"Hello, I'm Johnny Cash." On January 13, 1968, Johnny Cash played two concerts at Folsom State Prison with June Carter, Carl Perkins, the Statler Brothers, and his band, the Tennessee Three. At Folsom Prison, drawn mainly from the first show, is often ranked as one of the best albums of all time and turned Cash's career around. Reporter Gene Beley covered the concert and recorded some songs from the audience. [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha on Oct 23, 2009 - 22 comments

To promote their soon-to-be-released album, In This Light and On This Evening (coming October 27), British indie rockers Editors have made an interesting hack of Google Maps Street View. If you go to the Editors website here, you can wander through the streets of London looking for landmarks set out by the band. [more inside]
posted by rocket88 on Oct 19, 2009 - 9 comments

It's Seurat by me. Iconic album covers by the Beatles and the Clash. Mixed media (a metric buttload of Rubik's cubes shown in Dailymotion video). (via)
posted by maudlin on Jul 3, 2009 - 11 comments

70s/80s Soviet album covers. Until today, I had no idea Soviet hair metal existed. Prepare for keytars, mall hair and proof that 80s cheese was not solely a product of degenerate kepitalist decadence.
posted by DecemberBoy on Jun 23, 2009 - 54 comments

Wilco has just started streaming their new album, Wilco (The Album) The band has done this since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and is asking those who download the entire thing to donate some cash to The Inspiration Corporation charity in Chicago.
posted by TheDonF on May 13, 2009 - 84 comments

Classic record sleeves - re-designed as Pelican book covers (Flickr set).
posted by the_very_hungry_caterpillar on May 11, 2009 - 35 comments

Omaha rockers Cursive are selling their new album for just $1... No wait, it's $2... $3... $4... WTF?? In yet another twist on the whole, name-your-price (Radiohead), fan-financed (Jill Sobule), take-shrooms-and-cruise-hollywood (Josh Freese) tiered pricing experiment being carried out by what's left of the music industry, Cursive are increasing the price of their new record by $1 each day until its "official" release. Given the popularity of sites like Did it Leak (and the corresponding file-sharing forums that I won't link to here) it seems to me like this is a pretty good way to reward well-intentioned but impatient fans who might otherwise resort to less honorable means of getting the latest stuff from their favorite bands. Or maybe it's just another hare-brained scheme that will only hasten the end of record labels as we know them. Either way, they got my $1... And that was after I already got my hands on the mp3s!
posted by idontlikewords on Mar 2, 2009 - 23 comments

Josh Freese shows all how to promote an album in 2009. [more inside]
posted by chuckdarwin on Feb 20, 2009 - 48 comments

Spinal Tap reforms to record a new album. Entire planet quivers in anticipation.
posted by chuckdarwin on Feb 5, 2009 - 42 comments

“In the condition I was in, it assumed at the time the quality of a beacon, a light on the far shores of the murk; what's more, it was proof that there was something left to express artistically besides nihilism and destruction.” Lester Bangs on the topic of Van Morrison's Astral Weeks which began recording exactly 40 years ago today in Century Sound Studios NYC. [more inside]
posted by philip-random on Sep 25, 2008 - 36 comments

Album atlas - mapping the locations of album cover photographs. Feel free to contribute.
posted by davebush on Sep 7, 2008 - 10 comments

Imagine if millions of people had seen you naked before you were old enough to say "embarrassing." That's the story of Spencer Elden. [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster on Jul 27, 2008 - 51 comments

Before Alex Steinweiss invented the album cover in 1938, at the age of 23, all albums came in plain brown wrappers. Steinweiss's idea to create a package that had something visual on the outside to lure the consumer was a huge success. A tribute show for the 90-year-old Steinweiss will be held at the Robert Berman Gallery in Santa Monica, California, until February 23, 2008. More about Steinweiss here and here. First link via.
posted by amyms on Feb 19, 2008 - 13 comments

The Football Albums. Music and football. Surely there's something better than "Hail to the Redskins" and "The Superbowl Shuffle?" One man believed there could be. That man was Peter Hughes, Inland Empire indie rock mini-star, sometime member of Nothing Painted Blue and the Mountain Goats, baseball diarist, and leader of the now-defunct band Diskothi-Q. In 1999, Diskothi-Q released The Football Albums: a double CD of 32 songs, one for each team in the NFL. All are now freely downloadable as .mp3s: AFC and NFC. (.mp3 links follow) Get ready for the big game this weekend by pitting "Colts" against "Patriots." Revel in the untamed savagery of "Eagles" or sympathize with the touching lament, "(Nobody Cares about the St. Louis) Rams."
posted by escabeche on Oct 29, 2007 - 21 comments

The new Radiohead album is now available for pre-order from the band's website. How much for the download version you ask? Name your own price.
posted by gfrobe on Oct 1, 2007 - 201 comments

LP Cover Lover The world's greatest LP album covers. Groovy, man. [some nudity, some total insanity]
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken on Jul 18, 2007 - 29 comments

If this album cover quiz frustrates you, you might enjoy watching some album art wars instead.
posted by Oriole Adams on May 29, 2007 - 38 comments

Some album covers with comments. [related]
posted by tellurian on Dec 21, 2006 - 14 comments

