Led Zeppelin Album Covers

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

II is the punkest, Zoso's the saddest, houses & physical graffiti are too fancy. coda & presence are shitty.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 20 November 2003 19:08 (twenty-two years ago)

if you open the gatefold of IV up and hold it against the mirror, you can see a wolf!

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 20 November 2003 19:10 (twenty-two years ago)

II and PG had the complicated spinny and pully things respectively.

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 20 November 2003 19:10 (twenty-two years ago)

In through the out door came packaged in paper bags.

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 20 November 2003 19:11 (twenty-two years ago)

oh i didn't mean houses was too fancy, i meant the one with the rotating circle cut-out things

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 20 November 2003 19:12 (twenty-two years ago)

that was III

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 20 November 2003 19:12 (twenty-two years ago)

(not II as a mistakenly wrote up thread).

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 20 November 2003 19:13 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.led-zeppelin.com/gfx4/lz3.jpg
actually it's pretty wicked

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 20 November 2003 19:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Presence is pretty indie rock.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 20 November 2003 19:14 (twenty-two years ago)

presence is gross. it's so floyd.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 20 November 2003 19:17 (twenty-two years ago)

same artists: hypgnosis (sp?)

― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 20 November 2003 19:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Physical Graffiti always inspired nausea in me, I don't know why. It's probably why it took me so long to actually listen to it.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 20 November 2003 19:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Presence is great, probably my favorite of theirs. I love the detail of the little marina scene in the background. I like the first one too, it's kind of terrifying. And I like how fresh-faced they all look on the back-cover.

Does II show Plant and Jones in their contemporary facial-hair mode? I can't remember.

Houses is my least favorite, especially the gatefold art ... ugh.

When I was a little kid I had all the Zep albums on cassette, but I was really curious about that Zep III cover, so one time I went into this record store and surreptitiously ripped the shrink-wrap off a copy just so I could spin the wheel and see what all the little pictures were..

― Broheems (diamond), Thursday, 20 November 2003 19:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Presence is my least favorite - it just gives me the creeps. I have to go for III as my favorite, though Page thought it was the worst. But it might just be the songs that make me say that. Immigrant Song = best rock song ever. EVER. Especially with the solo, as on How the West Was Won.

What about the new DVD cover? Anyone catch the 'Ring' motif?

― calstars (calstars), Thursday, 20 November 2003 20:07 (twenty-two years ago)

III is tops, I wish I had big poster of it.

― dleone (dleone), Thursday, 20 November 2003 20:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Presence is AWESOME!!

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Thursday, 20 November 2003 20:38 (twenty-two years ago)

yuck.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 20 November 2003 20:39 (twenty-two years ago)

I actually really like the gatefold part of Houses of the Holy - the sacrifice thing is a bit hokey, but the colours are really quite nice.

And I think Presence is quite a great cover - very funny.

I like the spinning wheel inside III, but the cover itself is pretty ugly.

Apparently you could smear the original In Through The Out Door covers with water and the pictures changed colours or summat.

― Kent Burt (lingereffect), Friday, 21 November 2003 05:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Wasn't the original In Through the Out Door cover one a parody of one of those "Self-paint" books, where you just wet selected parts of the pages, and they get "coloured in" by paint hidden in the half-tone pattern!?!? Then you wet other parts, and the paint get mixed in with the previous paints, and when you're finished, you've ended up with something that looks like a painting-by-numbers fished from the North Sea!!!!!!!!!

― Old Fart!!! (oldfart_sd), Friday, 21 November 2003 13:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I always liked the cover to Prescence.

A band from Bloomington called Sardina did a take off on their record "Presents". There is a picture at Allmusic of the cover.

― earlnash, Friday, 21 November 2003 14:09 (twenty-two years ago)

With the exception of the crop circles on "Remasters" I've been pretty disappointed with the artwork for all the recent releases, "HTWWW", "BBC", etc. All a bit dull. The artwork for the new DVD in particular is horrible. Super-cheesy.

By contrast, Plant's "Dreamland" has some great images...

