Try to imagine a shy twenry-year-old, who is conviced he is ugly (his nose is bulbous and his hair is already thinning) who leaves art college in his home town of Pittsburgh and, in the summer of 1949, moves to New York to seek his fortune. Andy Warhola is determined to find work and hawks his portfolio to the offices of glossy magazines and record companies.
He goes to the offices of Columbia Rrecords, who the previous August, had begun reieasng long playing records and was in the process of reissuing many of their best selling classical albums previously available as 78 rpm sets in the new medium that allowed a whole symphony to fit on one side of a twelve-inch LP.
In 1938, the company hired a 21-year-old Alex Steinweiss as its art director. Steinweiss felt that the company’s record albums with their plain covers were dull and suggested adding pictures to the covers. His superiors were sceptical, but allowed him to make a few trial cover. These were successful, increasing sales. Steinweiss first cover was for an album of Smash Hits by Rodgers and Hart.
The young Warhol was commissioned to illustrate two covers.
Andy Warhol’s first cover for Columbia Records, 1949.
In 1951, Warhol was commissioned to illustrate a newspaper advertisement for radio programmes called The Nation’s Nightmare and Crime on the Waterfront to be broadcast by CBS Radio that autumn. CBS decied to release the programmes the following year on an LP.
Warhol won his first design award for the designs.
In the fifties, Warhol cooperated with Reid Miles, the legendary art director at Blue Note and Prestige Records, producing a numner of classic jazz covers. He also continued to get commissions from Columbia Records subsidiaries and designed several classical covers.
Other Pop artists would later design record covers: Robert Rauchenberg designed the limited edition cover for Talking Heads’ Speaking in Tongues (1983), Robert Indiana’s LOVE image appeared on a recording of Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony and Ed Ruscha, who has become Paul McCartney’s buddy, has designed several covers for the ex-Beatle as well as the cover for the Beatles’ last single Now and Then.
And England’s Pop artists were also designing record covers. Peter Blake together with his wife at the time, Jann Haworth came up with the famous cover for the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album and Blake has continued to design record covers — now over forty! Richard Hamilton was invited to design the Beatles next full album The Beatles (the white album) and chose a minimalitic cover to contrast with the Sgt. Pepper design.
Other British artists who have designed record covers include Damien Hirst, David Shrigley, Tracy Emin as well as design groups such as Hipgnosis.
Andy Warhol, announced in 1965 that he was giving up painting to concentrated on his other projects — film and the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, featuring the Velvet Underground and performances and dancers including Gerard Malanga, who would assist Warhol in his printmaking. He took the Velvet Underground to Norman Dolph’s Scepter Studio in New York to record the band’s first album. Warhol insisting that Nico, a German singer, sing on three songs. Warhol offered the record to Columbia Records, who turned it down, suggesting it needed beter production and Warhol let Tom Wilson re-record the album, which Warhol then offered to Verve Records who released it in March 1967. Warhol designed the Banana cover and the front cover just had the banana (with ‘peel me and see’ beside the neck) and Andy Warhol’s name at the bottom.
Warhol was a “mover and shaker” in 60s and 70s New York travelling to parties and discos always with an entourage of beautiful people. He loved being with celbrities. He met Mick Jagger who asjed him to design the cover for the forst Rolling Stones album to be released on the Stones’ own label. Warhol came up with the zip cover for Sticky Fingers (released April 1971).
My signed “Sticky Fingers” LP.
There has been a debate about whose jeans Warhol photographed for the Stocky Fingers cover. It wasn’t Joe d’Allesandro, as many have suggesteds. It may have been Warhol’s parrtner Jed Johnson’s twin brother Jay who was the model.
Warhol was also asked to design the cover for the Stones’ Love You Live album. He had invited the band to hs Long Island home at Montauk wherer he photographed them biting themselves or each other. He selected a picture of Mick Jagger biting his daughter Jade’s hand for the cover. Warhol dis not want any writing on the cover but Mick Jagger added the band name and the record title, which annoyed Warhol. He would normally sign anything he was asked to sign but refused to sign the front cover of the Love You Live album, usually choosing instead to sign the inner spread.
The Front cover of “Love You Live” showing Mick biting a child’s hand (Jade Jagger). .
Later Warhol began a cooperation with Jean-Michel Basquiat, a New York street artist turned fine artist. Basquiat would only outlive Warhol by little over a year, dying in 1968 of a drug overdose, but nor before he had managed to produce a few record covers.
That brings me to other street artists, including the enigmatic artist who calls himself Banksy. Banksy started as a street artist in his native Bristol in the late 90s and produced designs for record covers from then. His first major albel design was for Blur’s Think Tank album in 2003.
Bansky’s art has appeared on over two hundred records and CDs, the majority unofficially.
Other street artists have designed record covers. Mr. Brainwash designed Madonna’s Celebration compilation from 2009.
Hellstrom, a Swedish street artitst, designed a limited edition cover (40 copies) for his namesake Håkan Hellström’s Illusioner album (2019) with a silkscreened portrait of the artist.
Other Swedish designers and artists have designed interesting ecord covers. Martin Kann has designed the covers for bob hund’s records and CDs and — as far as I know — produced on the second cover to give the cover designer’s name on the front of a release: Omslag Martin Kann by bob hund.
The Swedish designer who has sold the most ercords in Swedden is probably Helen Sköld, who has desgne dthe covers for kent, Sweden’s biggest band since ABBA.
Karin Mamma Andersson is a Swedish artist who has made an international career. She has designed covers for the alternative poet and songwriterr Mattias Alkberg as well as providing paintings for three of Beck’s releases.
Cundy Sherman is another worrld renowned photographer who has used her photos on record covers. The latest is for her friend Jenni Muldaur’s (daughter of singer Maria Muldaur) and Teddy Thompson’s (son of Richard Thompson) Teddy & Jenni do George & Tammy EP.
Teddy & Jenni Do George & Tammy
There are other ways of collecting record cover art. Anyone remember bubble gum packaged in small copies of record covers? They are quite collectable. As we are at Spritmuseum, hoem of the Absolut Art Collection, I wold also mention the Absolut Cover adverts that use Bowie’s Aladin Sane image, Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew cover image and others in adverts.
