Storm Thorgerson has long been credited with some of the world's most innovative and famous album covers. However, one image has also stood out even though not an album cover in its own right. This image, created in 1996 and published as a fine art print in 1998, shows six girls sitting by a pool, body painted with images from Pink Floyd Album covers. This image is known by the name 'Back Catalogue'.
To celebrate the success of Storm's work over the years and to pay homage to Hipgnosis' (i.e., Storm Thorgerson & Aubrey Powell) work, Dekkel Fine Art has published (with Storm) the new image you see above. This time, it is set in a different location and features a mixture of cover images Storm and Aubrey Powell created as the design company Hipgnosois - from left to right - Black Sabbath (Technical Ecstasy), The Mars Volta (The Widow), The Cranberries (Wake Up And Smell The Coffee), Muse (Absolution), 10cc (Deceptive Bends) and Audioslave (Audioslave).
Storm Thorgerson signing this edition - 2008
Black Sabbath’s Technical Ecstasy - "The escalator in the background is a photograph taken in the London Underground. The robots were hand drawn and then copied by a photo retoucher, who then colors the images and the background so they meld. It was love at first robotic sight." (Storm Thorgerson)
In this next-to-last recording with Ozzy on vocals (the final one was 1978's Never Say Die), the band continued to experiment with various styles, including funk ("All Moving Parts Stand Still" and "Rock and Roll Doctor") and the more melodic offering of "It's Alright", which featured drummer Bill Ward on vocals. The dark power of the band was underlying most everything, though, as shown in the crowd-pleaser "Dirty Women" and "Back Street Kids".
The Mars Volta – “The Widow” – “The Widow” is a song from the band’s second album titled Frances the Mute. It was the band’s first Top 100 single (topping out at #95) – not so strange as the band’s songs usually are not delivered in a “radio-friendly” format! The version on the album was actually quite a bit longer than the one released as a single and even contained a trumpet part provided by Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The Cranberries - Wake Up And Smell the Coffee – Released in late 2001, this was the fifth (and, seemingly last) studio album by The Cranberries. Released late in 2001, it peaked at #46 on the Top 200 Album charts and shows the band “returning to their basics”, featuring strong-but-somber melodies delivered by singer Dolores O’Riordan.
Muse – Absolution - was the third studio album by English rock band Muse. It was released on Warner Bros. Records in September, 2003 in the UK and six months later in the U.S. Keeping the theatrical rock traditions of Queen and Radiohead moving forward, the album featured the band’s first big American hit in "Time Is Running Out".
10cc – Deceptive Bends - In 1976, after the songwriting duo of Godley and Creme left 10cc to pursue a solo career, fans were left wondering if “the end was near” for the band. Remaining songwriters Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman answered that question with a pop-infected “no” with the release of Deceptive Bends in 1977, which included two international hits – the very funny “Good Morning Judge” and their pop vocal harmony masterpiece – “The Things We Do For Love”. Godley & Crème went on to become one of the hottest music video production teams in the early 1980s, responsible for videos from major acts including The Police, George Harrison, and Herbie Hancock (the amazing robotic “Rockit” video).
Audioslave – Audioslave - Released in November of 2002, this debut record by Audioslave brought together the amazing singing talents of Chris Cornell (from Soundgarden) and the outstanding musicianship of Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk (from Rage Against The Machine), with the resulting 14 tracks based on the band's early time spent in their Los Angeles rehearsal space writing and jamming. During this writing and recording process, rough demos from the album were leaked to fans on the Web for their feedback. The record also spawned their first hit, "Cochise" and a popular video directed by Mark Romanek.
The main image was shot in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands (by photographer Rupert Truman) with a Hasselblad 500c with a 50mm lens. Sculpture by Hothouse.
