But the artwork was often worth the price of the album. Especially since throughout the late 70’s and early 80’s you were basically paying for one song. What was an album back then, $9.99? Some of those one hit wonders, you got that one song for $9.99, and hopefully a great album cover.
With cassettes, not only did you lose a 12” canvas, but they chopped something off the image. Albums were square, and the cassette was rectangular. Since the artwork was created for the album, which was square, then something had to go. Even without the loss of some material, it was a tiny picture, and wasn’t much for displaying in anything but the cup holder you bought at Target. You know the plastic thing that sat on the hump that ran down the middle of the car.
With the introduction of CD’s we regained the square canvas, but it was pretty small, 5” on both sides. Again, not much for displaying on your wall, but they were extremely portable, and played well in the car. Still had to endure the occasional skip when you hit a Minnesota pot hole though.
As I searched for examples of some of the artwork from albums past, I found some incredible modern artwork. Too bad it can’t be displayed proudly on anything worth displaying it on. I suppose the website of the artist, or the record company. But that medium is turned off when not in use.
Remember walking into the record store and all the latest releases proudly displayed on the wall. You went to your favorite music genre and flipped through album after album. One fantastic piece of art after another. If it was a cool record store, a good band was playing over the stores record player. This was how I discovered Def Leppard’s “High ‘n’ Dry”.
How many of you bought an album based on its cover art.
I never did, but I came awfully damn close.
When I bought the Whitesnake album, it was a cassette. I bought it at a tiny little cassette store in Ozark Alabama. You walked in, and the cassettes were displayed in these cases that were more like table tops and all you could see was the spine. I walked out of there with a couple of cassettes, but the experience was a fun as a trip to the dentist.
I love my digital music, but I so miss the great artwork.