Rolling on the Stones wave currently breaking on the golden beaches of th' IoF©, here's a composite of the originally-planned front cover to Satanic Majesties. Tony Meeuwissen painted the "elements" border [but never got paid - Ed.] to frame Michael Cooper's cosmic Santa's Grotto, but it was relegated to the back cover in a major failure of art direction. That blue sky/clouds deal looks like a last-minute print shop paste-up. This is far richer and psyched-up.
The 3D lenticular image - the largest ever, at the time - was always a pain in th' ass. It never worked as well as it should - we can supply our own blurring, thank you - and non-3D sleeves lack a reference standard square format print to work from.
Color balance is shot [see early print at left - Ed.] and cropping is a problem (above example is cropped too close, with only George and John's faces visible). But still, it's a *cough* classic iconic front cover to a great album, which, it's worth noting, was recorded during the same period as Sgt. Pepper, and concurrently during February, March, and April of '67. It's not like the Stones sat around waiting for something to copy - Majesties is as of its time as Pepper, and in no way behind it.
The version linked in the comments is the uber-swell 2017 stereo, with the (2012 master) We Love You b/w Dandelion single sliding into its rightful place (not just nailed to the bottom edge).
And here - because I can - is what the cover might have looked like with a Gered Mankowitz shot taken at Primrose Hill, 1967. Note how design gains strength from simple, masterwork portrait, not fighting frame for attention. Note how natural themes connect image and frame. Note how wintry ambience offers fitting counterpoint to Summer Of Love. Note how Billy Shears never played with the Stones.
A splendid time is guaranteed for all.
ReplyDeleteNot Stones, this!
DeleteCarlos Henrique Xavier Endo, he has spoken!
DeleteOr not! I drove over the Sierra Nevada in a BLINDING WHITE OUT snowstorm with Satanic Majesties as the soundtrack. AT NIGHT. My windshield washer fluid ran out, so the windshield was a blurry brown mess, with cliffs on both sides of the car. To the left a plummet, to the right, granite. This was over DONNER PASS...The fact that my mother's Maid of Honor at her wedding was one of the cannibal Breens was ever on my mind!
ReplyDeleteHey...I can get why this is their "worst album of the 60s..." but it has it's charms! I sure wasn't "spooked" by listening to it on a harrowing drive!
The Stones never made their "worst album of the sixties."
DeleteI do recall racing out to purchase Between The Buttons in 1967. Perhaps I was still stuck in "blues mode" but I couldn't help but feel disappointed by their latest effort. To myself, it felt as if the Stones had run out of gas after the constant touring. However, they rolled back in triumph with Beggars Banquet.
Delete"The Stones never made their "worst album of the sixties.""
DeleteThey sure caught up on that in the Seventies (arguably), the Eighties (definitely) and anything from the Nineties on can pretty much only be seen as reminders that, yes, this band still brings up new stuff from time to time. Surprisingly good stuff, sometimes, but the Stones as a true working band with regular albums pretty much died sometime around Dirty Work or Steel Wheels...
They really slowed up after a few decades, didn't they?
DeleteHere's the evidence.
Game Set Match
DeleteThe Beatles had a few clunkers themselves. Still would have bought their 80's +........
Cheers
ObeygravitY
Between the Buttons...now there's a real stinker. As far as I know, the band never played a single song from it (the UK version, that is) live.
DeleteIf it was a horse, it'd be sold for glue.
Dame Roberta Christgau, adjusting her snood, deemed it "among the greatest rock albums", but this is clearly wrong. Neither is it the swaybacked nag you're looking at. I'd rather have it than not, and the US version gets stacked on the autochange spindle from time to time. I'm not the person to ask, anyway - I like every album the Stones ever made.
DeleteBetween the Buttons doesn't have any monster hits or classic repertoire songs but it's nicely eclectic, doing a bit of everything, and is perfectly acceptable as a second row, time-filler type album any longstanding band has. Sue me, I like "Connection" and "She Smiled Sweetly", for example.
