Last year marked the 25th anniversary of the compact disc or CD.
Small in size, convenient, easy to track, and better sound quality……..these qualities make the CD invention a wonder of technology.
The bad news is that the advent of the CD meant the virtual disappearance of a lost art, the great album covers.
A fascinating pop culture debate would be what is the best album cover of all-time.
You’d certainly get a lot of votes for Sgt. Pepper.
Honey by the Ohio Players, too.
If you pose the question to Dolores Erickson, she’d answer in a heartbeat with no doubts whatsoever as to her choice: Whipped Cream & Other Delights by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass.
She calls it, “the world’s most famous album cover,” and she may be right.
Mind you, Erickson is far from objective.
Erickson happens to be the woman on the cover.
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Yep, that's Dolores in all her glory.
She appeared on many other album covers in the 60's, like this one.....
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But it's the Whipped Cream cover that got Erickson all the attention.
Imagine that.
Not too long ago, there was even a re-issued re-mix of the album for its 40th anniversary with a new cover (and model).
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Here's a more contemporary picture of Erickson holding the Herb Alpert LP and the first album she appeared on, Nat King Cole's 1960 release, "Wild is Love."
The Seattle Times reported in 2005:
Erickson was friends with Alpert and Jerry Moss, cofounders of A&M Records. So she was a natural when photographer Jerry Whorf, who had shot the Nat King Cole album, got the assignment for "Whipped Cream." They had Erickson flown out from New York for the shoot in Whorf's Los Angeles studio.
"I thought, 'Just another job,' " Erickson recalled.
Whorf draped a sheet over her lower body (she was three months pregnant) and slathered her mostly with shaving cream. Actual whipped cream was used only on her head.
Erickson got about $1,500 for the day's work, typical of what she was earning in those days.
Whorf gave her the outtakes, in which the shaving cream had dripped to reveal a little too much flesh.
"My husband was very conservative. I tore one up. It was too much." She saved the other outtake, which she now sells for $50, autographed.
"Whipped Cream" sold more than half a million copies, was in the top 10 for 61 weeks and won four Grammy awards (though not for best album cover).
This is all wonderful nostalgia, but where am I going with it?
The Orlando Sentinel is running a poll, asking readers to choose the worst album covers.
I've looked at the lengthy list and they're all really bad.
But in my view, none were as bad as this....
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