Just recently, I discovered an invitation to an exhibition of the Absolut Vodka record cover adverts in New York in the form of a seven-inch single.
This article is a somewhat expanded version of a lecture given in Swedish on Sunday January 26th 2025 at Spritmuseum, Stockholm, as part of the Money on the Wall– Andy Warhol Exhibition that runs until September 14th 2025.
I lost my original copy of Blur’s Think Tank poster in 2010 when it got lost after an exhibition of Banksy’s record covers in Stockholm. At last I’ve found a replacement — though it was considerably more expensive than the one I lost. This new acquisition made me review my collection of Think Tank albums, promos and such.
I saw Blur at Hultsfreds Festival in Sweden in 1996 and got a couple of album covers signed. So it was quite logical that I also bought Think Tank on vinyl when it first came out, and I suppose this was the first Banksy designed cover in my collection. I also bought the Observer five-track promo soon after. I soon found the large Think Tank poster to add to the collection.
My collection of Banksy covers started in 2005-6 after I missed seeing a streeet art exhibiiton at which several Banksy prints were on sale. I found most early covers at standard issue prices with only a couple costing more than that — the Laugh Now / Keep It Real twelve-inchers cost £6.99 each back then! My next buys were the Think Tank promo CD with the petrolhead stamp and the promo twelve-inch white label.
Think Tank promo CD and 12-inch vinyl.
In addition to the double vinyl, I bought the ‘limited edition’ CD in the red book cover so I didn’t buy a standard Think Tank CD until the reissue box set with bonus CD and the four prints when it came out in 2012.
ThinkTank 2012 box set.
I had seen that a number of the Think Tank promo CDs had been found without the Petrolhead stamp and a good friend sold me a second copy of the CD with the stamp and one without. I had also read about a version with a pink baby’s hand stamped instead of the Petrolhead figure and when one came up on Ebay I nabbed it! So my collection of promo CDs has grown.
Three promotional CDs for Blur’s Think Tank album.
I wondered why no one had come up with one of these promos with a foot instead of the baby’s hand. So I went to Photoshop and created my own, though I haven’t printed it yet.
I ‘m a sucker and gave in to temptation and bought the reissue Think Tank double LP in 2023.
More recently, I read about the Blur stencil that appeared on adverts for the Think Tank album when it was released and found a nice mint stencil as well as a magazine ad for the album showing the stencil.
I know there are interesting versions of Think Tank available from other countries but I’m limiting my collection to U.K./Europe issues. I wonder what other additions may turn up in future.
Madonna originally released her 36-track greatest hits album “Celebration” in 2009 as a double CD , BlueRay set and a limited edition 4LP set in a gatefold cover. The vinyl version soon became a collectors’ item with copies selling for up to $850. I imagine that a vinyl reissue to coincide with Madonna’s 2024 world tour must be an irritation for collectors who have the original version. Released on March 1st, 2024, the vinyl reissue is difficult to differentiate from the 2009 original, The covers, with the classic Mr. Brainwash portrait of Madonna, appear identical.
The original 2009 sticker on the left, compared with the re-issue sticker on the right.
But once the shrink wrap had been removed together with the sticker collectors will have to look at the record’s spine to be able to decide which version they have .
The original release is on the Warner Bros. label while the reissue is credited to Warner Music, or just plain “Warner” on the spine, and the catalogue number is given both with the spine number and the full barcode number on the reissue.
It’s impossible to tell if the reissue will also become a collectors’ item as I haven’t been able to find out if it is a limited edtion. I popped into one of Stockholm’s biggest record shops yesterday (8th June, 2024) and they didn’t have a copy, so perhaps it is fairly limited. Anyway, I’ll keep both my versions. But there is a limited edition od the reissue — 500 copies include a lithograph of Mr. Brainwash’s cover portrait of Madonna.
I’ve been rummaging around in one of my cupboards and found a photo album that’s been lying their for more than ten years. The album contains about twenty photos of rock acts thast visited Stockholm, Sweden, in 1966 and 1967 taken by my friend and colleague Sten Sundberg and a mate of his whom he would not name. Sten gave me these photos some twenty plus years ago together with a paper bearing the autographs of the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
What I’ve found going through these pictures are some fascinating, but rather amateurish, pictures of some of rock music greats. There’s Otis Redding on stage at Stockholm’s Konserthus in June 1967, together with Donald “Duck” Dunn and Steve Cropper. There’s a nice profile portrait of Manfred Mann and another of the Manfred’s singer Paul Jones from a consert at Stockholm’s Nalen on 29th December 1966, Mick Jagger wearing a velvet jacket and holding his maraccas and Charlie Watts at his drums from one of the two shows at Kungliga Tennishallen on April 3rd 1966. Then there’s The Who’s Keith Moon bashing away and John Entwistle playing bass also from the Kungliga Tennishallen but on May 6th 1967.
Sten managed to follow the Spencer Davis Group around after their concert at Gröna Lund in February 1967 and even followed them to Arlanda Airport to see then fly back to England.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience played many gigs in Sweden. Sten and his mate were at Gröna Lund on May 24th 1967 when the Experience played there and managed to get on the tour bus with the band as they were whisked awat to Swedish Radio for a late night recording. Once there, they had to wait for the studion to be ready and they sat in reception and drank a bottle of Johnny Walker whisky. The band signed the back of one of Swedish Radio’s studio play sheets for Sten.
Otis Redding, Duck Dunn & Steve Cropper on Stage in Stockholm.
Three Rolling Stones in Stockholm on 3rd April 1966.
One half of The Who at Kungliga Tennishallen, 1967.
Manfred Mann and Paul Jones, Nalen, December 1966.
There can be few artists or graphic designers who have designed record covers for more than half a century. Offhand, I can think of three: the late great Alex Steinweiss (1917-2011), who designed over 2,500 covers in his career, Sir Peter Blake, who is till going strong at the age of 91 and Klaus Voormann, who designed his first cover in 1960 and his most recent to be released in April 2024. His most famous cover, of course, is the one he did in 1966 for the BeatlesRevolver, that he revisited in his book The Birth of an Icon. Revolver 50 on the fiftieth anniversary of Revolver’s release.
