"The white album" by No Use for a Name

This little game is about designing an album cover with a random photo and some random text. But I wondered what would happen if I didn't use a photo. So I made up a title and a band name (mind you, the band name DOES exist).
So here's the result. Any comments?

"The Fame Monster" by Lady Gaga

If there's one fraud, just one fake artist in showbiz' nowadays it must be Stefani Germanotta. You know her by the name of Lady Gaga.

The whole Gaga-act is just a rip off. She 's literaly designed by the company House of Gaga, which she seems to run. But her whole stage appearance is inspired by (stolen from, that is) Madonna, Kylie Minogue, David Bowie, Grace Jones and Janet Jackson.

Someone who's been put together with parts from other people is called a Frankenstein monster, isn't he (or she)? That would make her album cover look like the top one on the left.
Secondly, she's popular with young girls and kids. But isn't there already another monster that is loved by kids, that is even more popular? (second cover).
To me, she's just addicted to fame (third cover), without having any talent for singing or dancing. She only wants to be famous for being famous (I call it the Paris Hilton syndrome)
And what do you have to do when you can't sing nor dance? Wiggle your parts. Especially the private ones. All you achieve by doing that, is getting infamous (4th cover).

So that is apparently what she's up to: getting famous by showing her c**t. Or by being one...

"The Fame Monster" by Lady Gaga

"The Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd

This is what Wikipedia writes about Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon": ... is the sixth studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd. Released in March 1973, the concept built on the ideas that the band had explored in their live shows and previous recordings. (...)

"The Dark Side of the Moon" was an immediate success, topping the Billboard 200 for one week. It subsequently remained on the charts for 741 weeks (fourteen years), the longest duration of any album in history. With an estimated 45 million units sold, it is Pink Floyd's most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums worldwide.
It spawned two singles, "Money" and "Us and Them".

This week, scientists discovered water on the moon. A bit strange though...
But if there's water, there might be fish. And if there are fish, some might be sharks.
Time to re-title the bestselling album by Pink Floyd.

"The Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd

"Origin of symmetry" by Muse

This is what Wikipedia writes about "Origin of symmetry": ... is the second studio album by English alternative rock band Muse, released on 17 June 2001. ( ... ) Origin of Symmetry was produced by David Bottrill, John Leckie (who previously worked on the band's first album, Showbiz) and the band themselves. In the UK it reached #3 and was certified platinum. The title for the album comes from a concept put forward by Michio Kaku in his book Hyperspace.
The album is seen as a departure from the alternative rock sound of Showbiz, as the band experimented instrumentally throughout the album. Matthew Bellamy used a pipe organ on "Megalomania". Due to the requirement of a pipe organ, this song is rarely played live by Muse...
Nestlé tried to use the song "Feeling Good" in a coffee commercial, though the band refused to give the company permission to do so. After using the song anyway, the band successfully sued Nestlé for £500,000, which the band donated to the charity Oxfam. Fragments of the song "New Born" have been used in an advertisement for Oxfam designed by Tim Burton. The advertisement uses part of the piano intro and the first driving guitar riff...

So Muse seems to have something with food, and maybe even with cutlery, or even gastronomy. So you might see the objects on the original record sleeve as forks...




"Origin of symmetry" by Muse

"Country Life" by Roxy Music

Wikipedia writes this about "Country Life" by Roxy Music: ...the fourth album by British rock band Roxy Music, released in 1974 and reaching #3 in the UK charts. The album is considered by many critics to be among the band's most sophisticated and consistent.
The cover features two scantily-clad models, Constanze Karoli and Eveline Grunwald. Bryan Ferry met them in Portugal and persuaded them to do the photo shoot (...) The cover image was considered controversial in some countries such as the United States, Spain, and The Netherlands, where it was censored for release. As a result, a later American LP release featured a different cover shot from the album's back cover that featured only the trees.

Nowadays nobody is shocked anymore by nudity. Not even if they're cartoon heroes. What if the cover models wouldn't have been live ones in 1974?

"The Velvet Underground & Nico" by The Velvet Underground & Nico

About the first album by The Velvet Underground Wikipedia says: "...was originally released in March 1967. Recorded in 1966 during Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable Multimedia Event Tour, The Velvet Underground & Nico would gain notoriety for its experimentalist performance sensibilities, as well as its focus on controversial subject matter expressed in many of their songs."

