It’s been six months since I wrote an album cover art post. The feature, however, has not completely played itself out despite spotty attendance at First Draft. How could I resist an album with a punny title?

I stumbled into the 1966 Tom Jones album, A-TOM-IC JONES, while researching It’s Not Unusual for last week’s Friday Cocktail Hour. In the UK and the rest of the world, it was released with this cover:

The American arm of Decca Records was concerned that the mushroom cloud would alarm listeners and replaced it with this tamer cover:

The album itself bombed in comparison to earlier Tom Jones releases. There, I said it.

It’s not the only nuclear cover I’ve used in this space. In 2016, I posted the cover for The Atomic Mr. Basie:

Oddly enough, the record label reaction was the opposite to that of A-TOM-IC JONES. It was the British release that removed the mushroom cloud. Oh well, what the hell.

The American release also ditched four tracks from the UK album adding this Bond theme song: