The Sigla Blog

I’m a sucker for a great album sleeve. CDs just aren’t the same with their diminutive, squeezed up versions. There’s just no comparison to full 12″ cover, especially when I think of one I included in a list of all time favourites, Dead Can Dance’s ‘Spleen and Ideal’. The CD image isn’t nearly as dramatic as the larger, vinyl cover.

So there are some good, but mostly unimaginative covers - and then there’s the realm of the downright insane, cheesy and bizarre. My brother mailed me these to send on to my Dad, another vinyl aficionado and who I definitely got my early love of music from. There are literally thousands of albums on vinyl creaking on the shelves in my house, but very few of them can match the fromage or strangeness of some of these, and then there’s the laugh out loud Spinal Tap-esque ‘Boned - Up at the Crack’.

I’m also very intrigued by the ‘Thank You For The Dove’ cover. It’s a thing of beauty indeed, but completely bonkers - I don’t even thing the songs on it are even hymns. Most of the ones I was sent (alas too numerous to include) have some weird pseudo-spirituality thing going on. The sort of Catholic propaganda stuff that you could get away with years ago when we all still lived in dark ages, eg Ireland pre-late 1980s. ‘Thank You For The Dove’ is a sort of Holy Spirit antidote to Louvin’s ‘Satan is Real’ cover. A classic fire and brimstone this-is-what’ll-happen-to-you-if-you don’t-go-to-mass/use-condoms/visual scare tactic.

What - pardon the pun - the bloody hell is that all about?