Visual puns on album covers

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Only examples of this I can remember are UFOs 'Force It' (with pictures of 'faucets' along with a couple 'forcing it', geddit?) and Foreigner's 'Head Games' ('head' as in 'toilet' plus 'blowjob', etc.) Any more?

― dave q, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I suppose Scorpions' 'Lovedrive' would count too, seeing as they're in a limo. I just noticed these are all really pervy! More sexism, please.

― dave q, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Paul Tanner's 1959 'Music for Heavenly Bodies' has a front cover with a scantily clad lady floating through space. hey record companies, more album covers like that one, please!

― michael, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'head' as in 'toilet'

eh?????

― michael, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

On the sexism front, but going slightly off at a tangent:
- Sad Café - "Fanx, Ta-ra" (which I misheard originally as "Thanks to Ra", so was expected something like Egyptian-god worship on the cover. Instead, you get this pic of lad-type exiting a bedroom, woman lying on bed ... you get the idea.)

- Rush - "Permanent Waves" (the 'title' track is part of a song about tides & rockpools as metaphor for society and all that, cover features a woman with wavy hair prominently. Geddit?)

― Jeff W, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

if you want Egyptian gods, all the Penguin Cafe Orchestra album covers have 'em.

10cc - some of their covers have visual puns - they were that kind of clever-clever band.

― michael, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Serge Gainsbourg made an album in the 70s called L'homme a la tete de choux. The sleeve actually featured a sculpture of a bloke with a cabbage for a head. Not sure if it's exactly a visual pun - reputedly he bought this mad sculpture, loved it and then made a noise-concept album based around it.

― Daniel, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Head' = 'toilet' - nautical slang. Arrr mateys

― dave q, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Not an album, but the Pixies' "Gigantic/River Euphrates" single from 1988 features a picture of a big glove. Big glove, big love... geddit? Can't work out whether the photo of the squarkin' newborn on the other side is a reference to River Euphrates or not.

― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

errr, Moses in a basket ring any bells?

― michael, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

River Nile, surely.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The second Foghat album had a picture of a rock and a dinner roll on it. No title. The photo was taken by Robert Downey, Sr

― Arthur, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Like the naked woman's ass on the cover of the european release of This Is It that makes you think it's a good album?

― JM, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"errr, Moses in a basket ring any bells?"

I am a dumbass. Mind you (having now done the necessary minimum of Web research), I suspect it's playing more on the notion that the Moses tale is derived from the story of Sargon the Great (king of Akkad, 2600BC), who was set adrift on the Euphrates by his mother. Of course, it might all be there in Charlie T's lyrics, but I'm buggered if I can be bothered deciphering those.

― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Warrant's Cherry Pie album (or was it a single) showed a waitress dropping a slice of cherry pie, which was positioned pointy-end down in her crotchal region. Despite the dumbness of the band I have to admit I like that cover.

And as I type this I just realized the pun in the Brand X album Moroccan Roll (more rock & roll)!

― nickn, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah, Brand X. Remember 'Livestock'?

― dave q, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Pink Floyd's A Nice Pair has plenty of 'em - the fork in the road,bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,laughing all the way to the bank,and so forth.

― Damian, Wednesday, 19 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

no, i'm the dumb ass - Ned's right, Moses was found in the Nile. i'm getting my Middle Eastern rivers mixed up

― michael, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Two Steps From The Blues" by Bobby Bland. As Greil Marcus puts it in 'Mystery Train', "The cover shows Bobby posed in front of a building, which does indeed have two steps."

― Andrew L, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Blue Note had a few of these. Dolphy's "Out To Lunch" shows a door with an "out to lunch" sign with the numbers all mixed up ("out to lunch" also means crazy or confused).

― Mark, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Jonah Jones - I Dig Chicks, has four lovely ladies standing on the scoop of a mechanical digger

― michael, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's not a pun, but I wanted to get a word in about the cover to Vert's Koln Konzert. The front graphic is a picture of the waveform for the entire album as might be seen on a Pro-tools or Cubase window. The back cover has the song titles, which contain pointers to the front cover indicating exactly where the songs begin on the waveform image. It's a frosted see-through CD cover, and the shading in the interior of the waveform image comes from the text on the inside fold of the booklet showing through, text which appear to be liner notes extolling the virutes of the album as a work of jazz, but are actually just cribbed verbatium from old Miles Davis liner notes, with Vert's name inserted.

― Mark, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Insides - Clear Skin, has a see-through Rizla-sized paper insert

(i like the idea of stealing other people's liner notes)

― michael, Friday, 21 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ten years pass...

I remember hearing that they had come up with a name for their 2nd lp that the record label didn't like and were told to 'call it something else' which in Latin is roughly 'Sufa Osa' and a distortion of that is Surfer Rosa.

Incidentally it's the lp produced by Steve Albini whose surname is Italian for 'Little white' which might just be a coincidence in the naming of his first famous band?

― Stevolende, Monday, 2 April 2012 16:00 (thirteen years ago)

The Monkees - Pool It!

They're swimming in a pool! And it sounds like cool it! And they're pooling their resources!

― kornrulez6969, Monday, 2 April 2012 16:45 (thirteen years ago)

Rush was on some next level shit with Moving Pictures. From Wikipedia:
"On the front cover there are movers who are moving pictures. On the side, people are shown crying because the pictures passing by are emotionally "moving". Finally, the back cover has a film crew making a "moving picture" of the whole scene."

― BrianB, Monday, 2 April 2012 17:11 (thirteen years ago)

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