il Buono, il Brutto, il AlbumArto
Take a band. Take its album cover highlights. Take its album cover lowlights.
Swish it all around in your mouth. Comment.
Gordon Lightfoot
This is the cover to Gordon Lightfoot's debut album, enthusiastically titled Lightfoot!, released in 1966. I like this one for a number of reasons. First, he looks like James Dean from the movie "Giant". Second, it's simple and casual and gives you a good idea of what the music sounds like. Third, Gordon Lightfoot doesn't even need to look at his fingers when he plays the guitar. Obviously I would change the goofy turquoise font, but this is still my favorite Lightfoot(!) cover.
I'm apologizing for the foul quality of this picture. I couldn't find a higher-rez one, so I had to do some image stretching. Even so, Mr. Lightfoot looks quite dorky here. Interestingly enough, despite being such an unintentionally silly album cover, Sundown (released in 1974) was his most commercially successful original album. It contains such classics as "Sundown" and "Carefree Highway", and possibly other tracks about hairy be-sandalled men sitting in hay. Although a clearer image would probably reveal more, I have no idea what that stuff is behind his Gibson. Lightfoot himself appears as though he's about to say something, possibly "It smells like poo and the hay is itchy. Do I have to sit like this? Are you sure I look awesome?"
Continuing with the blue shirt/blue pants/guitar theme, here we have the follow-up to Sundown titled Cold on the Shoulder, released in 1975. You can see that the album designer and/or photographer tried to incorporate the title into the imagery. See? The woman, in his shadow, looking down on him, over his shoulder... see? The image itself appears to have been developed on some sort of fabric, possibly even denim. Gordie loves his denim. Anyway, aside from making the picture appear as though it was taken during a hard indoor rainstorm, the end result is intensely moody. How dark, man.
