Author Archives: simon robinson

About simon robinson

Having worked as a designer mostly in the music industry, and mainly in the reissue sector, I now concentrate on the design and publication of books about popular culture - and even write some of them.

in the post

Posted on August 11, 2017

I do like vinyl art spin offs, and this was scanned for me by Pericle Formenti. Older collectors will be familiar with the blizzard of promotional material which labels sent to record stores during the 1970s and 80s, much of … Continue reading →

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you spend your holidays in Spain

Posted on July 28, 2017

As the Bonzos once sang.  A new sleeve gallery of half a dozen budget Spanish holiday albums like the one below to mark the summer!

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More illustrations

Posted on July 19, 2017

Two more album sleeves with illustrations on the cover which I picked up recently. The Student Prince is a really nice job and looks very Sixties, but was actually issued in 1956 by Columbia.  It’s a pencil sketch drawing, with … Continue reading →

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Billy The Kid

Posted on June 9, 2017

I can remember this sleeve design turning up on a Music For Pleasure catalogue given away in one of the local record shops, and taking one home to admire. And yet it wasn’t adorning a cover on one of the … Continue reading →

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rubber stamps and brown paper

Posted on May 31, 2017

Three more brown paper record bags which give us more glimpses of shopping for records in the past. The London Jazz Club on Bryanston Street, near Marble Arch, was a popular jazz venue in the fifties (referred to as the The … Continue reading →

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1977 and all that

Posted on May 24, 2017

I was getting a bit nostalgic the other day while playing some tracks from Talking Heads: 77 and wondering where those 40 years had gone!  So I thought I would take a look at the sleeve and then perhaps follow … Continue reading →

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Taiwan In Rock

Posted on May 12, 2017

I’ve been getting a book devoted to the Deep Purple In Rock album back into print for the publishers. There is plenty about the cover art in there but tidying the files away I thought this curious Taiwanese version of … Continue reading →

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Before and after

Posted on April 21, 2017

I put a gallery of 1950s Hollywood Records sleeves up not long ago. The label revamped some of their earlier covers and here is an example of the before or after treatment which I spotted in the archive. It doesn’t … Continue reading →

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House Hallucinates!

Posted on April 14, 2017

Sub-titled Pump Up London Volume One, this very groovy gatefold from 1988 turned up in a charity shop in town; has the acid house generation started getting shut of their vinyl already?  I say already, but this album is not … Continue reading →

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If I Am Dreaming

Posted on April 7, 2017

With Very Lynn’s 100th birthday making the news recently, I thought I would pull out one of her sleeves from the ST33 archive. I picked this one, If I Am Dreaming (“twelve tender romantic ballads”), as a great example of … Continue reading →

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