Talking about inevitable multimedia, ...I've seen animated Stone Age families use a banana for a telephone conversation but I have the slight impression that a mobile phone is a lot more effective.



"The Velvet Underground & Nico" by The Velvet Underground & Nico

"Jailbreak" by Thin Lizzy

One of the best rock LPs of 1976 was "Jailbreak" by Thin Lizzy. Wikipedia says: "The album proved to be Thin Lizzy's commercial breakthrough in the U.S. The singles include "Jailbreak" and "The Boys Are Back in Town", the latter being Thin Lizzy's biggest hit. The band originally wanted to release the more pop-oriented "Running Back" as the first single, which may account for the song's accessible arrangement and production."
One of the best TV shows of 2005 was "Prison Break". Wikipedia says: "Prison Break is an American serial drama television series created by Paul Scheuring (...) The series revolves around two brothers; one has been sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit, and the other, a genius, devises an elaborate plan to help his brother escape prison."

But what's in a name. And imagine if Thin Lizzy would've made the soundtrack...

"Jailbreak" by Thin Lizzy

"I've got so much to give" by Jack Black

If colour is an issue to you, we can always swap them. White becomes black. Black becomes white...

Barry White would become "an American actor, comedian, and musician. With his friend Kyle Gass, he makes up one half of the comedy and heavy metal music duo Tenacious D. The group has two albums and a full-length film. His acting career is extensive, starring primarily as bumbling, cocky, but internally self-conscious outsiders in comedy films" (...) like "School of Rock"...

"Jack" Black would be known "as an American record producer and singer-songwriter. A five-time Grammy Award-winner known for his rich bass voice and romantic image, White's greatest success came in the 1970s with the Love Unlimited Orchestra, crafting many enduring hit soul, funk, and disco songs. Worldwide, White had many gold and platinum albums and singles, with combined sales of over 100 million"...




"I've got so much to give" by Jack Black

"Born to run" by Bruce Springsteen

This is what Wikipedia writes about "Born to run" by Bruce Springsteen: ...with the release of Born to Run Springsteen finally found success: (...) "Born to Run", "Thunder Road", "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out", and "Jungleland" all received massive FM radio airplay and remain perennial favorites on many classic rock stations to this day. With its panoramic imagery, thundering production, and desperate optimism, some fans consider this among the best rock and roll albums of all time and Springsteen's finest work. (...) To cap off the triumph, Springsteen appeared on the covers of both Time and Newsweek in the same week, on October 27 of that year. So great did the wave of publicity become that Springsteen eventually rebelled against it during his first venture overseas, tearing down promotional posters before a concert appearance in London.

Springsteen is one of those megastars that gain big bucks. So why not being honest about it, and call your album "Born to (take the money and) run", or boldly "Born to cash"?...



"Born to cash" by Bruce Springsteen

"Meet The Beatles" by The Stones

This is what Wikipedia writes about the so-called debut album of the Beatles: Meet The Beatles! is the second Beatles' album released in the United States, despite the "first album" claim on its cover. Released on 20 January 1964, it was the first Capitol Records Beatles album, issued in both mono and stereo.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 59 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[citation needed]
In 2004, Meet The Beatles! was released for the first time on CD.

The cover design is simple and clear, but what would've happened when the Rolling Stones would've used the same graphic designer for their first album?


"Meet The Beatles" by The Stones

"Mind Games" by John Lennon

From now on once in a while I will make some mocking sleeves... parodies of existing covers. Of course I won't give you a fictitious review of the artist. You know them.
I'll tag the posts with "parody". The altered sleeves (like the U2 or the Celine Dion ones) will be tagged with "makeover"...

This is how the album sleeve of "Mind Games" by John Lennon looks like.
And this is what Wikipedia says about the album: (...) fourth post-Beatles solo album, and was recorded and released in 1973. The release of the album marked the beginning of Lennon's eighteen-month separation from Yoko Ono and the end of his period of political activism, prompted in part by the re-election of Richard Nixon. A welcome departure from his previous politically topical and somewhat abrasive Sometime In New York City album, Mind Games was warmly received by the public and Lennon's critics, with the album reaching #13 in the UK and #9 in the US, where it went gold.
More about the album here.

But how would the album look like when we would give it another political connotation? And it's still a mind game...


"Mind Games" by John Lennon