Your favorite album sucks. It's December, so you know what that means - best of 2006 album lists! While everyone eagerly awaits the latest Christmas card from Ignited Minds pass the time deriding/praising your favorite/hated indie/hipster/industry site for recognizing/snubbing (fill in the blank with band of choice here)! Lists, lists and more lists. While some think EOY lists are pointless or conceited, others find worst of lists are much better. This Mefite finds them an early Christmas list of torrent downloading goodness. And if you're having problems making your list please refer to this handy dandy cheat sheet.
posted by daHIFI on Dec 4, 2006 - 33 comments

Battle of the Bands. [QT, NSFW] Album cover animation. More at Motionographer.
posted by Armitage Shanks on Oct 6, 2006 - 18 comments

The 23rd Century is a sweet band that just released their new CD, "Take A Trip Though Time With...The 23rd Century", for free online in mp3 format. The album was created by metafilter user tcobretti and his cousin. You can purchase the album here to support them, or you can buy their tshirt, obviously inspired/ripped off from the John Titor insignia. There is also a cool schematic-based navigation to the site, presumably from the same great mind who brought us runoffgroove.com. [via mefi projects]
posted by banished on Mar 17, 2006 - 12 comments

Pitchfork's Worst Album Covers of All Time. (Previous discussions of worst and best album covers)
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Nov 15, 2005 - 107 comments

November is National Solo Album Month! So, for the purposes of NaSoAlMo, what exactly is a solo album? An album of music you have written, played and recorded entirely by yourself. The shortest inarguably awesome album that a lot of people have heard is the first Ramones album, which is 29:09 long, so your solo album must be at least that long. Beyond that, its form and content are up to you. Sorry to wait until the last minute, but if you sign up today you'll still have 30 days to write and record your masterpiece!
posted by mcsweetie on Nov 1, 2005 - 52 comments

George Russell, jazz's first theoretician, has released a new album to commemorate his 80th birthday. When Miles Davis remarked that he "wanted to learn all the changes," Russell responded by conceiving his Lydian Chromatic Concept. First published in 1953, the Concept resulted in the most influential album in jazz history. Today Russell turns 82.
posted by cribcage on Jun 23, 2005 - 10 comments

Last year, Pitchforkmedia.com published a nauseatingly smug review in smarmy, supercilious prose by Amanda Petrusich of the David Cross album It's Not Funny. This year, regardless of their opinion of David and/or his act, they asked him for his Top Ten List®. Here then, are the "Top Ten CD's That [He] Just Made Up (and accompanying made-up review excerpts) to listen to while skimming through some of the overwrought reviews on Pitchforkmedia.com"
Pitchfork discussed here, here, here and here. David Cross here and here.
posted by airguitar on May 25, 2005 - 97 comments

"Man, I DO love a good album cover!" -- Dana Countryman
posted by breezeway on Mar 18, 2005 - 21 comments

Art rock/metal band A Perfect Circle are releasing a new album consisting of mostly politically orientated covers, including John Lennon's Imagine. With so many bands pumping out the politics recently why is this strange? Because for so many years the band, and frontman Maynard James Keenan (also the lead singer for Tool) have usually kept right out of politics, opting for a more mysterious and individualistic approach to their music. Interesting to read what some of their fans think?
posted by Jase_B on Oct 19, 2004 - 16 comments

William Shatner's new album hits the stores today. Produced by Ben Folds, of course.
posted by eustacescrubb on Oct 5, 2004 - 45 comments

'Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned' is a trashy, adrenalised, sleaze-funk masterpiece. After six years of silence, The Prodigy have released their new album. Is the electronic music finally getting its head out of its ass? Most of us think so, but some don't.
posted by orelius on Sep 16, 2004 - 47 comments

The Slack Album The Slack Album is the latest (for the next ten minutes) in a slew of Jay-Z Black Album remixes and mash-ups. In this case, the Black Album is melded track-for-track with samples taken from Pavement's 1991 lo-fi / indie classic Slanted and Enchanted.
posted by mcsweetie on Apr 29, 2004 - 16 comments

"Loved Like a Milkshake" is an 18-track tribute album to the beloved outsider musician Wesley Willis. It's a joy-ride. It really whips the camel's ass with a belt.
posted by starkeffect on Jan 17, 2004 - 17 comments

One hundred established graphic and fine artists were approached to create the definitive album cover of their favorite recording artist. Each chose an iconic musical subject from the 1940s to the present and from the genres of rock, blues, jazz, country and soul music. The result is an original and highly creative collection of contemporary art. The Greatest Album Covers That Never Were.
posted by riffola on Nov 16, 2003 - 25 comments

Worst Album Covers Ever. It is either "Let me touch him" or "Julie's Sixteenth Birthday." I'll let you decide.
posted by gen on Nov 4, 2003 - 40 comments

The Eminem Show reached #2 on the Gracenote charts last week, even though the album was not officially released until Sunday. Gracenote doesn't give exact figures on traffic, but it said the No. 2 slot in its charts represented a total figure of listeners in the "mid-tens of thousands" over the course of the week.
posted by ry on May 28, 2002 - 15 comments

Gee, this a good idea (NYT reg req) - The New York Times discusses the growing popularity of .zip whole album downloads on Audiogalaxy. The article is also kind enough to include a step-by-step how-to for idiots like me who want free music but haven't thought of this before. Thanks!
posted by dydecker on Feb 25, 2002 - 37 comments

And the Grammy Award for most unfortunate album cover art goes to... The Coup! (Thankfully this rap group has already announced that they will change the cover to this CD.)
posted by spilon on Sep 12, 2001 - 12 comments