Album Covers: LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION as means of Self-Mythologizing!

"I was raised on the streets, maaaan!"

"This is OUR dismal, dangerous, urban playground, got it?"

"I'm no longer 'Jesus With P.M.S.' luv, I'm now the English answer to Carrie Bradshaw."

"See how rugged we are? We're seasoned, rock warhorses, after all, and this is WORK, dammit!"

"Yessir, I'm an ordinary 'man of the people,' I am! Yep. I'm not a flagrant coke-snorting, wife-beating rock star all! I'm a salt-of-the-earth kinda guy! Look, no one's even noticing me! See how folky and innocuous I am?"

"No, I'm not an impossibly successful, ubiquotous, self-aggrandizing celeb at all....but really the troubled offspring of this squallid environment here on my album covers! Clearly, I'm still working out my demons!"

"What Alex said about Jackson What's-his-name, except drop the parts about the wife-beating and the cocaine. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm a girl, and that I'm from Canada."

"'Cause We're COWBOYS, on a steel horse we ride...Yeah, we invented that, and you can sure bet dollers to cocaine spoons that Bon Jovi is gonna get such a lawsuit..."

"Will that stoplight never change? We're running late, and clearly, we have business to attend to, as we're very obviously businessmen! The business of ROCKING, that is! Oh how we kid! Damn these Brooks Brothers pants itch! Where's my codpiece?"

Avast ye! Here we be, on the salty sea! C'mere, Cait--time for buggery!

"All the savviest cowboys wear all black leather in the hot desert sun, didn't you get the memo? Fast Eddy's even taken to bringing a poncho, as he knows it gets cold out here at night! One more crack about my white shoes and I'll have Phil here pistol-whip you, hoss!"

check this one out:
http://www.jimmccrary.com/pages/page3/images/carole01.jpg

Hi! Here I am! Maybe you didn't hear me first, 'cause I'm kinda shy and I don't talk too loud. I have a cat. It is nice. And I drink a lot of tea, not that modern stuff in bags, but olde English tea from a clay pot. Mmmmmm. You can trust me. We are friends. What did you say that your name was?

http://www.tnt-audio.com/jpg/carole_king_tapestry.jpg

"So what if we are internationally renowed rock stars with a penchant for libidinous excess and heroic booze consumption? We'd rather stay in this down-to-earth, gritty flea-bag hotel, instead of the sprawling five star sky-scraper across town, `cos we're a down-to-earth, gritty band, us! No need for room service or fancy bathtubs for us, nope! Notice the name of the hotel? Pretty nifty coincidence, eh?"

"Hey look, I'm in that Alanis video, y'know the one where she's naked but has her dirty parts blurred? Look I'm in that video. Only I'm fully clothed."

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf800/f803/f80391fjp4i.jpg

what's important to note is that holcomb actually had a nice, neat, newly-painted house just off to the left but the photographer (john cohen) chose to take his picture in front of his dilapidated wooden shack.

Maybe so, but I don't think the cover picture reflects that interpretation at all.

"Wie bitte? Ein Computerschirm ist ja zweifellos ein Lokation, nicht wahr?"

THE PRETENDER.

Look, I know you got your knickers in a twist when you tried to go after Chuck Eddy the other day and it didn't totally come out your way, but that doesn't give you the green light to go pissing around on other people.

Whatever. Thanks for sucking the fun out of this thread.

"honor the fire!!!!" etc etc

For what it's worth, I don't buy that interpretation for a second.

Like, we're always waiting in airports, standing around, hoping for those seat upgrades...

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000001FMJ.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
"I'm a regular guy, alright. Nope. Not married to a super model. Nope, not an internationally recognized rock star. I hang out with farmers and truckers and farm equipment-auctioneers like Earl here all the damn day long, I does! Someone get me a Pabst!"

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000007OED.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

"Yeah, sure we've had a few successful records, and have been played on MTV, and have had Madonna court us with nude photos of herself to try to lure us over to Maverick, but we're still scummy street punks, dammit! And it makes perfect sense for us to be hanging out on East Village stoops and moping around like junkies! No really!"

"Because of our immeasurable depth and emotional insight, we truly find great solace and peace here in the frozen wastes of Greenland's inhospitable wilderness -- where even the bravest walruses do not waddle -- than amid the workaday Liverpudlian streets of our plebian origins. Yes, here is where we belong!"

"And if you really want to get in touch with your inner chakra and let your psyche run wild amid the astral plains of liberated imaginatinos -- as we do, of course -- what you really need to do is loaf around under trees. Look, we're still doing it twenty years later!....with a nice sports car, no less!"

"Of course this is my motorcyle! Are you suggesting that I'm not a serious biker? ME?"

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc400/c461/c46141rq3et.jpg

http://www.artistdirect.com/Images/Sources/AMGCOVERS/music/cover200/drc400/c400/c40015w0s0h.jpg

there

"I am antiquarian hear me whisper!"

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drd800/d810/d81026dtos3.jpg

Hi, I'm Bruce's butt, and I'm American. And you don't want to fuck with an American ass. Do you? I mean, really, do you? C'mon pretty boy...

http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~tisue/jandek-scans/covers/thumb-0754.jpg

"o but my music is like a dying fishing village: full of darkess and charm and rust and bodily fluids"

har har

See, if you knew anything about art, you'd, like, totally take us more seriously ...

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf400/f462/f46262h03d1.jpg

I'd like to give him a kicking down a slightly grubby urban back alley

See how disturbed I am? I'm walking in the middle of the street, even tho' cars are driving there. And I got a funny hat too! Boy, am I disturbed!

I'm so weeeeird, man. OK, so it's really not me ... it's some skanky groupie, the sort of which that a couple of albums from now i'll start spending way too much time making cheap and tasteless jokes at their expense for the next 20 odd years or so till i finally drop dead ... but hey, i'm so weeeeird, man!

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000009S3.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

i'm through with all that android crap, that's so 1979 and besides i could never beat kraftwerk at that game. i'm james bond now! you know, a spy and all? i even fly my airplane over indian military bases! can phil oakley say that? all i can say is, this place sure beats being some 350-pound sikh's ass-bitch in the calcutta jailhouse! though i bet andy bell or martin gore would be into that shit!

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00000F1UF.01._PE_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

actually, we do spend way more time here then we should, seeing as "lola" was the first thing we put out that actually made us any money in years. we invented heavy metal and punk and stuff, but we'd look really dumb if we took pictures of ourselves hanging out in graveyards like that brummy git osbourne.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000009DI1.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

I left my baby and I feel so sad, I guess my race has run... IN A 2000S STYLEEEEE!