eddie - TL:DR (That's Long, DID Read)

sleepwalking through geography – doodling and the automatic muse

a cry for help from the depths of the classroom

There are relatively few times in life when it’s possible to switch off your mind and enter a trance-like state without going out of your way to do so; but sitting in a classroom for a period (or better yet, a double period) of whatever subject it is that engages you least is one of those times. When the conditions are right – a sleepy winter afternoon in an overly warm room maybe, with darkness and heavy rain or snow outside and the classroom lights yellow and warm, the smell of damp coats hung over radiators and a particularly boring teacher – the effect can be very little short of hypnotic. The subject will be a matter of taste, for me the obvious one I detested was Maths, but I think that something like Geography or ‘Modern Studies’ (strangely vague subject name), where I wasn’t concerned so much with not understanding and/or hating it, would be the optimum ‘trance class’.

I think every school jotter i had between the ages of 5 and 18 had this on the back, and it never went un-altered

fragments of the Metallica logo. and ???

There’s nothing like school for making you examine the apparently stable nature of time; if, as logic (and the clock) states, the 60 or so minutes of hearing about ‘scarp-and-vale topography’ really was about the same length of time as our always-too-short lunch hour, or even as was spent running around the rugby pitch, then clearly logic isn’t everything, as far as the perception of human experience is concerned.

But it would not be true to say that I did nothing during these long, barren stretches of unleavened non-learning. Mostly, I doodled on my school books. Sometimes this was a conscious act, like the altering of maps with tippex to create fun new supercontinents, or the inevitable (in fact, almost ritualistic, after 7 years of Primary school) amending of the fire safety rules that were printed on the back of every jotter produced by The Fife Regional Council Education Committee. Often these were just nonsensical, but even so, favourite patterns emerged. I had a soft spot for “ire! ire! ire! anger! anger! anger!” (in the interests of transparency I should probably point out that I was almost certainly unaware at the time that ire means anger), and the more abstract “fir! fir fir! Dang! Dang! Dang!” (see?), but some things like ‘Remember Eire hunts – Eire kills’ were fairly universal. But also, there was the whiling (or willing) away of time by just doodling, in margins, on covers, or if the books didn’t have to be handed in at the end of the class, just anywhere; band logos and Eddies* and cartoon characters. Later, towards the end of my high school career, there’s a particularly detailed and baroque drawing of a train going over a bridge (something I wouldn’t have had much patience for drawing in an actual art class) which immediately summons up the vivid memory of a particularly long Geography class, and even which pen – a fine felt tip I liked but couldn’t write neatly with** – that I drew it with.

possibly not fully engaged with learning – but I do remember that this was a Geography lesson

*Eddie = ‘Eddie the head’, Iron Maiden’s beloved zombie mascot, created – and painted best – by Derek Riggs

**i.e. ‘I wrote even less neatly than usual with’

a scowling Eddie face, a strange man and some kind of tornadoes

If I could recall the things I was supposed to learn in classes this well I would have done much better at school. But the point of doodling is that it’s whatever it is your hand draws when your brain isn’t engaged; or, as André Breton put it, drawings that are ‘dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.’*
This is in fact from his definition of what surrealism is; ‘psychic automatism in its pure state’ and later, in The Automatic Message (1933) Breton went further, influenced by his reading of Freud, specifically referencing what would later become known as art brut or ‘outsider art’ – drawings by the mentally ill, visionaries, mediums and children – as ‘surrealist automatism’. Although it might seem to – well, it definitely does – give too much dignity and importance to the time-wasting scrawls of teenagers to consider them anything but ephemeral, the strange faces, swords, cubes, eyes, tornadoes and goats that littered my school books aged 12-14 or so do seem to preserve, not just the kind of pantheon almost every child/teenager has – made up of favourite bands, TV shows, cartoon characters etc – but a kind of landscape of enigmatic symbolism that comes from who-knows-where and perhaps represents nothing more than the imagination crying for help from the heart of a particularly stimulus-free desert. But in the end, that’s still something.

