Leisure Reading

Right now I am involved in a research project in a graduate program that I really don’t want to do but now have to, so I’m planning on spending my free time from that and work by reading about music and pop culture. I just finished reading Killing Yourself To Live by Chuck Klosterman and before that, Fargo Rock City by the same author. They were both pretty good. The relationship discussions in Killing Yourself To Live were a bit tiresome, but even Chuck commented on how the reader would probably have that impression, so I guess I give him credit for realizing that. His comments on pop culture though are dead-on.

I’ve moved on to two different books, 100 Best Album Covers: The Stories Behind the Sleeves and Kill Your Idols: A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsiders the Classics. Here’s my problem with the album cover book, the list is international. Even if Itakura, Konishi, Shigeto, Ba Na Na & Wakui (compilation album of little-known Japanese artists) has the most killer album cover, I really don’t care to know the details behind its conception. There are a couple of standout album covers by bands I am familiar with in the book. Some examples are Prodigy’s The Fat of the Land, Prince’s Lovesexy, The Rolling Stones’ Some Girls, and The Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill. There are also some you just know will be included like Nirvana’s Nevermind, The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers, and David Bowie’s Pin-Ups. My favorite from the book is The Clash’s London Calling. What a classic cover. What I didn’t know before reading this book is that the pink and green lettering on London Calling was an homage to Elvis Presley’s first album cover.

It got me to thinking about album covers that made an impression on me, not the best album covers, but ones that defined scary to me as a child. There are a couple that came to mind in no particular order:

Edgar Winter – They Only Come Out At Night
I don’t remember how old I was when I saw this album in a store, but it is one of my earliest memories. It scared the daylights out of me and still does. I have no idea what the music is like by this artist, according to the reviews on Amazon, it’s “smokin” and scared the heck out of more people than just me.

Kiss – Destroyer/Alive/Love Gun/Kiss/Rock and Roll All Over/Dressed to Kill/Double Platinum/Hotter than Hell/Alive II
My older brothers were huge Kiss fans, and they had all of these albums. When I was eight years old these all scared me, but I also found myself sneaking into their room to pour over every inch of the Kiss album covers, posters, etc. until my brother, M would smack me upside the head and tell me to get out. --J