Grateful Dead Europe 72

This is one of my all-time favorite albums. I loved everything about the Grateful Dead, especially their artwork. The classic "steal your face" skull and lightning bolt, the terrapins on Terrapin Station, all of it iconic. This album is great and the art is too!

Billy Bragg Back to Basics Insert Art

Here, hold this trouble light.

I wish someone would pay me to do art.

I hope this is available in South Africa now, it's a great CD, two of Billy Bragg's first albums combined. Love this guy's music.

The Pizza Tapes Insert

I love this CD, and the album liner is clever- a takeout menu to commemorate the pizza delivery guy that swiped these tapes from Garcia's house. Jerry Garcia, David Grisman and Tony Rice jamming out, masters of their instruments. The Pizza Tapes, highly recommended!

Mouse from Phish CD Insert

I keep my scanner on "auto" and the scanner scanned this it's a small part of a larger page but I guess the scanner really liked it! 

Pearl Jam Even Flow Maxi CD Single

This was a CD single I bought in London in the early 1990s.  

The Pizza Tapes Insert

Here's the insert to the CD The Pizza Tapes, which is an amazing CD featuring David Grisman, Tony Rice and Jerry Garcia. This features cool pictures of each of the three awesome musicians and Grisman's telling of the tale of how these recordings had been stolen by a pizza guy and traded for years as bootlegs. Highly recommend this CD if you like bluegrass and folk root music.

The Pizza Tapes CD Insert

This is the cover and back cover of the Cd insert for The Pizza Tapes, an album by Jerry Garcia, David Grisman and Tony Rice. Great jammy bluegrass and traditional folk songs by three amazing musicians. The story behind the album is that a pizza delivery guy swiped the tapes of their session and they were legendary underground bootlegs until discovered somewhere and turned into this CD.

Grateful Dead Shakedown Street CD Cover

I loved all the Grateful Dead album art, they had the coolest graphics of any band ever. This looks like Robert Crumb but it's Gilbert Shelton. Love this album, it was produced by Lowell George of Little Feat and John Kahn. 

Dave Matthews Band Crash

Here's the thank you and credits page and some art from the booklet that came with Dave Matthews Crash. Loved this album!! Carter Beauford is the best drummer on the planet, and as much as Dave's vibe has become a pop culture joke, he wrote (and still writes) amazing songs.

Let It Be...

Here is a scan of some of the album art work for the Beatles Let It Be...Naked album.

Let It Be... Naked is an alternative mix of the Beatles' 1970 album Let It Be, released in 2003. The project was initiated by Paul McCartney, who felt that the original album's producer, Phil Spector, did not capture the group's stripped-down, back-to-their-roots intentions for the album.

I prefer this version of the album to the original, actually.

Led Zeppelin In Through the Out Door

This is not my favorite Led Zeppelin album, but I always liked it. Fool in the Rain is a great great song. (And All of my Love was the ultimate middle school dance song). 

This is the inside of the tiny booklet that came with the CD. The art work was the art work on the original vinyl sleeve. I seem to remember having heard that if you moistened the inner sleeve, the art filled in with color. I seem to remember gently moistening the sleeve with a sponge and subtle watercolor type colors appeared. 

I wasn't sure if that was true or a fever dream, so I googled it and it's true! I haven't tried it with the CD sleeve.... yet!

U2 All That You Can't Leave Behind

Here's a couple of pages from the little booklet that accompanies the U2 All That You Can't Leave Behind CD. 

This was a sneaky great album- In a Little While, Elevation, Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of, great great songs! The album was produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, two of my favorite music masterminds.

The Compact Disc Digital Audio System

The Compact Disc Digital Audio System offers the best possible sound reproduction - on a small convenient sound-carrier unit. The Compact Disc's remarkable performance is a result of a unique combination of digital playback with laser optics. For the best results you should apply the same care in storing and handling the Compact Disc as with conventional records. No further cleaning will be necessary if the Compact Disc is always held by the edges and is replaced in its case directly after playing. Should the compact Disc become soiled by fingerprints, dust or dirt, it can be wiped always in a straight line, from center to edge) with a clean and lint free soft, dry cloth, No solvent or abrasive cleaner should ever be used on the disc. If you follow these suggestions, the Compact Disc will provide a life time of pure listening enjoyment.

Led Zeppelin In Through the Out Door

Here's part of the CD insert for Led Zeppelin's great album, In Through the Out Door.

I did not know this, but there are six versions of this cover out there!

Automatic for the People

I always loved the title "Automatic for the people" which I believe comes from a restaurant's motto in Athens, Georgia (Weaver D's Delicious Fine Foods). I loved this album, truly inspired music from a great band. I've posted a couple of scans of this album already- the cover and a couple of the pages from the cool booklet that came with the CD I have. Here's a final scan from that booklet. (I note again that I believe in the importance of copywrite, so I present scans of things I own and will not post booklets etc in their entirety, if you want to see the whole booklet, go buy the CD!) :-)

Here are a couple more...

Here are a couple of scans from REM's great album Automatic for the People.

I really thought I would miss the album art and the liner notes and all the cool stuff that vinyl LP's used to have, then discovered clever artists making wonderful little booklets of art and lyrics and such to go with their compact discs. THIS is what I'll miss now that we're in the digital music era!

REM Automatic for the People

I've owned 45's, Vinyl LP's and even 78s. I owned a LOT of cassette tapes and yes, I own a LOT of CD's. I scanned some of the little books that came with CDs and will share some of the better art from them over the next few weeks.

 I love the digital music that is all around us, I can stream music in my car or while I walk down a street- no vinyl or cd's required, but some of the stuff that came with the CD's and the vinyl I miss- I know that digital music still has album art, but it's not as tangible as the old booklets and album covers.

This is absolutely one of my favorite albums and REM always had such great art associated with them. At the time, grunge and harder rock was all the rage in music and REM pops out a largely acoustic and beautiful Automatic for the People. I wore this out I swear!