*André Breton, Manifesto of Surrealism 1924, published in Manifestoes of Surrealism, Ann Arbor paperbacks, tr. Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane, 1972, p.26

MEAM, Myself & I: Part One: the formative years

Where does your taste in music come from? Why do you like some things but not others? It’s mysterious, but to try and find out, I thought I’d look at the issue from the (my) beginning. So what is the first music you remember hearing? For me (and I imagine many people) it’s a hard question to answer. I know what music was around when I was little; but decades of nostalgic compilations have re-shaped the music of the 1980s into that modern idea; ’80s music’ and, along with TV shows, have blurred the line between what I know I should or could have heard and what I actually remember hearing. On the other hand, like most people whose parents listen to music, some of the first things I remember hearing (in my case things that were not contemporary pop music, mostly) can be pinpointed easily to them.

Thinking back to early childhood I can picture my parents’ stereo (a wooden 70s behemoth with built-in speakers which may have once had legs but which I remember sitting on the floor) very clearly. Often, LPs would be lying on top when the lid was closed and the covers are as evocative of childhood to me as the music. Although this was the early 80s, the majority of records being played were from earlier eras; the albums that spring to mind being The Dark Side of the Moon, Joni Mitchell’s Blue and For the Roses, Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats, Lou Reed’s Transformer, a live LP by Donovan and various albums by Bobs Marley and Dylan. More up to date, but less frequently played (as I remember it) were Talking Heads’ Remain In Light and Bowie’s Low. As is only right and proper, when I got old enough to want to listen to music myself, I initially scorned all of these things, though I eventually came round to liking almost all of them.*

But what did I hear first? Who knows? I remember my mother playing guitar and singing, but ridiculously, the actual song that stands out as the first identifiable thing I remember, can name and even know some of the words to is neither parent music, nor standard chart fare; it’s Day Trip To Bangor by Fiddler’s Dram, which sets the date I began to really absorb music at around 1979; which makes sense, as until around that point I had hearing problems. As earliest memories go it could be more significant – I didn’t like it (or dislike it, as far as I remember), I can’t picture the band, it isn’t the soundtrack to a specific event. I just remember it, like I remember Crown Court and Pebble Mill At One being on TV in the afternoon if I was ill at home instead of being at school. It’s also to the end of the 70s that the first 7” single actually owned by me belongs and it’s also a typical-of-its-era novelty record, by the already long-in-the-tooth comedy group The Barron Knights – ‘A Taste of Aggro’. It’s the kind of random thing that little kids like; it features parodies of ‘The Smurf Song’ and Boney M’s ‘Rivers of Babylon’ (‘there’s a dentist in Birmingham…’ ). In my first year or two at primary school I also remember liking at least one Adam and the Ants song, I liked Toyah and Hazel O’Connor when they were on TV, I liked the disco version of the Star Wars theme and ‘Cars’ by Gary Numan. Other music-related memories of the time are pretty vague; I remember older kids who were punks and (more scary to small-child me) skinheads, but I don’t think I ever heard their music at the time.

gimpbeast — Number of the Beast with appropriately sinister chip in the title track

It’s surprising to me to find that the first music I liked that I stayed a fan of for any length of time arrived so quickly after these things. In 1982 while I was still at Primary School, I heard ‘Run To The Hills’ by Iron Maiden and loved it. Iron Maiden divided my classmates and my parents hated them, but when Number of the Beast came out I was able to borrow the LP from one of their friends. I promptly broke it (slipped out of the inner sleeve and a strangely fangs/horns-like shard broke off of it, ruining the first track on each side) and had to pay for it. The plus side is that I still have an original pressing of Number of the Beast, albeit one that doesn’t actually have the title track (or ‘Invaders’, less of a loss) on it. A slightly later memory I think, is my dad telling me if I liked Iron Maiden, I should listen to this – and showing me the Grateful Dead’s eponymous 1971 live album. I think he presumed that the passing resemblance between the skeleton on the cover and Eddie would make it appeal to me. It didn’t – but that is probably my favourite Grateful Dead album now. Iron Maiden were destined nominally to remain my favourite band for a good four or five years, but I don’t think I really listened to them – or anything really – much until I went to high school a few years later. I don’t remember buying any other records before ’86 or so and other musical memories from the Primary school-era are thin on the ground and mostly negative. I hated ‘Come On Eileen’ (still do), Thriller came out; I liked the video but don’t think I cared much about the music one way or the other. A lot of musical likes were inevitably more to do with context (or videos) than anything else; I quite liked Huey Lewis and the News, because of Back To The Future, I hated ‘Money For Nothing’ by Dire Straits (still do) because of the video and the band’s appearance (and, naturally, the song itself). I quite liked Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’ because of the video (especially the claymation bit), I hated ‘Relax’ and ‘Two Tribes’, I didn’t like ‘Take On Me’ or its video, I quite liked The Police. I didn’t mind Spandau Ballet too much but didn’t like the way Tony Hadley held his microphone(!), I thought Whitney Houston was pretty but didn’t like ’I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ very much,… Those kinds of things. It wasn’t really until High school that I started liking (or hearing) things that weren’t in the charts or parent music.

