Category ART AND ABOUT

1975 COUNTDOWN | #20 — #11

#20 BETTY DAVIS — NASTY GAL Paradoxically, Nasty Gal is Betty Davis’s fiercest and most polished record. Produced by Davis herself, it fuses hard funk with glam-inflected edge: serrated guitar riffs, tight horn stabs over a rhythm section that struts and swaggers. Davis’s vocals are raw, confrontational and defiantly sexual, pushing beyond the already bold […]

1975 JAZZ | #20 — #11

It is not entirely clear whether 1975 was an exceptional year for jazz or whether Vinyl Connection was simply more into the form at this time. Either way, it was quite a struggle to reduce the contenders to twenty. Those who are unmoved by America’s gift to music may still find things to enjoy in […]

1975 COUNTDOWN | PROLOGUE

What do you remember about 1975? Were you even born? Was your world dominated by mother’s breast, or were you starting your first job? Attending kindergarten or enrolling at uni? Doing calisthenics or marching against the Vietnam war? What music was rocking your world… or has wormed its way into your cultural landscape over the […]

ALBUM COVERS… MORE RECORDS

A further collection of album covers featuring vinyl records. * The southern hemisphere enters Spring, soon to be followed by Don’t-leave-vinyl-in-your-car season. This alternate melting moment cover from New Zealand is far superior to the original. Heat Wave — Too Hot To Handle [GTO 1976] * The original UK release of this compilation of the […]

ALBUM COVERS… WITH RECORDS!

A collection of album covers featuring vinyl records. * Let’s start globally, shall we? Van Der Graaf have it large with a record the size of the earth. VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR — World Record  [1976] * Despite it being a record obsessive’s nightmare, I do love this cover (which is not by Hipgnosis). The […]

ALBUM COVERS | PASSPORT

German musician and band leader Klaus Doldinger formed Passport in 1970. With a strong jazz base, they were innovative and exploratory, creating a European jazz-rock with pronounced progressive tendencies. In addition to playing saxophone, Doldinger also played piano and was an early adopter of synthesisers in jazz. When pianist Kristian Schultze joined, the keyboard became […]

ALBUM COVERS | FLAPS 2

There were a couple of leftovers from the first “Flaps” album cover post. Add in some suggestions from the Wordiverse with a special shoutout to CB for the first entry here) plus one I remembered at 3am and voila! …Part 2 beckons. * The humble—and now, sadly, totally redundant—postcard has been used for album covers […]

ALBUM COVERS | FLAPS

They fold, they open, they arise, they reveal. Those hinged bits of  a record sleeve that give you something to study—or play with—while the disc spins. Here are some favourites. * US rockers Grin featured Neil Young collaborator and (later) Bruce Springsteen guitar slinger Nils Lofgren. What’s behind the toothy smile? Why gums, of course. […]

ALBUM COVERS | PG+

Peter Gabriel. PG. Left Genesis after The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, telling his bandmates of his decision during the extensive tour for that album. Spent a couple of years largely out of the spotlight, before releasing his first solo album, Peter Gabriel, in 1977. The album cover was created by Hipgnosis. Just over a […]

ALBUMS COVERS | WOMEN IN MUSIC

As mentioned previously, I’ve been transitioning from IG to Bluesky. A March “Vinyl Challenge” caught my eye. Using the grammatically clunky (but instructive) hashtag #31GreatWomenMusicians, the idea is to post one artist a day for the month. It has been such fun delving into the Vinyl Connection Collection that I thought I’d share a few, […]