I can think of one: Yeah Yeah Noh’s album “Fun on the Lawn Lawn Lawn” had a hidden track called “Zoological Gardens” that was the last song on the second side. The song wasn’t listed on the label, and the record groove looped back into itself just before the needle got to “Zoological Gardens.” The result was that you’d have to pick up the needle and drop it back onto the last track to hear the song.
Geez, I should have also mentioned: The same Yeah Yeah Noh also had a 12" EP (“When I Am A Big Girl”) where one side played at 33rpm and the other played at 45rpm. The labels on each side, of course, both said “45rpm.” (Or maybe they both said “33rpm”, I dunno. The point is I always screw it up when I play the record, 'cause I can never remember which side is which.)
Grand Funk released an album shaped and designed to look like a giant coin. The Led Zeppelin LP In Through the Out Door had one cover showing the POV of each person on the cover. It was issued in a brown paper bag. The Police’s Synchronicity had different covers as did Genesis’ Abacab. The Electric Light Orchestra’s Out of the Blue came with a (crappy) punch out model of the group’s spaceship.
Led Zeppelin also had the spinning wheel within the Zeppelin III cover that would show various pictures through openings cut into the outside cover.
Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life had an extra disk included.
I’m sure if this happened with the vinyl but the original press run of Madonna’s Like A Prayer cassette ( I own one ) was secnted with patchouli.
This was also done on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. And just before it is a very high-pitched tone inserted “to annoy your dog.”
I remember an album my dad had that always creeped me out. On the cover was a woman giving birth but an actual giant bandaid was stuck over her vagina and knees. I can’t remember who the album was, but I wanna say something like Three Dog Night. Can someone help?
I know Tori Amos’s albums don’t count as old, but her Under the Pink album is pink and her Boys for Pele album is clear.
The Split Enz(some of them later became Crowded House)had an album called True Colours sometime around '80. The LP itself was covered(?) in overlapping shapes that refracted light into different colors.
-Sure was interesting to watch spinning on the platter.
Wow! So many follow-ups:
Re the OP’s Monty Python album: there was an album by The Knickerbockers (of the Beatles soundalike “Lies” fame) called “Sing and Sync with The Knickerbockers” with the same kind of funny groove arrangement. I don’t own it, I’ve only read about it, but my understanding was that any one of five or six different songs would play depending on how you dropped the needle.
Re three-sided albums: seems to me there was one by an obscure psychedelic group called Sand – something to the effect of “Three Sides of Continuous Free-Flowing Sand.”
Moby Grape’s second album “Wow” has a track featuring an intro by Arthur Godfrey that’s recorded at 78 rpm.
Re colored vinyl: the most famous instance may be the original issue of Dave Mason’s first album, “Alone Together,” which was pressed on marble wax. Also, Todd Rundrgen’s first band, Nazz, had their second album “Nazz Nazz” pressed on red wax. Both of these pre-dated the trend for colored vinyl that caught on in a much bigger way later by several years.
Raspberries’ debut album (with their hit “Go All the Way”) had a scratch-and-sniff sticker with a raspberry scent. Mine still has some left after all these years.
The Velvet Underground’s second album, “White Light/White Heat,” had what appeared to be a solid black front cover. But if you looked at it just right, you could see a white outline of a skull and crossbones on its original issues.
Of course, there’s the somewhat famous example of the band Mom’s Apple Pie (who happened to be from my hometown), which was recently discussed on another thread. The cover showed a warm looking old-fashioned kitchen with a homey mom-type licking her lips as she holds up a steaming apple pie with one slice cut out of it. But if you looked at where the slice was removed, you saw a woman’s shaved pussy. Later issues had this replaced with a concrete block wall with a flag waving from it, a comment no doubt aimed at those who censored it.
In addition to The Stones’ “Their Satanic Majesties Request,” the debut album by Captain Beyond also had a 3-D cover.
“Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake” by The Small Faces was released in a round cover resembling a tobacco tin. Grand Funk Railroad’s Greatest Hits album also has a round cover with a coin design. An album by a bubble-gum group called The Goggles also had a round cover.
The initial releases on the Motown subsidiary Rare Earth (including the band of that name and the US release of the classic Pretty Things rock opera “S.F. Sorrow”) all came in jackets that were cornered at the bottom but rounded at the top, rather like a church door. The Irish band Horslips’ album “Happy to Meet, Sorry to Part” has an octogonal-shaped cover. Captain Beefhart’s album “Clear Spot” was released with a transparent plastic cover.
The Mamas and Papas’ fourth album “Papas and Mamas” had their faces on the cover with a die cut horizontally through them, so that if you folded either section out, the tops and bottoms of their faces would mate up with similar but repositioned photos on the inside, resulting in weird combinations.
The Soft Machine’s debut album had a circular die cut with an insert you could rotate to reveal parts of a photo collage underneath – sort of the same idea as The Stones’ “Some Girls” album.