*The intro to Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’ still has the power to make me feel simultaneously bored and tense, however.

Coming as soon as I get around to it; Part Two (btw, the stupid title pun refers to the neuropsychological term MEAMs – ‘music-evoked autobiographical memories’)

Just for fun: the ‘I know I heard it at the time’ playlist; in chronological order – which is not necessarily how they are in my memory – definitely not all recommendations or anything (to say the least!!), and absolutely not the songs I like best from that era – these are just the ones that most evoke my early and pre-teen childhood to me…

VOL 1: 1978 – 1986

Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights (1978)
Boney M – Brown Girl in the Ring (1978)
Blondie – Heart Of Glass (1978)
Fiddler’s Dram – Day Trip to Bangor (1979)
Pink Floyd – Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2 (1979)
Lipps Inc – Funkytown (1979)
The Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays (1979)
Gary Numan – Cars (1979)
Martha & the Muffins – Echo Beach (1980)
The Goombay Dance Band – Seven Tears (1980)
The Buggles – Video Killed the Radio Star (1980)
The Nolans – I’m In The Mood For Dancing (1980)
Bad Manners – Special Brew (1980)
Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Geno (1980) & Come On Eileen (1982)
The Pretenders – Brass In Pocket (1980)
Talking Heads – Once In A Lifetime (1980)
Adam And The Ants – Antmusic (1980)
Stevie Wonder – Happy Birthday (1980)
The Piranhas – Tom Hark (1980)
Chas & Dave – Rabbit (1980)
Ottawan – D.I.S.C.O. (1980)
Blondie – The Tide is High (1980)
OMD – Enola Gay (1980)
Diana Ross – Upside Down (1980)
Tony Basil – Mickey (1981)
Joe Dolce Music Theatre – Shaddap You Face (1981)
Altered Images – Happy Birthday (1981)
Aneka – Japanese Boy (1981)
Christopher Cross – Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do) (1981)
Shakin’ Stevens – Green Door (1981)
The J Geils Band – Centerfold (1981)
Musical Youth – Pass The Dutchie (1982)
Duran Duran – Hungry Like The Wolf (1982)
Thomas Dolby – She Blinded Me With Science (1982) and Hyperactive! (1984)
Kid Creole & The Coconuts – Annie I’m Not Your Daddy (1982)
The Belle Stars – Sign Of The Times (1982)
Michael Jackson – Beat It (1982)
Renee & Renato – Save Your Love (1982)
New Edition – Candy Girl (1983)
David Bowie – Modern Love (1983)
Depeche Mode – Everything Counts (1983)
Mike Oldfield – Moonlight Shadow (1983)
Herbie Hancock – Rockit (1983)
Status Quo – Marguerita Time (1983)
Nena – 99 Red Balloons (1983)
Spandau Ballet – To Cut A Long Story Short (1981) & Gold (1983)
The Cure – The Love Cats (1983)
Deniece Williams – Let’s Hear It For The Boy (1984)
The Specials – Nelson Mandela (1984)
Madonna – Material Girl (1984)
Harold Faltermeyer – Axel F (1984)
Philip Bailey with Phil Collins – Easy Lover (1984)
Rockwell – Somebody’s Watching Me (1984)
Nik Kershaw – I Won’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me (1984)
Chaka Khan – I Feel For You (1984)
Murray Head – One Night In Bangkok (1984)
Ashford & Simpson – Solid As A Rock (1984)
Giorgio Moroder & Philip Oakey – Together in Electric Dreams (1984)
Russ Abbot – Atmosphere (1984)
Falco – Rock Me Amadeus (1985)
Cyndi Lauper – Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough (1985)
DeBarge – Rhythm Of The Night (1985)
Five Star – System Addict (1985)
Diana Ross – Chain Reaction (1985)
Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer (1986)
Suzanne Vega – Left of Center (1986)
Farley ‘Jackmaster’ Funk – Love Can’t Turn Around (1986)
Steve Winwood – Higher Love (1986)
Jermaine Stewart – We Don’t have To Take Our Clothes Off (1986)
Psychedelic Furs – Pretty In Pink (1986 – re-release)

and so many more….

