![]() ![]() What do have we here? Half a dozen participants on this record cover, in sparkly jackets, in various poses at jaunty angles, and equally jaunty, pseudo-amazed expressions, with instruments placed strategically, and for that matter, wrongly, around. Expect a super-steely-slidey Western Swing sound perhaps, with her on the fiddle…so to speak. Next in the pile, what’s this? Four guys in exquisite Western shirts, pants, cowboy hats and Maverick ties, plus one female adorned in a tasselly western shirt, short skirt and legs from here to next Tuesday, holding a fiddle and bow. Authentic Rockabilly with a stripped down, bona fide genuinely simple but effective sound. ![]() Three or four sickeningly handsome guys, so cool they sweat Perrier water (other sugar and calorie free, carbonated bottled waters, are available), in to-die-for original gabardine shirts and pegs, and not so much as a hair out of place, holding lead and rhythm guitars, bass and a snare drum. This is probably a group that do some Rockabilly, but include Surf, Indie and Garage too. Four non-smiling forty-somethings looking hard in jeans and boots, shiny slicked hair, filmed in sepia in front of a graffiti strewn wall and litter all over the floor. How about the three guys clad in long dark jackets, thumbs in belt loops, all looking contemptuously downward into the camera (in a grave perhaps) captured in monochrome? Probably a Ted band with great covers of British Rock n Roll tunes and the odd ‘Teds are Great’ track, and songs about flick knives, and brown ale. Nine times out of ten, the content is punk, but with a double bass! Sometimes the cover features just cartoon artwork, a skeleton wearing leathers, on a chopper style motorbike, holding a severed head, doing a wheelie with clouds of smoke belching out of the exhaust pipes. The drummer smashes the single snare he has mercilessly during each track, that makes the listener reach for the tin hat, and indeed, ear plugs. This probably features twelve tracks, nine of which are written by someone with no vowels in their name, and sound like the guitarist is trying to set a record for playing the one chord throughout, as loudly and fast as possible. The title is in italicised metallic font so it looks like knives. ![]() Three guys from Europe on the next one, with every visible body part tattooed, pictured in very dark colours standing outside a diner in the rain while wearing sunglasses. You’re ‘Honey Don’t’, ‘Matchbox’ and ‘Please Mama Please’. This sometimes means that the track listing is probably going to be cover tunes from the well-trodden path of Rock n Roll. Let’s start with the three smiling guys in matching bi-coloured shirts with a bass, guitar and drums in a pyramid shape on the cover. Here’s a brief guide to the commonest styles of artwork you may encounter on Rock n Roll releases, and of course, they bear absolutely resemblance to any releases past or present….! With that in mind, when we get 1950’s styled CD and vinyl releases from various quarters to review for the magazine you’re reading, it’s interesting sometimes to have a go at seeing if I can guess the content just by looking at the cover artwork. Similarly, a bunch of kids with their hats on backwards, with fingers raised in peculiar gesticulate and ill-fitting clothing of various basketball teams, are unlikely to sound like Elvis are they? More like lyrics about doing unspeakable things to their ‘muthas’ and a repetitive annoying use of ‘Yo!’. If you were presented with a CD/LP, and the artwork on the cover consisted of a linen and wool clad, tousle haired waif, in fisherman rope sandals, holding a twelve-string acoustic guitar looking wistfully into the middle distance on a windswept hill, and said record was titled ‘I Prithee a Futtocksnark To Gird’ what would you expect? Would you consider that she would tear into ‘My Boy Elvis’ or ‘Go Get The Shotgun Grandma’? Doubtful. Since however, we’ve been buying, acquiring and latterly, reviewing CDs and records, often the case is you can pick out exactly what the type of tunes contained therein, are going to sound like, or the theme of the material, just based on the artwork. You can’t judge a book by the cover it was suggested by Bo Diddley in song and legend, and in numerous cases it is indeed true. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |