Best case designs, liner notes & album art

[Ray Le Otter]

Nobody mentioned Pet Shop Boys? Ever since the early 90's they've pushed to make the CD packaging a bit more interesting.



Their original box for "Very" is a design classic with the orange Lego cover, and the limited "Very/Relentless" is the clear PVC "bobbled" sleeve is lovely.



Even the crap "Bilingual" has a nice frosted jewel box.     

[purlieu]

If we're talking coloured jewel cases, both Sigur Rós' purple cased 'Von' and Autechre's plain black self-titled are very effective.

Circa Survive's 'On Letting Go' has a very nice sleeve, which features an image on one of the central pages which is then expanded upon on the more outer pages, with a larger and larger circle cut into the page forming the full cover by the outer cover.  That sounds more confusing than it is.

[alan nagsworth]

Radiohead - Kid A

A special edition of Kid A was also released, in a thick cardboard package in the style of a children's book with a new cover and different oil paintings of apocalyptic landscapes and bear images. Although in the same style as the album art, these paintings were without digital distortion. The book included a page with statistics on world glacier melt rates, paralleling the art's themes of environmental degradation.

I love my special edition Kid A, the artwork is really lovely and all that, but it's big. Too big for my CD rack by about 3mm. *boycotts Radiohead*

[LadyDay]

Two favourites from my collection are the Durutti Column album mentioned earlier in the thread and this one, Space Hymns from Ramases, an early incarnation of 10cc, recorded at Strawberry Studios in 1971, given to me by a friend.



The cover opens out to reveal that the spaceship is actually the spire of St. George's church which is just down the road from me, and round the corner from Strawberry Studios.



It was actually a pre Yes early Roger Dean cover. I love it just for it's local story, the album itself is terrible.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Delirium Cordia, by Fantomas with it's images of surgeries. I don't normally get squeamish when it comes to gruesome images, but (literally) bloody hell. The one that got me was a corneal transplant, with the eye being pulled out of it's socket. It certainly puts you in the right frame of mind for the music.

Those with iron stomachs can view it here.

[purlieu]

Despite my mortal fear of eyes, I still looked at that.


:( :( :(

[Spiteface]

Radiohead - Kid A


I love my special edition Kid A, the artwork is really lovely and all that, but it's big. Too big for my CD rack by about 3mm. *boycotts Radiohead*

As much as I hate them now, I will give Radiohead credit for their special editions.  I used to have the red book version of Amnesiac, that was lovely, it even had a ticket on the inside, like it was a library book.

I used to like HIM once, and bought the internet only version of "Dark Light", which was a tin box containing a booklet reproducing the album's lyrics in Ville Valo's handwriting, a certificate confirming it as one of only 20,000 pressed up, and a funky flashlight keyring which projected their "heartagram" logo.  Very nice package.  Not really into them now though.

[lazyhour]

...a certificate confirming it as one of only 20,000 pressed up...

Hah!  Is that a typo?

[Spiteface]

No, they only made 20,000 of the limited edition tin things.  There are plenty of regular CD versions out there, if you're into that kind of thing.

[Lee Van Cleef]

Hah!  Is that a typo?

Limited Editions aren't as limited as they used to be.

[chocky909]

I have the black rubber one, probably my inner perv coming out there. Rubbish in practice though, scratching the CD so much when you take it out that it skipped quite badly.

[lazyhour]

No, they only made 20,000 of the limited edition tin things.  There are plenty of regular CD versions out there, if you're into that kind of thing.

The majority of the albums that I own wouldn't have had 20,000 pressings!  Major label concepts of 'limited edition' product do tickle me.

[kidsick5000]

The Prodigy:

Never sure if that was meant to be ironic or not. Probably because it looks more like some Judas Priest/Maiden adolescent fan art than something from the Prodigy.

[alan nagsworth]

Nah, s'not ironic surely? Rave culture and all that! And the Prodigy are blatantly inspired by rock as much as they are by dance, see songs like Their Law and Hot Ride. Illegal raves are like holy rituals to ravers so having them broke up by police must be a real downer (maaan) so I don't think this is ironic at all.

[Sam]

I have a great box set of Glenn Gould recordings using the original LP jackets as covers. I like the '55 Goldberg Variations one. Here it is with some "decoration" (namely what looks like a pregnant worm):

[The Boston Crab]

I can't see it properly, Sam. Someone's put drugs on it!

Interestingly enough, the reflected light looks rather like a little mound of cocaine, if you squint.