Copy? Compliment? Coincidence? Incestuous album covers!

Firstly; if you’re looking at this because of the word ‘incestuous’, shame on you! Anyway, for a variety of reasons, lots of album covers seem to pay tribute to/copy/look like lots of other ones, which is what this is all about.

In the early days of shellac and then vinyl records the sleeve was mainly used to advertise either the record label or sometimes the retailer of the disc within.

But this isn’t a history of picture sleeves, interesting though that would be. Once there were music stars who people recognised the faces of, the sleeve became a promotional tool in a far more specific way than before. The main reason initially for ‘lookalike’ sleeves was presumably that artists and/or record labels hoped (and still do) that something that worked for someone else will work for them, artistically and financially and possibly creates a link between the artists in the buyer’s mind. Then there are those who sincerely wish to pay tribute to one of their influences, those who are just unconsciously doing so, and those artists who share a background in a genre/culture etc, and…. well; lots of reasons. Some examples…

1. Blondie – Blondie (Private Stock, 1976) & Kim Wilde – Kim Wilde (RAK, 1981)

By 1981, Blondie were no longer a cult, punky act, but international superstars. What better inspiration for a kind of pop pastiche of the new wave sound? In comparison with Blondie, Wilde’s first album is pretty pretty weak, though it does have some great songs on it; if you think Kids In America is great.

2. Kiss – Destroyer (Casablanca, 1976) & Manowar – Fighting the World (Atco, 1987)

Kiss were tongue-in-cheek cartoonish macho hard rock. Manowar were cartoonish macho metal that was either so completely tongue-in-cheek that they refused to acknowledge the humour of their whole image or else were deadly serious, which is kinda scary; but either way pretty ace. Consciously or not, surely a manly tribute to ‘the old gods’

3. Elvis Presley – Loving You (RCA Victor, 1957) & many, many others including Fabian – The Fabulous Fabian (Chancellor, 1959) and Bryan Ferry – These Foolish Things (Virgin, 1973)

Right from the start, Elvis’ album covers were to create the iconography of pop/rock music, imitated for commercial reasons by his imitators & later paid homage to by artists who grew up with Elvis as the face of rock ‘n’ roll (see also Elvis’ debut album & The Clash’s London Calling)

4. Joni Mitchell – Blue (Reprise, 1971) & Marianne Faithful – Broken English (Island, 1979)

Probably coincidental, but both albums are the definitive releases of iconic female singers & were to an extent departures from their previous work, both are good and both pictures are blue innit. Also, although they are both self-consciously posing for a picture, neither artist was concerned with trading on their looks in the way that record labels have traditionally done with both female and male artists (see Elvis etc) from the 1950s onwards.

5. Carpathian Forest – Through Chasm, Caves & Titan Woods (Avantgarde Music, 1995) & Wongraven – Fjelltronen (Moonfog, 1995)

Not exactly a coincidence; both bands used the same picture by Norwegian folkloric artist Theodor Kittelsen (1857-1914), iconic in the black metal scene ever since his drawing Fattigmannen was adopted by Varg Vikernes for Burzum’s Hvis Lyset Tar Oss in 1994

6. Jan & Dean and Friends- The Heart & Soul of Jan & Dean & Friends (Design Records, 1964) & Mel Torme – I’ve Got The World On A String (Allegro, 1964?)

A strange one, presumably these were both budget releases & the labels sourced the attractive but irrelevant artwork from an image library.

7. The Beatles – Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Parlophone, 1967) & The Rolling Stones – Their Satanic Majesties Request (Decca, 1967)

A notorious pairing, the Stones, famously at a bit of a dead end, tried to emulate the feel & popularity of Sgt Pepper with the extremely lavish holographic (etc) artwork of Satanic Majesties, but it didn’t really work. A much better album than it’s reputed to be however.

8. David Bowie – Aladdin Sane (RCA, 1973) & Jobriath – Creatures of the Street (Elektra, 1974)

It’s fair to say that Jobriath was influenced by Bowie in pretty much every aspect of his early recording career, but although Creatures… (mentioned elsewhere in this blog) is an interesting but not great LP, the front cover is, alas, just a little bit ridiculous by comparison with Bowie at his iconic peak.

