Product Description

At a time when music is increasingly being downloaded and uploaded, the art of packaging music is being lost. For the past five decades musicians have displayed their work inside packages that were often as integral as the music itself.This book brings together 250 of the greatest album covers of all time and is arranged chronologically, beginning in 1956. There is a 50-strong judging panel selecting the final 250 entries, those judges having been drawn from the great and the good of the music industry. The panel includes famous designers, musicians, producers and record company executives whose reasons for choosing covers will accompany the illustration of the sleeve.From rock 'n' roll to pop, R&B to jazz, blues and even folk some of the album covers included are obvious and essential to such a volume, while others will surprise readers and jog memories. The chosen entries might not necessarily be of a best-selling release, but they will be important artistically, stylistically or culturally. This book will undoubtedly be an object of discussion and argument for music fans the world over.It is the acclaimed bestseller in handy reduced format. It celebrates the 50th anniversary of the album. It includes albums from rock, pop, rap, reggae, soul, punk and more. It provides a commentary from 50 leading lights of the music world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6170 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

About the Author
Miles has written several seminal books on the Beat generations, including biographies of Ginsberg, Burroughs and Kerouac, and in October 2002 published his memoirs of the decade titled In The Sixties (Jonathan Cape). He is the author of the best selling Hippie (Cassell Illustrated, 2003). Grant Scott has art directed several leading magazines, including Tatler and English Elle, and has worked with photographers such as William Klein, Jean Loup Sieff, David Bailey and Don McCullin. Choosing to move behind the camera lens, Scott was winner of the John Kobal Portrait Awards 2000 and has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery.

Customer Reviews

Album Covers - design and development
An interesting book for people interested in graphic design and music. Looks at classic, new, unusual, special... album covers. Great photos and interesting facts. Easy read (not too in depth) which focuses on images. Great present which people can pick up and page through as and when they feel.

record sleeve design
If you are interested in record sleeve design, you might as well turn to this book (along with Mink DeVille's album Cover Art) for your enjoyment. Well-structured, with plenty of details and more than 250 covers printed beautifully in a square-format that fits the squared covers of both LP and CD records. Apart from other interesting titles, such as McKnight-Torntz's For the Record or the work produced by Steven Heller, Roger Dean or Storm Thorgerson, Greatest Album Covers of all time is a must have. As in the case of DeVille's book, there is only one thing missing in this title: bibliography. It would be of great help for researchers, students and aficcionados to see where do the authors get the information (basically from the different released titles), but overall an excelent choice.

The Basics are There
I first saw this book in a shop and being into music, graphic design and even album cover design from time to time was so excited by it I had to go back and buy it. When it wasn't there I ordered it from Amazon - and when it arrived I was extremely disappointed by the size of it. The book I had seen in the shop was huge, displaying all the images in 'in your face' detail. That's what I was looking forward to. And what I received was not even 9" square. The content is good, but sometimes lost. Shame.