Sunday, June 13, 2010

Lousy Beatles Covers



It's funny to think, as protective as the Beatles are with the presentation of their catalog, that there was a time the record label would abuse their image as much as any cut-rate, has-been artist. This is one of the first albums EMI released after gaining control of the Beatles' music:




Think Sgt. Pepper, Abbey Road... and eventually, this.


Ringo supposedly had this to say: "It made us look cheap and we never were cheap. All that Coca-Cola and cars with big fins was the Fifties!" It's a pretty lousy illustration... but not as bad as what was to come:



Can you believe this? It's got to be one of the lamest album covers of all time. Click on it to zoom in and take a look at Ringo. How many arms does he have?


The Beatles have a much tighter grip on the stuff that comes out with their names on it now. And for the most part, it's pretty high quality (the cover to "1" is iconic in its own right at this point). So hopefully, we can consider the cartoon painting era of Beatles album covers over.


Still don't quite get what happened with this one, though:


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