Voormann has designed over eighty record covers since the first that was released in 1960, when Klaus was only 22 years old. I am indebted to Thorsten Knublauch for much of the information on release dates for Klaus’s early covers. He is a mine of knowledge about matrix numbers and had tipped me off about several Voormann covers that I otherwise wouldnt have been able to collect. So, thank you, Thorsten!
Voormann’s first cover was for the Walk Don’t Run / Parisian Heiress 7″ single by a band called the Typhoons released on the Heliodor label, a subsidiary of Deutsche Grammophon that was released in autumn 1960. According to Thorsten, the Typhoons were a group of New York session musicians — but how they came to release this lone single in Germany remains a mystery.
In late October 1960, according to Klaus’s own accounts in his books, he Klaus was walking in Hamburg’s Reeperbahn district after a row with Astrid Kirchherr, when he heard music coming from the Kaiserkellar bar, on Grosse Freihet Strasse, and went in to investigate. There he was fascinated by the young Beatles and returned several times and befriended the band members. And at about the same time, he showed John Lennon the cover of the TyphoonsWalk Don’t Run single.
Voormann’s first publsihed record cover.
Klaus got another cover commision from Reinhart Wolf in 1960/1 to illustrate the covers for a series of jazz reeissue EPs called Pioneers of Jazz. These archival recordings were released on the German Coral label, another Deutsche Grammophon imprint at the time. Klaus illustrated all twenty covers
Soon after, Klaus illustrated the covers for another reissue series, this time eight seven-inch EPs each called Country & Western Hitparade, Vols 1 to 8. This time, though, all eight covers bore the same Voormann illustration. The series was released in January 1962 (my copies have a sticker on the front of each dated 2.62, implying they were availabe as early as February 1962). It’s tempting to wonder if the cowboy boot on the cover was a wink to the Beatles, who bought cowboy boots and wore them on stage while playing in Hamburg.
Voormann’s cover for the Country & Western Hitparade EPs.
Then in late 1962, probably as a Christmas gift for employees at Deutsche Grammophon, Klaus was commissioned to design the cover for the LP album Wer nie im Bett Programm gemacht.
Klaus Voormann is a musician as well as a graphic designer, record producer and author and has played in a number of bands, the first of which was the Eyes, together with Gibson Kemp and Patrik Chambers. The Eyes released a single calledShe / Peanut Butter in 1965 with cover illustration by Klaus.
Paddy, Klaus and Gibson were three of the four members of the Eyes and they released three singles on the Pye label in 1965/6 as Paddy, Klaus & Gibson. The six tracks from these singles were reissued on a ten-inch EP in 2014 and the cover illustration was an editied version of the Eyes’cover with only Paddy, Klaus and Gibson. The limited edition EP was available on black, red and clear vinyl.
Revolver, Voormann‘s most famous cover design, was released on 5th August 1966 when Klaus was back in London as the basist in Manfred Mann’s reformed band after Paul Jones had left Manfred Mann released their latest album As Is on 21st October 1966, with cover design by Klaus Voormann. And in the following decade, Voormann went on to design covers for the Bee Gees, Gary Wright, Harry Nilsson, Edwards Hand, Ringo Starr,Jimmy Smith and Jackie Lomax.In April 2024 his 1966 portrait of Manfred Mann appeared on a double LP greatest hists package entitled Manfred Mann — Hits from the Sixties.
Voormann’s 1966 portrait of Manfred Mann on the cover of the 2024 Hits album.
It’s amazing what one can come up with after a little bit of research.
I have the exhibition catalogues from Richard Prince’s exhibitions Super Group (shown at the Gallerie Max Hetzler in Berlin, from 16th September to 28th October 2017) and High Times (Gaagosian, New York, 1st November to 19th December 2018.) These include essays by Prince that explain some aspects of his record cover-related works. He obviously has a record collection and decided to make artworks of covers, starting with the nine Sonic Youth covers he happened to have in his collection. He fixed thm in a 3 x 3 format on canvas using paint as glue. Then he moved on to Kinks albums. He wanted to make a collage of sixteen Kinks albums but only had six so he went out anbought ten more! Next he collected eighty-seven Beatles albums, includung seventeen copies of Revolver! However, he doesn’t say how he used all these.
Prince got fascinated by records’ inner sleeves and betweewn 2015 and 2017 created a series of large format paintings/collages using record sleeves, black and white stuck to canvas and with group names and song tiotles as well as some “hippie” figures from his earlier series of Hippie paintings that had been noticed by High Times magazine that had used two on the covers of its September 2016 special trippy issue.
In 2016 A Tribe Called Quest were planning to release their first album since 2003 and the band’s lead rapper, Q-Tip (Kamaal Ibn John Fareed) approached Richard Prince to ask if he would design the cover. Q-Tip had obviously seen Prince’s Hippie paintings and wanted something in that style. However, at that time Prince was painting his Super Group paintings/collages using blank black or white recoird sleeves.
Prince visited the band in NewJersey and painted protraits of the four members, renedered in his Hippie painting style. The final cover design for the CD/double LP combined one of his Super Group collages with a Hippie-style portrait of one of the band.
A tribe Called Quest’s 2016 album We Got It From Here … Thank You 4 Your Service.
You may remeber the set of nine “Pop” covers that Prince exhibited in 2022.
Richard Prince’s 2022 set of nine “Pop” covers.
All the words on these covers seemed to releate to a particular music genre, with one exceprtion: Hippie. I wondered why Prince had chosen that and, having now read about his seeries of Hippie paintings, I realise where the Hippie probably came from as the style of these paintings is similar to the style of the Hippe works.
I know nothing about the artist known as Banksy’s art training. He was involved in the street art scene in Bristol from the late nineteen eighties and has admitted that 3D and the Wild Bunch were early influences. Perhaps he had also seen Blec le Rat’s art and borrowed his signature rat images. Monkeys were another early Banksy motifs.