9. The Byrds – Mr Tambourine Man (Columbia, 1965) & The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced (Track Records, 1967)

This comparison really traces the advance of psychedelia from a mild distortion of perception to a neon-coloured hallucination over the two years 1965-67

10. The Smiths – The Smiths (Rough Trade, 1984) & UK indie music in general (here; The Wedding Present – George Best (Reception Records, 1987) & Belle & Sebastian – The Boy With The Arab Strap (Jeepster, 1998)

The Smiths (mainly, one presumes, Morrissey) cared about the appearance of their records in a way that few artists have, and the relatively brief period of their recording career (83-87) means that their oeuvre has a unified completeness which is both rare and pleasing; presumably if they had gone on forever they would have tried something new at some point. The look (as well as the sound) of The Smiths had an immediate and lasting impact on the UK indie scene; although The Wedding Present (often characterised as the Smiths fans’ second favourite band)’s classic George Best doesn’t look especially like a Smiths album, the whole aesthetic seems to come from a similar (if slightly less glamorous) source. Stuart Murdoch of Belle & Sebastian seems to have, like Morrissey, a complete vision for the way his band should be and to date the B&S discography has a distinctive (and slightly Smiths-like) appearance. A good proportion of UK indie sleeves still have a very post-Smiths appearance (as does the output of the great My Little Airport from Hong Kong)

11.. Iron Maiden – Number of the Beast (EMI, 1982) & Megadeth – Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying (Capitol, 1986)

Iron Maiden’s Eddie has influenced the covers of thousands of heavy metal LPs throughout the 80s (and to the present day) but Megadeth’s Vic Rattlehead is probably the most blatant homage & Peace Sells… is probably their best album cover of the era.

12. Bob Dylan – Bob Dylan (Columbia, 1962) & Donovan – What’s Bin Did and What’s Bin Hid (Pye, 1965)

Despite their essentially very different styles, Pye Records was determined to use the surface similarities between the two young folksters to promote Donovan as the British Bob Dylan and to that end, What’s Bin Did… features an informal Dylanesque photo as its cover image.

13. Poison – Look What The Cat Dragged In (Capitol, 1986) & Dogs D’Amour – In The Dynamite Jet Saloon (China Records, 1988)

Although the rougher, more rock ‘n’ roll-glam oriented Dogs D’Amour were less influenced by Poison than bands like Tigertailz were, the layout of their least all-over-the-place album is, by accident or design, a scuzzy-glam echo of Poison’s more Hollywood-looking debut.

14. Randy Newman – Randy Newman (Reprise, 1968) & Elton John – Elton John (DJM, 1970)

It may be no coincidence that Elton John, with one not-massively-successful album behind him and a few years away from his outrageous glam-era costumes etc should seemingly model the cover of this, his breakthrough album, on Randy Newman; dour, unflamboyant , thus far critically and commercially neglected, but already an artist’s artist. It worked better for Elton.

15. Carnivore – Retaliation (Roadrunner, 1987) & Sodom – Persecution Mania (Steamhammer, 1987)

Presumably a coincidence, both of these albums are speed metal classics, although Carnivore are less well remembered than Sodom (who, to be fair are still going). The passing resemblance of these covers probably says as much about the atmosphere of the Cold War era as it does about metal.

16. The Beatles – With The Beatles (Parlophone, 1963) & The Nazz – Nazz (SGC, 1968)

As with the aforementioned Elvis sleeves, every picture of The Beatles in their early years was influential, and none more so than the cool, simple sleeve for With The Beatles. Even so, it’s somewhat surprising to see its influence lingering as late as the psychedelic era, when Todd Rundgren’s Nazz released their debut (which arguably is modelled on the early covers of The Rolling Stones as much as The Beatles. But then the early Stones albums wouldn’t have looked as they do without The Beatles either.

17. The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers (Rolling Stones, 1971) and Mötley Crüe – Too Fast For Love (Leathür Records, 1981)

Although only a passing similarity, Motley Crue inherited much of their spirit and attitude from the Stones and the cover of their debut is appropriately a more in-your-face updating of the classic Stones artwork.

