1000 Record Covers

By Michael Ochs - Guitar Slinger cover

Hardcover: 767 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.79 x 8.20 x 6.02
Publisher: TASCHEN America Llc; (September 2002)
ISBN: 3822819786

Not just a look at the art of record cover design

Record covers are a sign of our life and times. Like the music on the discs, they address such issues as love, life, death, fashion, and rebellion. For music fans the covers are the expression of a period, of a particular time in their lives. Many are works of art and have become as famous as the music they stand for - Andy Warhol's covers, for example, including the banana he designed for The Velvet Underground.

In this book, Michael Ochs, owner of one of the largest private collections of record covers in the world, presents a personal selection of the thousand items that mean most to him. This is not just a look at the art of record cover design - the book also offers a fascinating survey of rock music genres and styles from their beginnings to the present day.

This book of "just" album covers is put together so brilliantly, it seems to actually have a plot. As Ochs goes through his collection of covers, (some obscure, some not) they tell the story of Rock and Roll from the 50's, forward. His groupings of related covers accurately describe the many stages, styles, and trends that Rock music has gone through. You can pick it up and browse through it, but it really is better to go page by page. This is a work of love. Ochs (for all his success with his Archives) really gets it.