Although he had been active since the mid nineteen nineties, Banksy first came to fame in 2006 when he and associates succeeded in placing 500 spoof CDs satirizing Paris Hilton’s newly released Paris album on the shelves of 48 HMV stores across the United Kingdom. Banksy had reimagined the CD booklet, rendering Paris Hilton topless on the front, and DJ Danger Mouse had created a special album to replace Paris Hilton’s songs. This made frontpage news in several newspapers and started a hunt to try to unmask the artist, led primarily by the Daily Mail.
But Banksy’s career had started at least ten years earlier in his native Bristol, where he followed other street artists in decorating walls in the city. He started painting murals but soon found that stencilling was faster and meant he could better avoid discovery and possible arrest. The story goes that he was in the process of painting a mural when he was spotted and to avoid capture hid under a lorry. On the lorry’s underside was a stencilled message and Banksy realized that stencilling would allow him to work faster.
There is debate about when Banksy first designed a cover for a record. In 1993 and 1994 someone called Robin Gunningham – suggested by the Daily Mail to be Banksy’s real name – designed the covers for two cassettes by the Bristol band Mother Samosa. The first, Oh My God It’s Cheeky Clown (1993) was also released on CDr. The second, The Fairground of Fear (1994) doesn’t seem to have been released in any other format. Printer’s proofs of these cover designs have circulated and been suggested to be the earliest cover art by the artist known as Banksy. However, I have never seen the cassettes.
Printers proofs of Mother Samosa’s two cassettes.
There is no doubt that the covers for One Cut’s records on the Hombré label, and the covers produced by Wall of Sound Records and its offshoots; Ultimate Dilemma and We Love You use Banksy’s images authorised by him, later releases on other labels or on bootlegs are almost certainly unauthorised. Sometimes, as in the case of Benjamin Zephaniah’s Naked CD or Liberation by Talib Kweli and Madlib, it is not certain that the cover images were authorised by Banksy. I won’t separate authorised from unauthorised covers in this list.
I have a nasty feeling that more recent bootleg releases, such as the two Boys in Blue 12” singles and TV-Age’s 12”, seem to have been produced in limited editions, often beautifully made, exclusively to lure collectors to part with large sums. An Israeli group is even producing picture disc singles with Banksy images that are being sold at exorbitant prices. I would not advise serious collectors of Banksy’s record cover art to fall for these.
In the mid-to-late nineties Banksy was an amateur footballer, apparently goalkeeper for the Easton Cowboys and Cowgirls and toured with the team to Chiapas, Mexico in 2001 where he painted a mural and provided images for a very limited cassette by a Mexican band called Revolucion X, titled Canciones electorales, that was probably pressed in the U.S.. There seem to be three colour variations of the cassette, yellow, red and white.
Revolucion X cassette (Thanks to Nick S)
Then there is the story told by Steve Gibbs, a.k.a. Steve Vibronics that an artist called Robin designed the logo for his Vibronics dub band in the latter half of the 1990s, while in Leicester and there is some evidence that Banksy visited at that time. Steve is certain that this Robin was Banksy, but we have no definite confirmation. The Vibronics logo appears on three record covers: The Outernational Dub Convention, Vol 1: Jah Free Greets The Vibronics (1998), Dub Italizer (2000) a sixteen-track double LP that shows part of the logo, and The Return of Vibronics (2015).
The cover of The Outernational Dub Convention, Vol 1: Vibronics Greet Jah Free showing the logo (at right) purportedly designed by Banksy.
The first official cover designed by Banks was for Jamie Eastman’s record label Hombré Records. He designed the cover for hip-hop group One Cut’s Cut Commander 12” EP in 1998 and their remix CD album Hombrémix.
The Cut Commander cover.
One Cut’s Hombremix CD cover art.
He went on to design five more covers for the band in 2000 including their double album Grand Theft Audio, and a 12”, four-track sampler EP, called simply Grand Theft Audio Sampler. There are two versions of the promo 12”, one with a plain white label and the other with Banksy’s Abseiling Thief image together with track titles on each label.
Grand Theft Audio LP cover.
It is said that Banksy had a studio in Bristol in the same building as John Stapleton, who started BlowPop records, and Stapleton asked Banksy to design a cover for the promotional single by his new band the Capoeira Twins. Banksy produced a Matador and Car stencil and spray painted 100 covers for the 4 x 3 / Truth Will Out 12” promotional single.
The Capoeira Twins 4 x 3 / Truth Wiill Out promotional 12″.
There is a rumour that there was also a promotional CD-r for the album entitled Armour Plated, X-rated. This was produced in very limited quantities.
The other covers were for the 12” EPs Mr X / Rhythm Geometry and Underground Terror Tactics. I have a promo version of the Mr X / Rhythm Geometry 12” in a generic black cover but with Banksy’s logo on the record label.
Mr. X / Rhythm Geometry 12″ and Underground Terror Tactics 12″.
In 1999, Wall of Sound records licensed a compilation CD to Sleazenation magazine. Steve Lazarides photographed Banksy’s image for the cover of The Next XI, a compilation CD that was attached to the September 1999 issue.
Sleazenation magazine with the The Next XI CD.
Banksy collaborated with Insect to design a poster for Monk & Canatella’s Do Community Service CD in 2000 and this was reproduced on the cover of the duo’s CD.
In 2000 Banksy was approached by the newly formed Clown Skateboards to design a logo that would be applied to a limited edition series of skateboards. Banksy came up with his Insane Clown image and Clown Skateboards produced a promotional CDEP called Skateboards, with the Insane Clown image on the cover. And the logo appeared on the label of a split 12” EP Styles by the Dozen by The Dynamic Duo (who are Niall Daily and Bryan Jones) and Nasty P (Paul Rutherford) the same year.
Clown Skateboards CD and Style by the Dozen 12″.
