8. Led Zeppelin- "Led Zeppelin" (1969)
Led Zeppelin's front cover, which was chosen by Page, features a black-and-white image of the burning Hindenburg airship, photographed by Sam Shere on 6 May 1937, during the Hindenburg disaster.[30] The image refers to the origin of the band's name itself: When Page, Beck and The Who's Keith Moon and John Entwistle were discussing the idea of forming a group, Moon joked, "It would probably go over like a lead balloon", and Entwistle reportedly replied, "a lead zeppelin!"[15]
The back cover features a photograph of the band taken by Dreja. The entire design of the album's sleeve was coordinated by George Hardie, with whom the band would continue to collaborate for future sleeves.[5] Hardie himself also created the front cover illustration, rendering the famous original black-and-white photograph in ink using a Rapidograph technical pen and a mezzotint technique.[30]
Hardie recalled that he originally offered the band a design based on an old club sign in San Francisco – a multi-sequential image of a zeppelin airship up in the clouds. Page declined but it was retained as the logo for the back cover of Led Zeppelin's first two albums and a number of early press advertisements.[30] The first UK pressing featured the band name and the Atlantic logo in turquoise. When it was switched to the orange print later that year, the turquoise-printed sleeve became a collector's item.[5]
The album cover gained further widespread attention when, at a February 1970 gig in Copenhagen, the band were billed as "the Nobs" as the result of a legal threat from aristocrat Eva von Zeppelin (a relative of the creator of the Zeppelin aircraft). Von Zeppelin, upon seeing the logo of the Hindenburg crashing in flames, threatened legal action over the concert taking place.[31][32] In 2001, Greg Kot wrote in Rolling Stone that "The cover of Led Zeppelin … shows the Hindenburg airship, in all its phallic glory, going down in flames. The image did a pretty good job of encapsulating the music inside: sex, catastrophe and things blowing up."
Comments
Post a Comment