DeleteThis album IS a serious labor of sincere experimentation! Not just naive flower power innocence! I can imagine that many first generation Stones fans may have thought they were watching Dylan go electric at Newport. THAT's why it is so great. The group wasn't about to go ANYWHERE that was expected of them. They seemed to understand that there were NO limits to visionary music. Farq's write up is VERY enlightening as the band WAS NOT trying to make their own Sgt. Pepper. In that regard, I consider the album's vulnerability to have been the employ of Michael Cooper. He couldn't be bothered to bring some new unpublished photos of the fab four...it looks as hurried as the airbrushed painting of the moon to have simply cut up an actual inner gatefold of the Sgt. Pepper album. The Beatles weren't needed for any of the proceedings. Much of the music was superior to much of the fab four's album. It even had more of a conceptual context than did Sgt. Pepper. So, the use of his own familiar work was just diluting the wine...when the photos could have been truly hidden and the gratitude so much more meaningful. I also agree about the 'elements' belonging on the front cover instead of the overused inner sleeve artwork. The labyrinth/maze and the rest of the gatefold interior could have been scrapped with positive effect. A single sleeve would have been better. Why is the artwork the subject of this rant? Because the album is awesome...one of a kind...and way too short. The sitar phase was already behind them and they did more with less than The Beatles. They had no George Martin...no Peter Blake! And the album still proves there is a cosmic realm to be found if the spirit is willing to let the flesh forego the WEAKness!
ReplyDeleteA finger pointing to the moon? Who needs Earth when you own the moon and stars!
The Beginning!!!
'gratitude'...HOMAGE
DeleteJimi Hendrix dressed as Sgt. Pepper before the Beatles. Hendrix had a visual impact like nobody else. So intense, so vivid - it was *him*, not a styling exercise.
DeleteHendrix WAS the real thing. He not only never wore the same clothes twice but he was truly riding a wave that was purely UNIVERSAL electricity. He didn't know or care if it would ever break. The word Freedom never fit any individual the way that he let it radiate from his person and from his thoughts. That the guitar was his conduit, it sometimes keeps people from seeing that he understood everything...not just playing a particular role but being able to stay in the NOW which is the most important part of living, loving, breathing. I really don't know how he coped with his own coolness.
Delete*hushed golf applause*
Deletebtb to my ears the mono version of this album with the red border has way better sound than any of the stereo mixes
ReplyDeleteThanks for stepping up to the plate with the "mono better than stereo" comment, Rick! Both mixes sound fine to me, but, you know, it's a psychedelic album. I like sounds swooshing through my head.
Deletein general I agree nut bot this one
Deletegeez ''but not''
DeleteAck...my mom is gonna kill me when she reads this...my mom's maid of honor was not one of the "cannibal Breens" but one of their DESCENDENTS. Not the same thing at all! The rant about the artwork is "on point." Why do we compare it with Sgt. Pepper's Etc.? Well, there is a SIMILARITY in the layout and look of the LP cover. I remember looking at the unusual lenticular cover at Mortensen's Drug Store and deciding I was definitely, definitely, going to take drugs as soon as I could find some. I was 11 years old.
ReplyDelete"I remember looking at the unusual lenticular cover at Mortensen's Drug Store and deciding I was definitely, definitely, going to take drugs as soon as I could find some. I was 11 years old."
DeleteGreat!
We were in a small, agricultural town 30 miles due east of the intersection of Haight and Ashbury. Punching a third bore through the Berkeley Hills in '64 opened up the area to suburban development; in six years, we went from 5,000 to 50,000 in population and everything that had been happening on the "other side" of the Hills spilled over...Owlsey had a low-rent lab in Orinda...the property is now worth $2.2 million... So. Yeah. A generation of farm kids looked at what was happening in the Summer of Love, and said, "Count me in."
DeleteI also remember looking at Moby Grape's "Wow," the first It's A Beautiful Day LP in the rack at Mortensen's Drug Store...which held, btw...about 30 LPs, total...it was a different world. In the 70s...we used to ride bicycles into Berkeley...note that this was 15 miles in each direction with a 1,700 foot hill in the way...to buy LPs.
DeleteThat "third bore" (third eye) was punched right through. Nobody who was not alert to it at the time can have any idea what was happening. Even those it was happening to didn't understand, and it's still misunderstood today. It started for me with Kerouac, read before I ever heard Sgt. Pepper. Furthur was *out there*, and I was *in here*, longing to get out. I spent decades trying to punch through (with many heavyweight LSD knockouts). What were we rebelling against? What you got? I didn't want what my Dad wanted, what my Dad had set up for me, threw it right back in his face. Now, finally, I live in Furthur, in a sense. If I cross the Mekong it would be like going back the other way around. I'm watching the wind blow the trees, listening to the windchimes, a puppy asleep at my feet, my wife baking bread, old age occupying my body like an uninvited guest bringing dubious gifts. One last dose of acid (made by an MIT professor for his own use) on the shelf next to Buddha, my Dad's ashes long swept downriver to the sea.