In 2000, Wall of Sound Records launched a subsidiary label called We Love You and released a compilation album called We Love You … So Love Us, with Banksy’s famous Rage – Flower Thrower image on the cover. There are two further We Love You compilations. We Love You … So Love Us Too was released the following year on CD and there is also a four-track 12” that comes in a red generic cover with the same image as on the CD on the record label. The third compilation, imaginatively titled We Love You … So Love Us Three, only available on CD, appeared in 2004. There are copies in jewel cases and promotional copies in card sleeves.
The three We Love You… So Love Us compilation covers.
Ultimate Dilemma, another record label associated with Wall of Sound Records released a series of compilation albums and a 12” single between 2001 and 2003 with design by Tijuana Design and incorporating various Banksy images. All were released on vinyl and Digipak CD. Roots Manuva (Rodney Hylton Smith) released a single-sided 12” version of Yellow Submarine (2001). He also remixed tracks for the compilation Badmeaningood, Volume 2 (2002). Skitz (DJ John Cole) remixed the compilation Badmeaningood. Volume 1 (2002). Peanut Butter Wolf (Chris Manak) remixed Badmeaningood, Volume 3, and Scratch Perverts (Prime Cuts and Tony Vegas) remixed Badmeaningood, Volume 4 (both 2003).
Roots Manuva’s Yellow Submarine 12″ and his Badmeaningood compiltion cover. Badmeaningood Volumes 1, 3, 4.
In 2001 the Norwegian duo Röyksopp (Torbjörn Brundtland & Svein Berge) released their first album Melody A.M. on the Wall of Sound label. A promotional double album was released to promote the album in a cover that was hand-sprayed by Banksy. One hundred hand-numbered copies were produced at Wall of Sound’s London office. The first fifty used a dark green paint while the final fifty were sprayed with a paler, olive green, paint.
The two colour variations of the Melody A.M. promo cover.
Magic Records was another label associated with Wall of Sound records and Hip-hop artist Blak Twang (Tony Alabode) recorded his Kik Off album for the label in 2002. Three 12” singles were released from the album: Kik Off, Trixstar and So Rotten (Tony Rotten being another of Alabode’s aliases) There was also a remix version of Trixstar featuring Estelle (Estelle Swaray, who wrote the song). All four releases credit design to Mitch Design with art direction by Banksy. Steve Lazarides is credited with the photography.
Sometime in 2002 Seven Magazine produced an issue with a compilation CD in a card cover attached called The Soundtrack to the Sizzler Parties that used Banksy’s Dynamite Ice Cream image on the cover. There were even small flyers with the same image but with different coloured backgrounds. I haven’t seen the magazine.
The Soundtrack to the Sizzler Parties CD.
Banksy first showed his painting I Fought the Law at his Peace is Tough show in the Glasgow Arches in 2001 and two editions of screenprints, an unsigned edition of 500 and a signed edition of 100, were released in 2004. There were several colour variations. The original photo from which Banksy made this design came from the video of John Hinckley’s 1981 failed assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. Amazingly, the American hardcore band The Promise were quick off the mark and the designer J. Bannon modified the I Fought the Law image for the cover of the band’s Believer album released in November 2002. The album came in two limited editions, 100 copies on clear vinyl and 900 copies on red vinyl, and included a double-sided poster. The album was also released on CD; the U.S. version had a black and silver cover image with the album title in red, while the European CD has a black and grey cover image, with the album title in green. The European version also includes two extra tracks.
The cover of the Believer LP. There are also two CDs with slightly different covers, one with the title in red and another with the title in green.
But 2003 was when Banksy’s art first came to the attention of a broader record-buying public with the release of Blur’s seventh album Think Tank on 5th May. The album release was preceded by a promotional CD in a hand stamped card cover that featured Banksy’s Petrolhead image. As the cover was hand stamped the positioning of the Petrolhead varied from cover to cover, sometimes being stamped upside down and, on a few covers, was missing completely. There is also a very rare variation with Petrolhead being replaced by an infant’s handprint. I have seen two copies of this with the handprint in slightly different placings.
Three promotional CDs for Blur’s Think Tank album.
The release of this Blur album in May 2003 was awaited with almost Beatles-like expectation and four months later, on 21 September, the Observer newspaper produced a five-track CD in a card cover with extracts from the album to accompany their Sunday Magazine again with Banksy’s art on front and rear covers. The image of a child wearing a diver’s helmet also appeared on a page in a Royal Mail stamp booklet issued January 7th, 2010 celebrating ten classic record covers, though the actual cover of the Observer CD wasn’t shown, and the only Blur cover was the Parklife cover, not Think Tank. The Think Tank album was reissued in 2012 on heavyweight (180 g) vinyl.
Three singles with cover art by Banksy were released from the Think Tank album: Out of Time, Good Song, and Crazy Beat, were released as limited edition vinyl singles, with Good Song and Crazy Beat on red vinyl. All were designed by Tijuana Design. Out of Time had Banksy’s Out of Time image; Good Song used his Kids on Guns and Crazy Beat had Insane Clown on Balcony. There was also a collector’s edition in a red book cover with a gold Father Holding Daughter with both wearing divers’ helmets stamped between “Think” and “Tank” on the front.
Three 7-inch singles from Think Tank.
Wall of Sound Records released a compilation album called Off the Wall: 10 Years of Wall of Sound, celebrating its tenth anniversary on 13th September 2003. This was released as a triple LP set and a double CD in a gatefold card cover. The covers had some of the Wall of Sound artists posing in front of a wall and on the cover the figure spraying over the Tenant Parking Only sign on the wall is Banksy.
The cover of the Wall of Sound triple LP.
The label released a follow up to the We Love You … So Love Us Too with the imaginatively-named We Love You … So Love Us Three in 2004. Again, this was only available on CD with booklet art by Banksy. There is also a vinyl 12”, four-track sampler of the We Love You … So Love Us Too.
The February 2004 issue of the magazine The Big Issue included a compilation CD called Peace Not War to celebrate the Peace Not War festival to be held 12-15 February the cover and the CD showed Banksy’s Bomb Hugger Girl. The CD, in a card cover, was Sellotaped to the magazine’s front cover and copies of the CD usually bear marks after the tape. This is the first of several CDs that have used the Bomb Hugger Girl motif.
