I remember the first time I saw this album cover: I knew I had to hear the music because if it was as interesting as the cover art, it had be to be pretty damn good. It was and it is. This is prog rock heroes King Crimson’s first LP and it’s a classic.Here’s the Wikipedia description of the cover art:
Barry Godber (1946–1970), a computer programmer, painted the album
cover. Godber died in February 1970 of a heart attack, shortly after the
album’s release. It was his only album cover, and is now owned by Robert Fripp.Fripp had said about Godber:“Peter brought this painting in and the band loved it. I recently
recovered the original from EG’s offices because they kept it exposed to
bright light, at the risk of ruining it, so I ended up removing it. The
face on the outside is the Schizoid Man, and on the inside it’s the
Crimson King. If you cover the smiling face, the eyes reveal an
incredible sadness. What can one add? It reflects the music.”
Okey dokey, here’s the cover:
Here’s the inside art work with the schizoid man looking a bit more cheerful:
Here’s the entire LP via the YouTube:
Ahhh, yes. We had longer attention spans back then. People would sit and listen to an entire side of an album without speaking. Such a thing now seems…(What? decadent? indulgent? socially incorrect?). Let’s go with nostalgic. What the picture misses is the big white circle outling the record’s edge from decades of pressing against it’s neighbors.
great stuff