― steve, Friday, 21 November 2003 14:59 (twenty-two years ago)

I've never liked the cover to the second album (the one with the fighter team photo with...is that Lucile Ball?). The cover of III (spinning wheel) is fucking fantastic, as is the St.Mark's Place tenement building cover for Physical Graffitti. The cover of Houses of the Holy is nice and mysterious (and has forver planted a desire to visit the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland as a result). Presence is a bit of an ambitious move for them....much for Pink Floydesque, but let's remember it was done by Hipignosis, who designed many of the Floyd covers. In through the Out Door is just too busy (if their intent was for people to concentrate solely on the music....as is the paper bag's intent, I believe....why did they bother with the multiple bar scene covers on the inside?) I also don't think the images of that cover (noirish bar scene) have any real relevance/correlation with the music contained therein. I've also never liked any aspect of the IV cover (old man with sticks, Zoso, etc.) and found the inner gatefold to be just a bit too cheezy for them.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 21 November 2003 20:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Hipgnosis did Houses too, I believe, and maybe In Though the Out Door (not sure about latter)

― Mark (MarkR), Friday, 21 November 2003 20:48 (twenty-two years ago)

the ithroughtod cover is another financial coup /new paradigm shift, again one up on the industry -- i imagine zep wanted to whip up mystique here again

people do not know which cover or scene they would get if it is shrink wrapped & sealed -- the paper disguise probably means fanatics buy 8 copies, but depending on how business is at the lp store (whether the good old store forces a lucky dip on people as zep set out to), maybe many get stuck with duplicates -- maybe people feel ripped off, cheated, humiliated into a 3 copy men -- that there's possibly something not right here -- the special lp #9 -- that kenneth anger uses to resist real evil ?????

this and all the scenes add up to ? ? An Emmy for best marketing ("Cover"). A saturday afternoon and saturday evening led zep and wife swap meet.

― george gosset (gegoss), Friday, 21 November 2003 21:36 (twenty-two years ago)

people do not know which cover or scene they would get if it is shrink wrapped & sealed

You could tell which cover it was by looking at the catalog number on the spine of the cover. The six different covers were labeled -A through -F

Hipnosis/Storm Thorgerson also did the ITTOD album cover.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Saturday, 22 November 2003 09:37 (twenty-two years ago)

My father used to scare me with album cover imagery...with "Houses of the Holy", he insisted that the children on the cover were neither girls nor boys, but "ITS." The concept of sexless children unsettled me through my young childhood.

― p.j. (Henry), Saturday, 22 November 2003 19:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Your father is clearly not a well man.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 22 November 2003 20:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I used to find the News of the World cover very disturbing when I was a kid

― cinniblount (James Blount), Sunday, 23 November 2003 04:40 (twenty-two years ago)

That one really got to me too!
Funny you should say that.

― p.j. (Henry), Sunday, 23 November 2003 15:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think any of them are particularly great but I and IV are decent. III, which I was listening to this morning (S: "Immigrant Song", the guitars on "Since i've Been Loving You", "Out On the Tiles", "Tangerine", "That's the Way" ; skip the rest), is nice in a hippy-dippy way, which suits the music. Houses is kind of tacky. Presence is totally lame.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Sunday, 23 November 2003 17:40 (twenty-two years ago)

three years pass...

the cover of the new best of set reminds me a lot of the white stripes' get behind me satan album font/general design.

― titchyschneiderMk2, Saturday, 17 November 2007 22:08 (eighteen years ago)

S: "Immigrant Song", the guitars on "Since i've Been Loving You", "Out On the Tiles", "Tangerine", "That's the Way" ; skip the rest

NFW

― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Sunday, 18 November 2007 00:07 (eighteen years ago)

The new box set looks a bit Shepherd "Obey Giant" Fairy-esque. Wouldn't be at all surprised if he did it.

― Alex in NYC, Sunday, 18 November 2007 00:18 (eighteen years ago)

http://home.att.net/~chuckayoub/Led_Zeppelin_I.jpg

...is this supposed to look like a dick?

― Z S, Sunday, 18 November 2007 03:15 (eighteen years ago)

and I know it comes straight from this picture:
http://www.hydrogennow.org/Facts/hindenburg.jpg

What I'm saying is, did the pilot of Hindenburg try to go down looking like a dick?

― Z S, Sunday, 18 November 2007 03:16 (eighteen years ago)

...um, I'll be over at the I am drunk thread, thanks

― Z S, Sunday, 18 November 2007 03:25 (eighteen years ago)

...is this supposed to look like a dick?

Hi todaywe're playing a game called W

― kenan, Sunday, 18 November 2007 03:27 (eighteen years ago)

...is this supposed to look like a dick?

Hi today we're playing a game called What Do You Think?

(damnit.)

― kenan, Sunday, 18 November 2007 03:28 (eighteen years ago)

Oh, the humanity...

― Myonga Vön Bontee, Sunday, 18 November 2007 08:25 (eighteen years ago)

That's what she said.

― JN$OT, Sunday, 18 November 2007 10:15 (eighteen years ago)

Murder she wrote.

― t**t, Sunday, 18 November 2007 18:40 (eighteen years ago)

two months pass...

the covers for bbc sessions, the self titled DVD, and how the west was won are all terrible.

― mr x, Monday, 28 January 2008 12:44 (eighteen years ago)

AGREE

― calstars, Monday, 28 January 2008 13:36 (eighteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.