An album by the German band The Apoplexy Twist Orchestra released a white label, white vinyl LP in 2004 entitled Create the New. This came in a transparent cover with an obi with Banksy’s Bomb Hugger Girl and an insert had a picture of Banksy’s Nipper with Rocket Launcher.
The Create the New white vinyl LP.
Between 2004 and 2005 Bow Wow Records released four 12” singles / EPs; three of which used a modified version of Banksy’s Nipper with Rocket Launcher on the covers, subtly changed to Nipper holding a Tops. The fourth 12”, by Buckfunk 3000 had the same image on the record label.
The label of the Buckfunk 3000 12″ EP
Benjamin Zephaniah, vegan, poet, musician, activist and anarchist recorded a number of albums between 1982 and 2017. His 2005 album Naked was released in a Digibook that contained photos of many of Banksy’s images. It is unclear whether these were published with Banksy’s approval, but considering Zephaniah’s endorsement of Palestinian issues and BDS, similar to Banksy’s, it seems likely.
The same year a Mr Bird released his CD Know Your Rodents with a collage of various Banksy images on its cover and on the disc.
The CD booklet from Mr Bird’s CD Know Your Rodents.
Dirty Funker (Paul Glancy) is a DJ and remix artist who remixed Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and Lithium in 2004 and the following year remixed The Knack’s My Sharona on a limited edition 12” single on his own Spirit Records label, calling it Let’s Get Dirty. He used Banksy’s portrait of Kate Moss on front and rear covers. The very limited first pressing used the portrait without any text. While but on the cover of a larger second edition he Dymo strips across Kate’s eyes on the front and over her mouth on the rear. At least two copies of a printer’s proof of the cover art from the first pressing have appeared.
The first and second pressings of the Let’s Get Dirty 12″.
Printers proof of the Let’s Get Dirty cover.
And so to the famous Banksy / Danger Mouse remake of Paris Hilton’s 2006 Paris CD. Five hundred copies of this artwork were produced and Banksy and associates succeeded in placing them in the racks of a number of HMV stores across the United Kingdom and many unsuspecting customers mistook them for the genuine article and must have been mightily surprised when they got to play the CD. The original Banksy / Danger Mouse version was released as a CD-rom with Paris and a heart handwritten on the CD-r in marker pen (purportedly by Banksy.) It came in a jewel case with a booklet that Banksy had reimagined based on Paris Hilton’s original. This prank made national headlines in the United Kingdom and made Banksy a household name.
The original Banksy/Danger Miuse booklet. No label on cover.
Sometime later, a second edition was released in a limited edition of 1000 copies. This time with a properly pressed CD. This edition has been called a fake, but in reality it is a reproduction. It can be distinguished from the first edition by the sticker present at the top left on the outside of the jewel case is printed top right on the booklet’s front cover on the reproduction and the fact that the CD is not a CD-rom.
The reissue of the Banksy / Danger Mouse cersion of Paris Hilton with the “sticker” printed top right on the cover.
A bootleg white label 12” single I’m Not Your Friend by Hoxton Whores was released in 2006 with Banksy’s Rude Copper image on the record label.
Talib Kweli joined Corey Smith joint founder of Blacksmith Music, to form a production company. In 2006 Blacksmith released the album Liberation, a collaboration between West Coast producer Otis “Madlib” Jackson, Jr. and East Coast rapper Talib Kweli. Banksy’s painting ”Flag” was used on the cover. A coloured vinyl re-issue has been promised for early 2022.
Banksy’s The Flag on the cover of Talib Kweli & Madlib’s LP.
Me&You (T.M. Juke and Robert Luis) released a 12” single called Floating Heavy (Edits) in 2007. This remix single has Banksy’s One Day We’ll Be in Charge on one label and Grannies image on the other. They also released a double CD called Music for Birthdays with a cover image of Prince Charles wearing a paper crown inscribed Burger King that has been suggested to be by Banksy, though it was done by the Norwegian street artist Dolk.
Dolk’s cover for the Music for Borthdays CD.
In 2007 Ashley Beedle remixed Kate Bush’s Running up That Hill and released it on a 12” single that had Banksy’s Kids on Guns image on the record label.
A Canadian band from Saskatoon called One Bad Son (mainly Shane Connery Volk (vocals) and Kurt Dahl (drums)) released its second album Orange City in 2007 and used Banksy’s Bomb Hugger Girl image on the CD.
The Orange City CD has Banksy’s Bomb Hugger giorl on the CD.
DJ Danger Mouse released a double LP the same year with cover art credited to Banksy. The front cover shows a CCTV camera pointing at a wall inscribed with Danger Mouse – From Man to Mouse a modification of Banksy’s What Are You Looking At. The rear cover shows Banksy’s Child with Divers Helmet Holding a Canary; the same image as on the Observer Blur promotional CD from 2003.
A relatively recent discovery is the seven-inch EP by the Belgian band SL-27 called simply SL-27. The fold-out cover has Banksy’s Love Is in the Air: Flower Thrower on the inner spread, Banksy’s Laugh Now, But One Day We’ll Be in Charge on the record label on side A and Banksy’s Children on Weapons Heap on side B. And this also appears on the back cover.
Bristol used to host a poetry festival and one year – probably 2008 – a CD entitled Monkeys With Car Keys was privately produced of the fifteen poets reading forty-two poems. I was first alerted to the existence of this CD in 2010 when I saw an image of the cover on a thread on UrbanArtAssociation’s site. I started to search for it contacting the Bristol main library, the Bristol Museum, and several Bristolian antiquarian booksellers without success. In fact, no one I contacted had ever heard of it. Eventually I sent a picture of the cover art to an ex-Bristolian Banksy collector who recognised the cover painting as one done by Banksy in Bristol in around 1999 but that had disappeared. My friend managed to confirm that the CD did exist and, after a few weeks, also found a copy.
This seems to be last release with cover art authorised by Banksy. All covers and record labels with Banksy’s images released from 2008 are all unauthorised.
