Best 1970s rock album covers revealed in new documentary

Earlier than the age of the web and social media, it was all about album covers.

And London-based artwork design studio Hipgnosis created a few of the most iconic artwork, for traditional rock acts reminiscent of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles band Wings.

The brand new documentary “Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)” — which opened at NYC’s Movie Discussion board on Wednesday and rolls out nationwide later this month — goes contained in the studio that created the visuals for a few of the greatest acts of the Nineteen Seventies.

“The significance of an album sleeve won’t ever be the identical as within the ’70s, and to make a documentary about probably the most distinguished album covers of the period which are all finished by one design crew is absolutely essential for individuals who have missed that interval,” stated famend rock photographer Anton Corbijn, who directed the movie. “Although vinyl gross sales have surged once more, it’s like a interval that’s gone.”

Right here, he and Hipgnosis co-founder Aubrey “Po” Powell dish on some key album covers.

Pink Floyd, “The Darkish Aspect of the Moon”

Of all of the basic LP covers to come back out of Hipgnosis’ visionary manufacturing unit, Pink Floyd’s 1973 idea album boasts probably the most iconic picture of all of them. After a cow was famously featured on the curious cowl of 1970’s “Atom Heart Mother,” Powell, who began Hipgnosis together with the late Storm Thorgerson, stated that the band wished “one thing extra graphic or easy.” He discovered inspiration from an unlikely supply: physics. “I occurred to be trying via a ebook in regards to the refraction of sunshine and instantly Storm stated, ‘I’ve acquired it! We have to do a pyramid with a refraction of sunshine.’” 

Pink Floyd, “Want You Had been Right here”

By the mid-Nineteen Seventies, Pink Floyd had grown disillusioned with the music trade, griping about artists getting “burned” within the enterprise. So for the duvet of their 1975 album, the band sought a literal depiction of that with a stuntman who — in an period earlier than digital results — really needed to be set on hearth for a number of takes. “After I was youthful, I didn’t understand the context of the hearth,” stated Corbijn. “You may create the identical impact now with digital simply. Nevertheless it makes it higher that he’s actually on hearth.”

Led Zeppelin, “Homes of the Holy”

For Hipgnosis’ first collaboration with Led Zep, they had been tasked with arising with the album cowl of the band’s 1973 basic. “I acquired a cellphone name from Jimmy Web page asking to do an album cowl for them,” stated Powell. “I stated, ‘After all, however can we hear some music? Is there a title?’ ‘No, no — simply provide you with some concepts.’ And one of many concepts was taken immediately from Arthur C. Clarke’s ebook ‘Childhood’s Finish.’” However Powell admits that the pictures of two bare kids — Stefan and Samantha Gates — taken on the Big’s Causeway in Northern Eire wouldn’t fly at this time. “After all you possibly can not do this cowl now,” he stated. “It could be problematic.”

Wings, “Band on the Run”

Paul McCartney was perpetually fleeing from the Beatles, so on his third album with Wings, he wished to drive residence that departure. “Symbolically, it’s him escaping from the Beatles,” stated Powell. “And from that second onwards, our relationship with Paul McCartney went on for 15 years, and we did practically all the things for him by way of album covers, and many others. And it was a pleasure. It was a bit like working with an arts-school scholar, as a result of he was at all times tearing up bits of paper and scribbling notes.”

Peter Gabriel, “Peter Gabriel (Scratch)”

After searching for out Hipgnosis in 1977 for his first post-Genesis solo LP, Gabriel returned to the studio for his second self-titled set in 1978, which is called the “Scratch” album. It was one of many few instances that an artist was really featured on a Hipgnosis cowl. Nonetheless, it was hardly a typical portrait. “He was on the lookout for an concept, and he’d go rummaging across the studio on the lookout for previous concepts that had been discarded for different acts,” stated Powell. Gabriel found one thing that Hipgnosis had finished in posters for a theater troupe: “He stated, ‘Oh, I like the concept of scratching myself out of the image. Are you able to do this for me?’ ”