Hundreds of record covers ranging from the unintentionally funny to the completely crazy feature in The Art of the Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve. Steve, from Yorkshire, has spent the last eight years collecting weird and wonderful vinyl covers from charity shops, record stores, car boot sales and online marketplaces across the globe.
The remarkable archive of covers includes Stai In Poala Mea by Romanian rock band Holograf, who are pictured using rabbits to cover their modesty. Lionel Blair is seen dancing in tight white shorts on his Aerobic Dancing album cover in 1983 and German rock band Sandwich had their name taken literally when they were featured between two slices of bread on the front of their single, Kookie in 1971.
The morbid album cover for Let This Be A Lesson To You by Tommy Ellison shows two crashed cars in a graveyard. Whilst the album Rock Me Baby by Jomfru Ane Band, published in Denmark in 1978, features a huge Danish sausage in the foreground. Dave McKenna’s album Oil and Vinegar, published in the USA in 1977, shows a woman covering her breasts with lettuce leaves and has long been regarded as one of the worst sleeves in Steve’s collection.
Steve said: “About 40 years ago as a teenager I bought an album called Roadstar by the unremembered Peter Rabbitt, just because it had such a strange cover. I lost it later and had never been able to find another copy until the internet arrived and I was finally able to replace my lost gem. I said to my kids, ‘I’m going to start collecting dreadful album covers.’ Some people spend fortunes collecting fine art but no one collects these covers...!”
The Art of the Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve costs £24.99 and is available to buy at any good book shop or direct from the publisher Easy On The Eye Books’ online shop www.easyontheeyeshop.co.uk.
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