The first of these is Dirty Funker’s Future, released on Dirty Funker’s own Spirit label. The 12” single was released in a cover that used Banksy’s Radar Rat. There were five limited editions (each said to be of 1000 unnumbered copies) printed on white, grey or brown card and Radar Rat was in three colours. There was also a 12” test pressing with a black and white cover as well as a promotional CD in a paper cover with the black and white Radar Rat.
Dirty Funker’s Future 12″ single.
The next bootleg was an interview LP called The Banksy Years (2008). Again, this was a limited edition of 1000 copies pressed on orange vinyl.
Another bootleg that used Banksy’s Queen Victoria as a dominatrix was a cover of Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now by a group calling themselves Queen and Cuntry [sic] (2008).
The next 12” was a split single by Hot Chile and Anarchist, again in a white cover with Banksy’s Love Is in the Air: Flower Thrower on the front cover and Hip-Hop Rat on the reverse.
Danger Mouse released a new single called Keep It Real / Laugh Now in four numbered limited editions of 1000 copies each with Banksy’s iconic Monkey design against a coloured background. There are 1000 copies each with gold, silver, brown or dark green backgrounds. Unusually, the numbers are on the record labels rather than on the covers. Apparently, he had planned a seven-inch single release as well and a series of covers with the same design but against a white background were prepared but the single was never issued.
Dirty Funker released a further 4-track 12” single called Flat Beat on his Spirit label in 2009 and appropriated Banksy’s Happy Choppers image for both front and rear covers. The choppers flew against a blue sky on the front cover and against a yellow sky on the rear. I must say that Dirty Funker had the good taste not to add any typography to spoil the artwork.
Dirty Funker’s Flat Beat 12″.
The German band Gottkaiser released a Digipak CD in 2008 called Krieg & Frieden with Banksy’s Bomb Hugger Girl on the cover and CD.
Gottkaiser’s CD Krieg & Frieden.
When the Time Comes, a limited edition five-track CD by a band calling itself The Lonely Kids Club came out in December 2011. I haven’t seen one of these yet.
A band from Hitchin, U.K., called Frog Stupid released their CDEP Love and Amnbition Won’t Get You a Payrise in 2011. This seems to be a private pressing not on any label. The cover shows Banksy’s Girl With Balloon.
Frog Stupid CD cover.
In 2012 a New Orleans brass band called The Hot 8 Brass Band released its third album, called The Life and Times of… The band had approached Banksy for permission to use some of his art on the cover but heard nothing. However, just before the CD was going to press, the band reached out again and this time Banksy agreed to allow the use of his images, though not permitting the band to use his art on the CD cover. The booklet’s inner spread has several Banksy images.
Desy Balmer, an Irish DJ and producer, and co-founder of Nice & Nasty records, released a 15-track compilation as a digital release in 2012 on his own Nasty & Nice label with a cover painting by Banksy modified from an image from the Palestine Wall.
TerranceK (Terrance Kerti) is a Detroit-based DJ who produced a digital EP in 2013 called Hot Line that used a photo of Banksy’s London Phone Box #2 on the cover.
Cover art for digital only relase by TerranceK.
Banksy’s I Fought the Law image appeared for the second time on the cover of a test pressing of Embalming Theatre’s and Tersanjung 13’s split seven-inch EP titled Mommy Died – Mummified / Hellnoise on the Rotten to the Core label in 2013. The test pressing cover was designed by Robert Janis, owner of the label.
Test pressing with I Fought the Law motif.
Warrior Soul released a CD in 2008 called Destroy the War Machines with a modified image of Banksy’s CND Soldiers. The album was reissued in 2013 in a limited edition of 333 numbered, white vinyl LPs. Design is credited on the inner sleeve to Ballsy [sic] and collage by Joachim Ljung. Band photographs by Tim Hodgson & Dajana Winkel.
The LP cover. Only 333 copies were released.
Junichi Masuda is a producer and composer for Pokèmon and produced an LP called Pokèmon in 2015. There doesn’t seem to have been an official release as all editions are listed as test pressings. There are three main cover variations, all released on the Moonscape label. Several coloured vinyl editions came in a cover that was a pastiche of Peter Blake’s and Jann Haworth’s Sgt. Pepper art with the famous Sgt. Pepper drum replaced by a Pokèmon ball. However, there was a further limited edition planned to be 100 copies with a hand-sprayed recreation of Banksy’s Love Is in the Air – Flower Thrower art. The story goes that the stencil used broke after about ninety covers had been sprayed and another stencil with a rabbit and balloon take on Banksy’s Girl with balloon was substituted for most of the remaining ten covers, although there may also be a few with another image instead of the rabbit. Both covers were designed and made by Sean Patrick Dagle. Dagle wasn’t satisfied with the initial run of covers as there was much spray paint outside the actual image and he remade the stencil and produced a further series of 150 numbered covers that he sold without records.
In 2015 a band calling themselves Boys in Blue released Funk da Police, a bootleg 12” single in a cover with Banksy’s Rude Copper design, ostensibly in a limited edition of 100 unnumbered copies. The band released a second bootleg 12” single called Strawberry Donut / Thick as Thieves as a limited edition (250 copies) in 2021.
Boys In Blue – Funk tha Police and Strawberry Donut 12″ singles.
A band calling itself Minraud released a CD in 2016 titled Vox Populi on the Hidden Stone record label. This is probably a bootleg but the cover art uses Banksy’s Radar Rat image.
American DJ Romanowski release a CD called Tracks from the Movie “Saving Banksy” in 2018 with a Banksy rat on the cover.
Another German release arrived in 2016 from a band calling itself TV-Age. This was The Player EP with a beautiful, hand-screened cover of Banksy’s Every Time I Make Love I Think of Someone Else.
TV-Age – The Player EP.
There is also a CD from Belgian band Fist2Fist entitled Hold the Gun with Banksy’s Girl with Rocket Launcher art. There is no information on when it was released.
Banksy designed a protective vest for rapper Stormzy (Michael Ebenezer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr.) and this was featured on the cover of his December 2019 album Heavy Is the Head. The album was available on CD, a limited edition double vinyl LP, with the vest pictured on one on the inner sleeves, and as a double picture disc. The cover was designed by Hales Curtis design studio. The album was later reissued as a double black vinyl LP.
