February 19th, 2010 at 6:07PM
If I had to pick a favorite album (with the understanding that the word ‘favorite’ comes laden with context and history and whatever else you can imagine), it’d be this one. Thick As A Brick, by Jethro Tull (1972). The song (just one, mind you) is a 44-minute long opus, split in two only because there were no such things as mp3s back in 1972 and you had to “flip it to Side Two”. Part of the charm, of course, is the design and packaging of the original 12” long-playing disc. No other medium has ever had the content or heft or the tooth of the original. None had the racy connect-the-dot puzzle in the Family Fun Pages section. Some didn’t even have the room to show little Gerald’s chum there, “Julia”, glimpse of panties and all, which absolutely kills me. Says Wikipedia: The original LP cover was a spoof of a twelve by sixteen inch (305 by 406 mm) multipage local newspaper with stories, competitions, adverts, etc., lampooning the parochial and amateurish local journalism that still exists in many places today, as well as certain classical album covers. The “newspaper” also includes the entire lyrics to the song, and references to the lyrics are scattered throughout the articles. Pulled all this out today, so I thought I’d snap a few photos of the cover and insides and post them over here, for posterity.

If I had to pick a favorite album (with the understanding that the word ‘favorite’ comes laden with context and history and whatever else you can imagine), it’d be this one. Thick As A Brick, by Jethro Tull (1972).

The song (just one, mind you) is a 44-minute long opus, split in two only because there were no such things as mp3s back in 1972 and you had to “flip it to Side Two”. Part of the charm, of course, is the design and packaging of the original 12” long-playing disc. No other medium has ever had the content or heft or the tooth of the original. None had the racy connect-the-dot puzzle in the Family Fun Pages section. Some didn’t even have the room to show little Gerald’s chum there, “Julia”, glimpse of panties and all, which absolutely kills me.

Says Wikipedia:

The original LP cover was a spoof of a twelve by sixteen inch (305 by 406 mm) multipage local newspaper with stories, competitions, adverts, etc., lampooning the parochial and amateurish local journalism that still exists in many places today, as well as certain classical album covers. The “newspaper” also includes the entire lyrics to the song, and references to the lyrics are scattered throughout the articles.

Pulled all this out today, so I thought I’d snap a few photos of the cover and insides and post them over here, for posterity.

  1. jasonpermenter posted this
20 notes #Jethro Tull#Thick As A Brick#album cover#design#newspaper#satire
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