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You CAN judge a book by it’s cover

Liquid Swords

Contributed by Saron Dier on 5/5/08

I don’t know a story to set this up, so here it goes…

Liquid swords is the best album cover ever.

We could play this cd in class, and it STILL wouldn’t be as disruptive as us middle schoolers passing that tape around. But at this point, school didn’t matter. The Wu Tang double CD was all we needed. (someone HAS to understand that quote… hahaha)

Have you ever seen the Liquid Swords cover? Sweet heavens. The illustration was awesome. Like seeing [insert fav actress] naked in your bed awesome. Picture this. A comic book style drawing. The Genius with a sword [presumably liquid] doing a ninja slash on an opponent. In the background was a Wu-Tang kung fu WAR on top of a chessboard, complete with a shogun’s decapitator. And as much as I like to exaggerate my stories, I’m not kidding one bit.

That cover kicks complete ass.

Think of the majority of classic albums that you own. Don’t they have great cover art? Mine do - Illmatic, Ready to Die, ATLiens, Midnight Marauders/Low End Theory. Add your personal favorites. There were days when I’d contemplate getting a rap album, just because of the album art. And even if the abulum was ass, I could swindle someone else into thinking otherwise! Win-Win.

Going through my parents’ record collection, I am floored. The album covers are gorgeous. Works of art. The intricacies and detail that came with the album art reflected the same subtleties, intricacies, and detail that were found in the actual music. Go crate digging and see if those album covers aren’t art museum worthy. Just like the music inside.

Now it seems that album covers are quite the afterthought. Most times, it’s the artist in front of a car, surrounded by computer generated effects. Just like the music is on the inside. What else can you expect, right? Form follows function. Just don’t talk about the boo-boo albums with great covers, or the great albums with boo-boo covers. You’ll poke holes in my theory hahahaha.

I really miss those hand drawn, rough cut photography, ultra creative album covers that meshed with the theme of the album. The covers that invoked a little imagination on the listener’s part.

The covers that people still rave about 13 years later.

In no paticular order, these are some examples of great album covers people have and/or will be raving about in the future:

Genius/Gza – Liquid Swords