atlantamoi

This is not another post for posting cool album artwork (but it could be in a sense)... instead it's for sharing funny, clever or original ideas you remember from vinyl album covers/inserts. For example:



Durutti Column's debut album came with sandpaper on the outside which was guaranteed to mess up any albums laying next to it in a collection.



The inside sleeve of Led Zep's In Through The Out Door came with the ability to use water to make the sleeve show up in color (brush dipped in water). I did a small test on my copy to see that indeed it did work.

What other funky ideas can you remember?

Michael Corvin

I believe the first X-thousands of Alice in Chains: Jar of Flies contained tiny plastic flies in the left side of the CD case.

atlantamoi

I made a mix CD for a friend one time filled with music to wake up to and put coffee beans in the spine. I'll bet it's looking fairly nasty six years later!

Randy Miller III

The first printing of Radiohead's Kid A came with a second booklet hidden behind the CD tray.

(If that counts)

cdollaz

GuessWho

My only cool album cover piece of trivia is that late comedian Phil hartman designed the covers for:

Poco's 1978 album Legend
Firesign Theatre's 1980 album Fighting Clowns
Three album covers for the band America
---History: Greatest Hits in 1975
---Harbor in 1977
---Silent Letter in 1979

Hartman also designed the logo for the band Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

atlantamoi

Hartman? Wow, never heard that before.

at cdollaz

Giantrobo

KISS' Love Gun and Destroyer albums are still two of the coolest covers in Rock.

rw2516

There were also seven different covers to In Through The Out Door . Each variation was through the eyes of one of the people in the bar. I can't remember the person whose eyes we are looking through in the picture posted, which is the variation used for the cd. The back cover of the cd is the variation through the bartender's eyes.

Jethro Tull-Thick As A Brick. Cover unfolded into a newspaper.
Grand Funk Railroad-E Pluribus Funk. Cover was round like a coin.
Alice Cooper-School's Out. Cover was a school desk. Open the desk to remove the album. Also came with a pair of girl's panties.
Alice Cooper-Billion Dollar Babies. Cover was a wallet
Alice Cooper-Muscle of Love-Cover was a cardboard shipping box used by record clubs.
Grand Funk Railroad-Shinin' On. Cover was in 3-D and came with a pair of 3-D glasses.
Led Zeppelin III- Cover was die-cut with a wheel underneath attached by a ringlet in the center. Spin the wheel and change the picture.
Led Zeppelin-Physical Graffiti-Cover was of apartment building, die-cut where the windows should be. An inner sleeve had the pictures that go in the windows. Two variations depending on which way the inner sleeve was placed. Both back and front were this way.
Captain Beyond-First album. The artwork was a hologram glued to the cover on early pressings. Later pressings had the artwork just printed on.

Matt

rw2516

I remember in the record stores that most of the copies of Sticky Fingers always had the shrinkwrap torn from somebody wanting to play with the zipper.

Josh-da-man

Sounds like someone was trying to go for Mick's cock.

Nick Danger

Soft Machine (Volume 1) had a wheel inside the cover like LedZep3, but three years earlier.
Velvet Underground and Nico had the peelable banana. "Peel slowly and see"
The Doors - L.A. Woman had an acetate cover with the faces of the band printed on it. The inner sleeve was plain yellow on one side, and showed Jim Morrison crucified on a telephone pole on the other.
The Beatles - Yesterday and Today had a picture of the Beatles with bloody decapitated dolls underneath the regular cover.
The Mothers - We're Only in It for the Money was the reverse of Sargeant Pepper. The outside was a photo of the band with a yellow background. The inside had the band posing with a bunch of mannequins and the lyrics printed on red, superimposed on the band (all facing away except one).

dvdsteve2000

I believe CSN&Y's Deja Vu original pressing was leather bound.

rw2516

If you shred a Cheech and Chong album cover and smoke it you get high.

Dawg

I always get a kick out of Isaac Hayes' Black Moses record that folds out... Really cool stuff...

The Bus

I'm too old to remember many LP covers since I never bought any. I do remember a number of custom vinyls though. Not that these were the first, but I believe one of the El Vez albums had a giant picture of him across the entire vinyl platter. Papas Fritas also put out a 45 that was mint green.

For CDs, I've always liked Spiritualized. Ladies and Gentlement, We Are Floating in Space was packaged in a digipack that made it look like medication. The limited edition of Let It Come Down was a 3-d plastic sleeve which had an indentation of a girl's face. (A photo of that makes up the regular edition of the CD, which strangely carries a different track list without a change in the songs).

I remember in college I had a clear CD that comes to protect CD-Rs in spindles. It's basically just a CD-shaped piece of clear plastic. Someone asked me if it was a CD and I told them it was the new Everclear single. They believed me.

I got a spindle of the CDrs that look 45s recently. Neat stuff.

Tscott

Seeing as I just finally changed the batteries in mine, I feel I must mention Pink Floyd - Pulse CD which featured a blinking pulse light on the spine.


I also have a CD by Jessica Bailiff called "The Hour of the Trace" which is printed on tracing paper. If you hold it up to the light you can see printing from the back cover through the front and vice versa.


Also, I've really liked some of Ani Difranco's CD packaging. Knuckle Down in particular. It's a digipack which flips open from the top, then you flip the bottom flap down and it opens to a picture of Ani's hand holding the CD in place. I can't find a picture of the inside, but here's the cover:


Then there's George Carlin - The Little David Years Box set which is shows different silly faces as you tilt the cover (and is apparently hard to scan well):