “NYC Album Art”

In 2001 Manhattan band The Strokes burst onto the scene with their debut LP Is This It. The album cover featured a tightly cropped shot of a nude model wearing (presumably) only a black glove. And now, finally, after all these years, we get to meet that model. In the below video she speaks out about the impromptu cover shot.

It's been quite some time since our last installment of NYC Album Art, and today we look at a controversial one that never actually saw the light of day. What you see pictured was the planned cover art for The Coup's Party Music album, designed in June 2001.

The Smashing Pumpkins have officially made their return. The comeback (yeah, we're gonna call it a comeback) appears to be met with little fanfare. The new album, Zeitgeist, came out Tuesday - and was met with a lack of good reviews. The cover art is what we're concerned about here though.

"Some Time in New York City" was released in 1972 as John Lennon's third post-Beatles album (and his fifth with Yoko Ono). Critically and commercially the album didn't do well, especially compared to Lennon's previous albums. "Imagine" had just come out in the 1971, and comparatively this one was brash, loud and more reflective of his political and new geographical surroundings at the time, in Greenwich Village.

The Dictators 1978 album Bloodbrothers was shot by Chris Colln in a New York City school yard. The front is shown at right, the back can be seen here.

In the past we've told you about New York album art from The Doors, Bob Dylan, The Ramones and more. You can read the past posts here, and now we move on to The Allman Brothers Band: Live at Fillmore East.

This just in: the New York Dolls are playing the Seaport Music Festival on August 18th.

Brodsky has recalled of the Morrison shoot, "The shot on the inner sleeve of the Greatest Hitsalbum was pretty near the end, I think. By that time, Morrison was so drunk he was stumbling into the lights and we had to stop the session. He wasn't a wild drunk --- actually he was kind of quiet -- but his equilibrium wasn't too terrific. Still, he was great to photograph because he had a very interesting look."

The owner of an art gallery that works with George DuBose (as a dealer of his photographs) emailed us to clarify the debate that was going on in the comments of this post. That debate being: was the cover of The Ramones Subterranean Jungle a real photo, or the handywork of a retoucher?

There's suspicion lurking in this thread about the reality of the Ramones Subterranean Jungle album cover. Some seem to think there's a possibility the band was just cut and pasted in to that subway train. However, here's the alternative album cover - which would make us believe they were really there. That graffiti was totally photoshopped though (or whatever it is they did in the 80's).

We're really challenging ourselves with this one, since we don't know too much about this genre of music, but the album cover is just too amazing to pass up. Laba Sosseh, the master vocalist of Senegalese Salsa, was an early pioneer of the tradition of Africans travelling to New York to record with Latin musicians. Aboudou Lassissi (a producer) brought him over to record in the 70's, here's a little background on their history:

The New York Dolls first album cover was shot in New York. In this case, the back cover is more interesting than the front. It features a photograph of the band in front of Gem Spa, the legendary newsstand that is said to have invented the egg cream.

According to the album, Paul's Boutique is in Brooklyn...but we all know this photo was taken in the Lower East Side. With a Paul's Boutique sign hanging up on the Lee's Sportswear storefront, the shot was taken at 99 Rivington Street, where Rivington and Ludlow intersect. Currently residing in this exact spot is a restaurant called Paul's Boutique, named in honor of the album.

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album cover features a photograph of a 21 year old Bob Dylan and his girlfriend at the time, Suze Rotolo (an artist who teaches at the Parsons School of Design). History will tell you Rotolo inspired the songs "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" and "Boots of Spanish Leather." It will also tell you that Dylan wanted to (add a girl and) recreate this shot of James Dean.

With tapes, cd's and now digital music...the art of the album cover has sadly gone ignored. We used to have a small stack of albums, some of which had covers shot here in New York. Our favorite of those: Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti album (at right, photographed by BP Fallon).