RetroTrash

EASY LISTENING

































NOTES ON THE ABOVE
From the sublime to the ridiculous, record companies have been trying to sell us easy listening with provocative covers and outrageous images for decades now. Hence this assortment of trash, from the sleazy cover of The World of Roberto Mann, with the girl looking like she's making love to the camera, to the outright mundane straight bird relaxing in an armchair on the cover of Your Hundred Best Tunes. The latter has to rate as the most boring in my collection, but as I kept coming across it and couldn't avoid it, I thought I'd better add it. It contrasts strongly with the other flashy covers for which there are many to choose from. For some reason this category has almost as many as the Pop Hits category. My fave has to be Erotic Dreams; looking like something out of the pages of Penthouse, it even has that soft focus touch beloved of the likes of Bob Guccione. See also the Tranquility LP. And I do apologise, having made it a cardinal rule not to feature covers with the artistes on the front, but I had to include Promises Promises by Aimi MacDonald and Ronnie Carroll simply because it is so tacky. And don't you just love those white boots! Excuse me, aren't these coming back into fashion, or is it just my imagination? I also like Best Loved Songs with the girl with the cheesy smile and disinterested white cat. Mmm, nice pussy. In fact, there's three cats on this page—that's a lot of pussy for one page. There's also one or two American issues I've slipped in here, like Ferrante and Teicher, simply because they're interesting. To see more American designs take a look at Under the Cover and Over the Top who have done a splendid job with their site and lots and lots of weird and wonderful covers, so I'm going to try and limit mine to English releases only. Having said that, I couldn't resist including Paul Mauriat's El Condor Pasa simply because it is a superb cover—and bears little relation to the music on the record. It comes in a gatefold sleeve that opens out to reveal the figure of a girl covered in black and red body paint and feathers with ridiculously red fingernails. See the full cover. When you open up the sleeve you get another image of the girl from a different angle, see here. It is a pity more record companies couldn't have been this inventive. It's not strictly a trashy cover as I'm sure someone somewhere would be willing to pay a small fortune for it, but it's got style. Great shame about the unremarkable music. Also, the Sandpipers' Guantanamera had a different sleeve on its American release. See here. And check out the back to the Remember When LP as you can get a better look at the girl than from the front pic. See it here. Another LP cover worth checking out has to be the one with the chick dressed in a Santa outfit. Worth getting for the gatefold sleeve, as she really is quite cute. See the pic here. The Themes & Dreams LP is actually a boxset, but as the sleeves inside are all plain, I've included it here rather than in the Boxsets section. I've finally managed to get hold of The Stripper LP by David Rose. It has to be one of the best, and exemplifies perfectly what this website is all about; gratuitous exploitation of the female form. Nice concept tho'. Okay Harry Secombe doesn't really merit inclusion here, but I quite like the cover, both front and back, and some pretty girls. No wonder he's got a big cheesy grin on his face. And the Peddlers LP is best appreciated in its gatefold glory. Notice how the nips fall exactly in line with the spine of the sleeve. The last sleeve, Music to Bathe By, I was in two minds about including here as it's not a photo but a very good painting, and the record really seems to be an advertisement for a soap brand. The whole concept is trashy, and who really would buy such an LP in the first place, unless of course it was given away free. To view larger images use the Database
BACK	GALLERIES	HOME	DATABASE	NEXT