For anyone wanting a glimpse into the music world before the mp3, the Art of the LP will make an excellent gift. The Art of the LP: Classic Album Covers 19551995 Hardcover October 6, 2015. What’s also nice is that the Art of the LP is a coffee table size book, 12 inches tall, so the covers can be enjoyed in their pre-CD full LP size glory. Shop for Johnny Morgan products online in George Town, a leading shopping. They even throw in the occasional awful cover, showing just how far poor taste can go (several LPs by the Scorpions fit this description). Each of the over 300 LP covers contains a paragraph that gives background not only on the sleeve, but oftentimes on the music that corresponds to it as well. The editors also make good use of side by side comparisons, showing how Elvis’ first album influenced London Calling from the Clash or how Queen mimicked Meet the Beatles for their second album. In this grouping, it’s interesting to see albums in different musical styles sharing a similar theme. You get sections on rock n’ roll attitude, sex, drugs, politics, ego and death. What sets this book apart from other album art compilations is the way that they’re presented: not grouped by music genre, but by the subject matter on the cover. Whether it was attitude, humor, sex, or politics, the album cover helped set the mood before you ever dropped the needle. One of the points of the book is that what was on the cover was just as important, if not more, than the music inside. In the Art of the LP, authors Johnny Morgan and Ben Wardle showcase a time when music and art coexisted happily in the form of the record album. But, this convenience comes at a price: the loss of an entire aspect of creativity. No need to drag heavy crates of albums or CDs from place to place every song known to man easily fits in the palm of our hand. No more digging through dusty record stores for that hard-to-find song it’s readily available at the click of a mouse.

The Art of the LP – Classic Album Covers 1955-1995 – Johnny Morgan and Ben Wardle (Sterling) – book review

The Art of the LP by Johnny Morgan