The Happenings’ album “Piece of Mind” also had a die cut geodesic dome on the cover that completely covered a psychedelic collage underneath. As you removed some of the many jigsaw-like pieces from the die cut, parts of the collage would be revealed.
I’m probably missing some, but those are the ones from my collection that jump to mind.
I’ve saved my favorite till last. Back to the records themselves from the covers, I own an album called “The Best of Marcel Marceao” (I’m sure the misspelling is intentional). The cover shows a mime’s mask and not much else. The record itself is one entire side of silence, with most of side two being complete silence as well. At the very end of side two, there is about a minute’s worth of applause. And that’s it!
Luckily, I picked this up in the cut-out pile many years ago, probably for 10 cents.
One of R.E.M.'s CDs came with a coaster.
Led Zep’s In Through The Out Door won a Grammy for best album design. The cover is a photograph of a bar scene. Each case of albums had covers taken from the perspective of 6 different people in the bar.
As Ike pointed out, the Dead were famous for this type of thing. Wake of the Floos, turned sideways, reveals that the clouds are, in fact, a skull. American Beauty also read American Reality if you look at it right. From the Mars Hotel has “Ugly Rumours” on the back cover if you look at in a mirror.
Ike, check out Terrapin Station if you have it on vinyl. On the disc itself, down near the label, someone wrote “Hey, Jer, where do you keep your guitar?” Its pressed into each copy. Please don’t ask how I found this.
Sweet (one of my favorites) had an album called “Give Us a Wink,” and the cover had a movable eye. You’d pull a little tab and the eye would “wink.”
At the end of side 1 of The Firesign Theater’s “How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All?” was the sound of an automatic turntable’s tonearm lifting from the groove, returning to the original position, and the power switch turning off. This was followed by the group shouting da-daah!! and then mumbling about going over to the other side of the record. If you were really stoned, the first time you heard this, you might really have been fooled into thinking the turntable had turned inself off.
In 1981, Franke & the Knockouts’ record company sent out boxes of chocolates with promotional copies of the Knockouts’ first single “Sweetheart” to radio-station secretaries throughout the country. The promotional copy of “Sweetheart” was pressed in red vinyl, and arrived on Valentines Day.
Thought of another one…
R.E.M.'s Green had a mysterious numeral 4 superimposed over the letter R in several places where the letter R appeared on the cover art. The 4 was printed in a kind of clearcoat so that you could only see it if you held the cover at a certain angle to the light. And in the list of tracks, they are numbered: 1. 2. 3. R. 5. … and so on.
(anyone know the significance of R and 4?)
Yeah, it’s a shame that you don’t see more CDs with gimmicks - I have only one, a live Pink Floyd CD that came in a slip cover the same size as a jewel case. It’s got a flashing light in the spine. If you are careful, you can take out the cardboard that holds the light and AA battery in place and put a new battery in. A battery lasts about 2 years.
I left this CD on the coffee table once and weirded myself out when I got up in the middle of the night to let the dog out …
There’s a band from San Francisco called Fuck that has put out several very cool c.d. packages (I know, not vinyl, but still) – my favorite was “Conduct” – they got a bunch of different used kids books and crossed out the titles, wrote their name on the front and glued the c.d. to the inside cover. Oh yeah, and they also stuck these weird stickers throughout the books. Very cool.
The album was 1995’s live album Pulse and it lasted a lot longer than 2 years, at least for me.
I got the album on release day summer 1995, and the battery lasted until late 1999, at least. It wasn’t until October 2000 that I noticed that it wasn’t blinking anymore. Over time, the power faded, and reminded me a bit of the Voyager probes, their signals growing fainter as they traveled farther from Earth.
Also, side II of the LP for Marillion’s Brave was double-grooved, which randomly selected one of two possible endings for the album.
I always thought it was just an urban legend that you could play part of Pink Floyd’s The Wall backwards, but it’s true. I forget the song (I used a friend’s album), but if you spin it backwards, it says something like “Congratulations, you’ve found the hidden message. Please send…(something)”
If anyone has the Eagle’s Hotel California on vinyl…imprinted in the inner band at the end of the last track, it says something like “Is it 6:00 yet?”
plnnr, I never knew that about WOTF. I’ll have to check as soon as I get home.
Oh, and of course, everyone knows you can lick the bass drum on the cover of Sgt Pepper and trip, right? :rolleyes:
The last groove of David Bromberg’s 1977 LP “Reckless Abandon” has the vocal track of Bromberg saying “Debbie Boone”. This is right before the stylus would reach the area for the arm to automatically pick up. So after enjoying the album you get someone hollering ‘Debbie Boone, Debbie Boone, Debbie Boone’ until you get up and change the record yourself. I thought this was so funny at the time, because Debbie Boone was reigning on the country charts and I thought she sucked big time.