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100 Obscure and Remarkable CD Covers

smashingmagazine.com — 100 truly remarkable, beautiful, yet obscure CD covers that capture both a buyers attention and the essence of the music.

Who dugg this? Made popular May 14, 2009

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  • appleman108, on 05/14/2009, -1/+38all on one page = win
  • parestrep, on 05/14/2009, -1/+21So many of these are not obscure at all.
    Sgt. Pepper?
    In Rainbows?
    Dark Side of the Moon?
  • fleischkopf, on 05/14/2009, -1/+12Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is "obscure"? Wow, okay.
  • yeeaauuh, on 05/14/2009, -0/+10I like how they avoided any dooshy rankings. All that ever does is stir up morons and their crappy opinions....much like this comment? I'm conflicted...but I still like the article.
  • stuwanker, on 05/14/2009, -1/+9Really, what the *****? Rush,Tool, Pixies obscure? Pink Moon was released in 1972, not 1992. And the Osaka Popstar album cover is clearly a takeoff on Garbage Pail Kids, about which the author seems to be blissfully unaware. And I'm hardly a tenth down the page! Christ!
  • Refluence, on 05/14/2009, -2/+10This list is NOT obscure.

    Buried for retardation.
  • superman1023, on 05/14/2009, -2/+9that list was balls
  • joblessjunkie, on 05/14/2009, -1/+8*Not* obscure, and when they were new they were *album* covers.
  • chaiwalla, on 05/14/2009, -1/+7This looks like something someone could come up with in 10 minutes after a night of drinking. I noticed a couple of factual errors and the text isn't even interesting. Whatever.
  • coldkill3r, on 05/14/2009, -0/+5http://www.amazon.com/Great-Cold-Distance-Katatoni ...

    Love this album, but dugg for Opeth.
  • mattmacneil, on 05/14/2009, -1/+5WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH!
  • sunspots22, on 05/14/2009, -1/+5Whoever wrote the little blurbs is probably retarded.
  • inactive, on 05/14/2009, -0/+4Naive about popular music and not particularly good with words, perhaps, but probably not retarded.
  • tomg025, on 05/14/2009, -0/+4dugg for rush

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urmKhAulBqM
  • bobbymoney, on 05/14/2009, -1/+4A website for music apparently run by non-music fans. novel approach.
  • Shawno1, on 05/14/2009, -0/+3Dugg for The Darkside of the Moon.
  • birch25, on 05/14/2009, -0/+3Made me look at the whole list. 100 pages would have lost my interest in a few pages. Kudos :)
  • inactive, on 09/13/2009, -0/+3STATION
  • gizmo12688, on 05/14/2009, -1/+4Seriously. How are these obscure? ***** Coldplay and Tool are on there.....
  • inactive, on 05/14/2009, -0/+3And the Pixies released Come On Pilgrim in 1987, not freakin' 2003.
  • zjungleist, on 05/14/2009, -0/+3Dugg for not having any Cure or any REM.
  • navitatl, on 05/14/2009, -0/+2http://farm1.static.flickr.com/82/254915714_47d8d0 ...
  • vespaguy, on 05/14/2009, -0/+2Dugg for Neutral Milk Hotel
  • MarrowMan, on 05/14/2009, -1/+3Not all of these are obscure or remarkable. He also failed to mention about Tool's 2 Grammy Noms, and 1 Grammy win for 10 000 days album art. Wheres The Jimi Hendrix Experience art?

    http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s260/Fantasma_V ...

    that's only one example.

    The authors knowledge of art and music in infinitesimal, he should be shot.
  • Lac0ste, on 05/14/2009, -0/+2I am surprised with the years the CDs came out with, a lot from the 21st century
  • kilodelta, on 05/14/2009, -0/+2my favourite CD cover was a Future Sound of London disc that had moving artwork on it.

    i can't remember what they called the process. it was the 90s, and i was drunk or passed out for most of those years.
  • stonebone4, on 05/14/2009, -0/+2nevermind the bollocks
  • bringinSXEback, on 05/14/2009, -0/+2Aeroplane... by Neutral Milk Hotel is an incredible album
  • killscreenes, on 05/14/2009, -1/+3Dugg for:

    The Arcade Fire
    Iron & Wine
    Thom Yorke
    The Postal Service
    The Flaming Lips
    Radiohead
    Joy Division

    All great bands with great album art, and many of them are under appreciated.
  • therealgeddylee, on 05/14/2009, -0/+2Rush as the #1 entry? Dugg. The majority of their album covers are simply epic.
  • MarrowMan, on 05/14/2009, -0/+2Now there's obscure for ya
  • lepetitmousse, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1Some of my favorite album art is on Cunninlinguist's albums.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PieceOfStrange.j ...
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cunninlynguistsw ...
  • inactive, on 05/14/2009, -1/+2Um, obscure? I lol'd. Not with you, at you.
  • parestrep, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1EDIT: Sorry, double post.
  • kaosethema, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1obscure?

    dugg it nonetheless
  • andytronic, on 05/14/2009, -1/+2They are ALBUM covers. An album is a collection of songs, regardless of the specific type of physical media it's on. The covers depicted in this piece accompany a specific collection of songs by bands and artists that are available on CD, as well as compressed digital, vinyl (some), 8 track (a few), wax cylinder (well..), etc. And since CDs are on their way out anyway, it seems even less fitting.
    .

    Sorry for the rant.
  • ThecNiqueMan, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1No Bowie no Queen...?
  • Bilbobaggins, on 05/14/2009, -1/+2Green Day's new album? Really?
  • bdbr, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1Well, some of them were. An awful lot of them weren't obscure. But a lot of them were good covers.
  • deathsquadx, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1Norma Jean was also nominated for a Grammy with the album art show in the article.
  • tomasmarc, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1Some flaws in the article. Especially when it comes to 'Viva La Vida', where they name it as 'some French motive' which is generally a shameless rip-off of Eugene Delacroix's 'Liberty Leading the People'.

    I don't know, this image was probably in every history text book in schools all over the world. And they don't recognize it?

    Anyway, dugg.
  • internationalBS, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1Maybe they fall under the "remarkable" banner... but, you're right. The title should have an "or" rather than an "and".
  • swrock2001, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1I can remember every Saturday a.m. going to DoublePlay Records to buy albums (Vinyl)...I discovered so many bands simply because of the artwork:

    King Crimson
    Frank Zappa
    David Bowie
    The Clash
    Dead Kennedys
    Funkadelic
    Fishbone
    Pixies
    Jethro Tull
    Mingus

    and on and on...CD's and online downloading have diminished a great deal of the joy of discovering new artists.
  • soupnumber5, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1Um... It's not a website for music.
  • inactive, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1FRANK ZAPPA FOR THE ***** WIN
  • icko21, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1dugg for rivermaya
  • lektroo, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1Dinosaur Jr. – Green Mind

    http://suggestaholic.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/0 ...
  • mykinco, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill
    http://dkpresents.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/8827 ...

    Mr. Bungle - Self Titled
    http://www.suciosanchez.com/wp-content/uploads/200 ...
  • bdbr, on 05/14/2009, -0/+1A lot of those were good covers. A lot of those weren't obscure albums.

    I can think of a couple of obscure CDs with good covers: "Son" by Juana Molina, and "Plastic Bag In A Tree" by Flash Hawk Parlor Ensemble, but the covers make such good use of material that they don't look that great on a webpage.
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