18. David Bowie – “Heroes” (RCA, 1977) & Iggy Pop – The Idiot (RCA, 1977)

Not a coincidence, Bowie & Iggy Pop worked closely in their Berlin period & both were influenced by German Expressionism, here in particular by Erich Heckel’s painting Roquairol. Iggy’s album is a bit better than Bowie’s though; if only he had worked with Eno!

19. Kate Bush – Never For Ever (EMI, 1980) & Toyah – Anthem (Safari, 1981)

Anthem was probably Toyah’s best album; a nice mix of post-punk and new wave/synth pop influences, but despite her strong image she was never as individual or idiosyncratic as Kate Bush, although the fairytale-ish album cover suggests some similarity.

20. Charles Lloyd – Geeta (A&M, 1973) & Weather Report – Black Market (Columbia, 1976)

Charles Lloyd started out as a pretty standard post-Coltrane bop-saxophone player, specialising in ‘chamber jazz’, but by the early 70s he, like jazz in general, had become interested in fusion and elements of world music, reflected in the artwork for Geeta. That was pretty much where Weather Report came in, and although mostly Miles Davis influenced, Black Market has, coincidentally or not, a certain Charles Lloyd-ish quality.

21. Witchfynde – Give ‘Em Hell (Rondelet, 1980) & Venom – Black Metal (Neat, 1981)

More a case of shared influences than anything else, both Witchfynde and Venom came from the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal and had an interest in the occult and biker rock. Cheap, effective visuals were pretty much an essential part of the NWOBHM, with even early Iron Maiden artwork having a somewhat rough & ready charm.

22. Tigertailz – Young & Crazy (Music For Nations, 1987) & Britny Fox – Britny Fox (Columbia, 1988)

>It’s slightly unlikely that foppish Rococo glamsters Britny Fox would be influenced by Wales’ super-glam Tigertailz, but both bands, despite their idiosyncracies, were drawing from a pool of shared glamorous male influences, going back in pop music to the 70s, but historically back to 16th (and in the case of Britny fox, specifically the 17th/18th) century.

23. The Rolling Stones – Rolling Stones No. 2 (Decca, 1965) & The Dead Boys – We Have Come For Your Children (Sire, 1978)

Arguably the Stones cover here has its roots in With The Beatles, but the Stones brought their own surly charisma to the style and it was this that The Dead Boys channelled for their version of (in this case punk) rock, and the cover for their second album seems to pay homage to the Rolling Stones’ second.

24. Mayhem – Live In Leipzig (Obscure Plasma, 1993) & Darkthrone – Transilvanian Hunger (Peaceville, 1994)

Strictly this should be a comparison of Live in Leipzig with Darkthrone’s A Blaze in the Northern Sky (1992), but although A Blaze... pre-dated the release of the Mayhem album (recorded in 1990), the cover picture of Per Yngve “Dead” Ohlin used for the release of Live in Leipzig was well known in the Norwegian black metal underground and indeed, photographs of early Mayhem were, despite King Diamond, Sarcofago etc, pretty much the basis for the 90s Norwegian black metal aesthetic.

25. Jobriath – Jobriath (Elektra, 1973) & David Bowie – Diamond Dogs (RCA, 1974)

Although it seems unlikely (to say the least) that Bowie would be influenced by Jobriath, there is a slight passing resemblance between the excellent, slightly creepy gatefold artwork of Jobriath’s much hyped but unsuccessful debut and Bowie’s superlative dark glam masterpiece; possibly more to do with a shared influence of traditions of depicting the male nude than anything else.

26. David Bowie – Ziggy Stardust era appearance (1972-4) & Leslie R McKeown – All Washed Up (Ego Trip, 1978)

Although not based on any single image of Bowie, ex-Bay City Rollers frontman Les McKeown’s first solo album & singles showcased an image clearly based on the glam-era Bowie of a few years earlier.

