Life is but a rock 'n' roll dream! Thirty years ago, artist Guy Peellaert teamed up with author Nik Cohn to create this fantasy tribute to rock 'n' roll and r&b. Through surreal texts and images, Cohn and Peelaert paint an imaginary world where the great gods of mid-century popular music appear in their own settings (the Drifters under the boardwalk, Otis Redding on the dock of the bay, the Beach boys on the beach). Here, rock music is a "secret society, an enclosed teen fantasy" treated with the same kind of passion and obsession famously generated by the most fanatic of lovesick, pimply adolescents. All of the founding heroes of rock, soul, and pop appear in peellaert and Cohn's colorful hallucinations, including Buddy Holly, Elvis, Ray Charles, Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, the Rolling stones, the Beatles, the Who, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, and many more. Taschen's revival of this unique book comes at a time when rock is making a strong comeback and young musicians are taking inspiration from the very stars featured in rock dreams.
People often ask me what my favorite album is. Without much thought I am able to answer them. The Who's 1969 album "Tommy" is my favorite record of all time. The album artwork also happens to be my favorite. Recently I was thinking about the album and how it affected me in my life. I decided to look up the Tommy album art and was surprised that I was unable to find any of it. I could find the cover, but never all the album art inside. The Tommy CD comes with a booklet with lyrics and a series of different illustrations. But they weren't on the internet. So this blog will be changing that! I just took out my CD booklet and scanned all the artwork. There are two versions of the cover, one featuring small images of their faces inserted into the gaps in the central sphere. The other is just the original work. Executives at The Who's record label insisted on having the band members pictured on the cover, so that's why there are two covers. Pete Tow...
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