In 2020, John Brandler bought Banksy’s Port Talbort mural Seasons Greetings and celebrated it with by producing a CD called Seasons Greetings by the Climate Change Sound Project. (Gwyn Griffiths and Frankie Oldfield).
The Climate Change CD cover (rear cover (left) and front cover (right)).
I am certain that more covers appropriating Banksy’s art will appear – both newly discovered records and CDs (and even music cassettes) as well as speculative new productions akin to the Boys in Blue and TV-age releases.
Today was a bit of a special day! I discovered two CDs with Banksy artwork that I had never seen. I was casually surfing the Internet when I came across a picture of a CD cover that I didn’t recognise but that had classic Banksy artwork. The CD in question is an 11-track compilation released by Seven Magazine and called Seven Magazine Presents the Soundtrack to Sizzler Parties, and contains tracks by Blak Twang (Twixstar) and the Röyksopp remix of The Mecons Please Stay. This CD was released in 2002, so I don’t really understand how it has eluded me for so long!
The second CD, Orange City by a Canadian band called One Bad Son, was released in 2007. The front cover didn’t look promising — probably explaining why I had missed this release.
It isn’t until you open the jewel case and see the CD that the Banksy connection appears.
Here the Bomb Hugger girl image appears both on the CD and on the inside of the rear of the jewel case. I suspect that this is an unofficial use of this particular Banksy image that appeared officially on the Peace Not War compilation CD that accompanied the February 2004 number of the Big Issue magazine.
As I write this, my collection of Banksy records and CDs is moving from the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa to the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara until September 2020 and then from September to December to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto. Perhaps I should add these rare CDs to the exhibit.
There are artists who don’t tour very often and some of my favourites seem only to tour once in blue moon. Such artists are Randy Newman, Joni Mitchell — and Tom Waits.
I remember his concerts at Stockholm’s Cirkus on July 13th and 14th, 1999, very well. We were living in Luleå then and had to travel down to Stockholm to our little Stockholm flat for the concerts. And I’ve lately been clearing out my storage room and came across a whole lot of memorabilia, including the tickets for Tom Waits’s concerts promoting his Mule Variations album. Well, in addition to the tickets, I found that I had gone to the trouble of making set lists of both nights’ concerts.
These concerts were really very expensive — costing SEK 600 per person (about GBP 50 or USD 80), so for two people for two nights it meant an outlay of SEK 2400! Unheard of in 1999. But Cirkus is a great concert venue, with great acoustics and we had seats quite high up and to the right of the stage. On the first night, Tom sauntered into the theatre entering though a door just above us and walked down the stairs past our seats and on down to take his place on the stage. The first nights’ concert went on for over three hours. For the second night it seemed that he had had instructions not to go on for so long, so the show only lasted a bit over two and a half hours. The first night was magical and the second felt a bit like a disappointment after the previous evening. Perhaps we should have been satisfied with one night.
Te set lists for both concerts and our tickets.
It looks from te set list as though the second night should have been longer — but I can guarantee that it wasn’t.
Per Bjurman, reviewing the concerts said Waits was great but thst the ticket price was extortionate!
Anyway, the first night was magical! I would pay the same to see Tom Waits again — should he ever decide to come over.
Here I go again! I regularly boast that I have complete collections of Banksy’s, Peter Blake’s and Klaus Voormann’s record covers (well, I usually admit to lacking one Klaus Voormann cover, but still) only to find out that none of these boasts is true.
I recently found the cover to an unreleased 7″ single version of DJ DangerMouse’s “Keep It Real” cover (you can read about it in an earlier blog post). Now it seems there are a couple of other Banksy covers that I had previously never heard of. I’m not going to say more at the moment, but you can be sure that I shall return to this subject in due time.
My blog posts on the latest record cover art by Peter Blake have only mentioned the various vinyl, CD and cassette versions of The Who’s latest album “WHO“. I had bought two limited edition issues of the album: the 45 rpm double LP version with extra single-sided 10” single “Sand” sold via The Who Store and the HMV “Nipper1” double LP. A mate in Liverpool popped in to see Sir Peter while on a recent visit to London and got him to sign both the 45 rpm and HMV covers for me as well as a copy of the reissued “Stanley Road” album (signed previously by Paul Weller himself.)
Then I saw an ad for Dr. John Cooper Clarke’s 2018 book and CD “The Luckiest Guy Alive” whith its cover portrait of Cooper Clarke by Peter Blake and Blake’s classic alphabet tiles for the album title and artist’s name.
The cover of John Cooper Clarke’s CD “The Luckiest Guy Alive”.
So, naturally, I ordered a copy of the book and CD. I wonder if my Peter Blake collection is complete now?
Then I saw an ad for The Blues Band’s album “Itchy Feet” that stated that the cover was designed by Klaus Voormann. I immediately went through my Klaus Voormann collection only to find that I had missed this album (though I had bought the other two Blues Band albums when they came out, and even seen the band live.)
While going through the Voormann albums, I noticed that my copy of Gary Wright’s “Extractions” LP was in less than mint condition. It is a U.S. promo copy with a large cut-out hole through the top right corner of the cover, so I looked on Discogs for a better copy and saw that the U.K. original was released in a six panel poster cover that I had never seen.
The six-panel poster cover for Gary Wright’s “Extractions” LP.
So I ordered both the “Itchy Feet” and the “Extractions” records to “complete” my Klaus Voormann collection even though I’m still missing at least one of his covers. I was lucky that the “Itchy Feet” LP was one of the limited edition pressings that included the large poster of the band in action.
The poster from the “Itchy Feet” album.
I have to say that I feel I’m nearer to having complete collections of these three cover artists. I’ll just have to keep a lookout to see if I find further missing covers.
While going through the Voormann albums, I noticed that my copy of Gary Wright’s “Extractions” LP was in less than mint condition. It is a U.S. promo copy with a large cut-out hole through the top right corner of the cover, so I looked on Discogs for a better copy and saw that the U.K. original was released in a six panel poster cover that I had never seen.
recordart 