27. Venom – Welcome To Hell (Neat, 1981) & Dødheimsgard – Monumental Possession (Malicious, 1995)

Hardly a coincidence; a large part of black metal’s satanic iconography was brought to the genre by its inventors, and the cover of Venom’s debut has been paid homage to by metal in general more times than almost any other image apart from Iron Maiden’s Eddie

28. David Bowie (again) – Space Oddity (RCA, 1972 reissue) & Marc Bolan & T-Rex – Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow (EMI, 1974)

It’s no surprise to see as visual an artist as Bowie featuring repeatedly in this list, but here he seems to have influenced his glam predeccesor and friendly rival Marc Bolan; Whereas earlier T-Rex albums had pioneered Bolan’s fey/fairytale glam image, by ’74 his music had become tired and limited (and ego-centric; T-Rex was now appended to the artist’s name rather than being an entity in its own right) in comparison with that of his old friend Bowie, and Zinc Alloy ( yep :/ ) was all-too-transparently influenced by Ziggy Stardust. The cover, however, seems more influenced by Bowie’s covers for Aladdin Sane and the glam-era reissue of his 1969 album, retitled Space Oddity. Given the slight deterioration of Bolan’s pixie-like charm, Zinc Alloy is unfortunately a less than bewitching or otherworldly sleeve.

29. Steeler – Strike Back (SPV, 1986), Helter Skelter – Welcome to the World of Helter Skelter (Metronome, 1988) & Pretty Boy Floyd – Leather Boyz With Electric Toyz (MCA 1989)

Presumably coincidence based on the common language of 80’s metal (but ultimately traceable back to Kiss in the mid-70s), both Helter Skelter and Pretty Boy Floyd’s late 80s glam-pop masterpieces have ludicrous paintings of the artists on them, very similar in style to German metallists Steeler’s 1986 opus Strike Back. Strangely, the Helter Skelter painting is by Games Workshop legend John Blanche, better known for the kind of dark fantasy images used in Warhammer etc (but also showcased on the cover of Sabbat’s classic UK thrash album History of a Time to Come.) The sleeve for Strike Back seems to be the first updating of this kind of thing since the classic Ken Kelly Kiss covers(!) from the 70s (see above).

30. Eric Carmen – Eric Carmen (Arista, 1975) & John Travolta – Can’t let You Go (Midland, 1977)

Ex-Raspberries frontman Eric Carmen’s debut solo album is best remembered for ‘All By Myself‘, but it was a strong album that revealed an excellent songwriter and performer with an eclectic range, from the Brian Wilson-esque ‘Sunrise‘ to the near-classical arrangement of that famous hit. John Travolta’s Can’t let You Go was released just as the young actor became a star with Saturday Night Fever and is, not surprisingly wet, bland, funky disco-lite with some soppy ballads thrown in. The covers of both albums showcase the sensitive (and in Travolta’s case, nakedly vulnerable) side of the young stars.

31. Cheap Trick – In Color…and in Black & White (Epic, 1977) & M

ötley Crüe – Girls, Girls, Girls (Elektra, 1987)

Ten years on from Cheap Trick’s In Color… one of the great hard/pop-rock albums of all time, came one of Mötley Crüe’s best, at the time notable for a (slight) toning down of the band’s glam image. The Crüe cover lacks the humour of Cheap Trick’s (admittedly not really evident in the front image only; the back cover has the band’s two quirkier-looking members on non-motor cycles), but is iconic in its own decadent, 80s way….

32. Pink Floyd – Animals (EMI/Harvest, 1977) & The Orb – The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld (Big Life, 1991)

An explicit homage, Dr Alex Patterson’s original vision for The Orb was inseparable from the psychedelic explorations of Pink Floyd. Admittedly, by 1977, the spirit of the prog legends’ optimistic experimentation had mostly evaporated, but the Animals sleeve, with its giant inflatable pig drifting over Battersea Power Station remains an iconic, dreamlike and good-natured image which, by 1991 seemed ripe for an update.

33. Genesis – A Trick of the Tail (Charisma, 1976) & FFWD – FFWD (Inter-Modo, 1994)

As with The Orb’s music above, FFWD (Robert Fripp, Thomas Fehlmann, Kris Weston, and Dr. Alex Paterson)’s 1994 ambient/prog/experimental album bears a resemblance (only slight in this case) to an album which was fundamentally different from the prog that inspired it. Indeed, the FFWD album seems to be influenced more by the ambient works of Eno than by a progressive band like Genesis (or Fripp’s King Crimson for that matter), but there is at times an atmosphere of pastoral whimsy that recollects the Peter Gabriel-era Genesis of Nursery Cryme or Foxtrot, far removed from the glossy, accessible rock of the Phil Collins-led Trick of the Tail. But that album’s cover has an archetypical prog feel, even if the album doesn’t, and so does the sleeve of FFWD.

FIN