DeleteFurthur is always Furthur. What was far out is still far out. You're blessed if you know that, and never alone.
That is beautiful, Mr. FTIII. Especially this line "old age occupying my body like an uninvited guest bringing dubious gifts". I don't know if it's yours, or you heard it somewhere, but I'll steal it wholesale.
DeletePut it in free verse, it's a poem. Fuck let's try it out
IN FURTHUR
If I cross the Mekong it would be like
going back the other way around.
I'm watching the wind blow the trees,
listening to the windchimes, a puppy
asleep at my feet, my wife baking bread,
old age occupying my body like an uninvited guest
bringing dubious gifts.
One last dose of acid on the shelf next to Buddha,
my Dad's ashes long swept downriver to the sea.
Furthur is always Furthur.
What was far out is still far out.
You're blessed if you know that,
and never alone.
Thank you OBG, that's very kind of you. It's mine. Words - in a very real sense - is my business.
DeleteIt's a privilege to read your literary musings that seem to flow so easily from your fingertips and to be your internet pal, pal * akward man hug*
DeleteWhat with you being a famo...semi-famo...known... author.
We're still waiting for your novel as a blog read in about 478 parts...
My last novel (last in every sense) was submitted to nearly sixty agents in the UK and the US. Submissions are usually the first two or three chapters and a synopsis. Not one agent responded with a wish to read. Agents are looking for books within very narrow parameters, and I no longer fit, nor does my book.
DeleteI'm not going to "e-publish" - it would just join the hundreds of thousands of books hopeful authors can't give away. E-publishing is not the future of novel writing.
If you, or any other of the Four Or Five Guys© wish to read it, send an email to bc427a at gee mail dot com. I'd appreciate it if you could use your real name, as I will in my reply. It's a mobi file, if you need different, please specify.
"Furthur is always Furthur. What was far out is still far out. You're blessed if you know that, and never alone."
DeleteA trip to the Isle is always worthwhile
Cheers
obEygraVity
It pleases me to be in such good company even while lurking in the shadows a little ways off from the warmth of the fire here in the underbrush. One hand claps (while the other tightens its grip on the blade now pulled from its sheath).
DeleteWrite another piece, MrDave, FFS.
DeleteBTW...mom is real, she's 97. Still doesn't understand what happened in psychedelic 60s.
ReplyDeleteNor does anybody else.
DeleteRe: Primrose Hill shot...
ReplyDeleteFour planets and a meteor!
Or, is madness the fifth element?
Will the real gravity savant please fall down!
Many, many thanks.
ReplyDeleteFab grafix, Farq.
ReplyDeleteI was never a big fan of Sgt. Pepper or Satanic Majesties. However, both inspired me to volunteer in the "Acid Wars". Raise your hand if you remember Acid Apples and Sugar Cubes.
ReplyDelete"Miles Smiles", Shepp's "The Magic of Ju-Ju, McLean's "Demon's Dance" Trane's "Expression" all presented a more rewarding aural challenge in '67.
Did someone mention major failures in art direction? In 1984, the agency I was with had the Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro (a.k.a. Fritz and Tits) presidential campaign account. We did some lenticular buttons. We used Pictorial Productions of Mt. Vernon N.Y., who did Satanic Majesties. Vari-Vue was the trademark.
Vari-Vue™ has a fun site: http://vari-vue.com/
DeleteRemember 1967 my first pick up the first 2 albums i'd buy by myself Satanic and Sergent and since i'd always been BEATLES and Stones and not one VS the other.And soon THE BYRDS too and no other one american band at this times cause this was more singles era than lp but that changes fastly with the seventies...
ReplyDeleteIn 1967, whilst on holiday with my mates in Devon, I befriended this girl, as we do. We were discussing whether to buy Sgt Peppers or Pet Sounds. She went for the good Sergeant and I chose Pet Sounds. I've never regretted it as it led to my surfing career which took me several times around the world. Mind you, in the later years, I did manage to collect all the Stones and Beatles work...well, most of.
ReplyDeleteThere's a longer story here, and if you feel like writing a piece ...
Delete