📷 Gallery Inner Sleeves

Threads with gallery-like content.
With the Joe Jackson, they plastered it right onto the cover. One if not both of my LPs is/are a promo, so that could have been specific to promo copies. The CD had nothing, although it might have had a hype sticker on the shrink when I bought it. (I can't recall if that one came in a longbox.)
 
On the Joe Jackson Body & Soul album cover, they even went to the extreme of making the cover out of a thicker cardboard, like the records of the '50s, as opposed to the thinner stock being used at that time. Very good attention to detail (that most people probably didn't notice!).
 
And one more thing I forgot to mention about cover design---before the artists began to exercise control, the labels tended to have their own in-house design folks---or consistently contract out (as A&M did with Peter Whorf Graphics). That gave the releases a certain consistency and identity in their covers. Besides A&M, I'm specifically thinking Columbia and RCA.

I think the Beatles and the Stones probably had more to do with ending that practice and spurring an artistic statement with the covers (RUBBER SOUL onward for the Beatles, BETWEEN THE BUTTONS onward for the Stones).
 
I think the Beatles and the Stones probably had more to do with ending that practice and spurring an artistic statement with the covers (RUBBER SOUL onward for the Beatles, BETWEEN THE BUTTONS onward for the Stones).
UK and US pop exhibited unprecedented and irreversible strides during 1965-69 (the likes of which were probably only matched during the 1920s -- at least in the US). Artists were beginning to take control of their creations: songwriting and arrangement were first, engineering and production soon followed, and LP cover art was a logical step. The Beatles were pacesetters in the vanguard. Beginning in late 1965, some of the progressive pop groups were ensuring LP cover art was representative of their values -- as exhibited by LPs from Dylan, Zappa, and the Beatles. (By 1969 it was probably expected that the artist would at the very least contribute to the album art decision making and by the early '70s it was a way of life given all the personalized sleeves, personalized LP labels, posters, and assorted sundries specific to the artist.)
 
Last night I was looking through my A&M albums just to see if there was a different inner sleeve when I noticed that a copy of Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes and Brasil'66 had some changes to the color of the cover. It is a later pressing as it has a 6 on the lower back cover. The changes are very noticeable.
The group name is more green than yellow, the "Stereo and SP4116" are in white rather than green and the A&M logo has a bright green background instead of the green of the album cover.
 
From your description, it sounds like could be a first pressing according to discogs.

1621682306658.png
 
From your description, it sounds like could be a first pressing according to discogs.

1621682306658.png
That is interesting. In the thread "Lonely Bull Pressing Question", a comment asked about the numbers on the back and the number indicated a later pressing so with a 6 on the back, I figured it was a later pressing.
 
Not sure which would be the ultimate arbiter, the "6" or the cover itself. Is it possible that the "6" merely indicates the printing location for the album jacket?
 
Not sure which would be the ultimate arbiter, the "6" or the cover itself. Is it possible that the "6" merely indicates the printing location for the album jacket?
That could be. I also have a few extra copies of Look Around and some have a 4 on the back. The front covers are identical but the backs are different as some have the picture of Sergio that is not clear and others are sharp.
There are also some names in the songwriting credits that are on some and not on others.
 
A friend of mine just recently gave me some lp's from a house he was cleaning out. One of them was Frampton Comes Alive and it has pictures on the inner sleeves of releases. The highest catalog number on the page is Styx Equinox at 4559. The lowest is Nazareth Hair Of The Dog at 4511. The back side of the sleeve is Man's Best Friend Music. The album pics are all full color as well.
This shows that the album picture inner sleeves were still being produced in 1976.
 
Has anyone ever seen one that has either Offering or Ticket To Ride featured on it? I’ve searched for years with no luck. Just wondering.
Persistence pays off.
I just realized that when I was going through my A&M group looking for Ticket To Ride on a sleeve, I did not check my Carpenters albums as I did not have them out with the others.
In the album Carpenters, there is a sleeve with Ticket To Ride along with Close To You. It also has an Ansel Adams picture of a mountainside with blowing snow
for Preserve The Sound Outside.
The highest catalog number on this sleeve is Humble Pie at 4270. That has the first logo that did not indicate "Stereo" on it as the album Fotheringay at 4269 does have the word Stereo indicated.
 
May I ask, how did you all scan your inner sleeves? Would love to scan some but don’t have a scanner big enough!
 
I do not have the large scanner either but maybe take a picture of the sleeve with a cell phone.
I have had success with mine. When I get a chance I will take a pic of the sleeve I mentioned and see if I can get it to upload here.
 
May I ask, how did you all scan your inner sleeves? Would love to scan some but don’t have a scanner big enough!
My scanner will do 12" in one direction, but only about 9 in the other. So it's a process of scanning two halves and then stitching them together in Photoshop. It's tricky because the two half scans don't always exactly match color-wise, so you might have to adjust one to match the other where it joins.

With a smaller scanner, you might have to do four scans, which would even be tricker.

Failing that, I would try using a digital camera with proper lighting. Then I would straighten out the angles to square then up in Photoshop. This method sometimes isn't sharp enough for fine detail, but you can experiment with a camera's settings. Cell phones? Well, not mine - the camera is only so-so.
 
My Pixel 5 has an app for the camera that has both a "scan" mode (for documents) as well as a photographic scan mode (taking four pictures) which corrects the photo for keystoning, brightness and saturation. I don't have a need to scan anything anymore (at least in terms of LPs), so it's not an issue for me. (I still have my old HP Scanjet 4P, a flatbed which scans legal documents, but there are no longer any SCSI cards available to connect it.)

But, I still need a scanner around, along with VueScan, as I have thousands of photographs I need to scan (and no time to scan them 😐).
 
From your description, it sounds like could be a first pressing according to discogs.

1621682306658.png
Harry,
Here is another question about the cover. Have you or anyone else on the forum seen this as a tan/light brown cover of the area above and below the group members? Years ago in a record club ad, they had such a cover and I never have seen it as such. All the other covers on the ad were as the record was but this particular cover had the odd color combination. It might have been the magazine that the ad was in that made the artwork look odd. The magazine was a Reader's Digest so it might have been the editor's doing.
 
Not familiar with that, but it wouldn't be uncommon for record club ads to alter the artwork, sometimes to enlarge the images for the tiny printed covers, thus requiring borders.
 
Back to A&M, here's the LISTEN TO YOUR WORLD innersleeve:

carpentersclosetoyousleeve1.png

carpentersclosetoyousleeve2.png

This one was found inside a later issue Carpenters CLOSE TO YOU album. This one uses adaptations of the real covers so as to up the contrast and to make the typography readable at the small size.
To this day, I would say this is my second-favorite design of inner sleeves, the first-favorite being the ones with Ansel Adams photography. A very close runner-up is the "Man's Best Friend" inner sleeve with the dog looking the flying saucers... err, records.
 
To this day, I would say this is my second-favorite design of inner sleeves, the first-favorite being the ones with Ansel Adams photography. A very close runner-up is the "Man's Best Friend" inner sleeve with the dog looking the flying saucers... err, records.
The Man's best Friend innersleeve is my top favorite as many of my A&M vinyl purchases had that particular one ( mostly Herb Alpert's pre Rise Albums primarily late 70s era TJB aand other Reissues of older albums) I loved that design The Dog Looking at the Flying Records to me was kind of special as my family had many dogs over the years
 
The Man's best Friend innersleeve is my top favorite as many of my A&M vinyl purchases had that particular one ( mostly Herb Alpert's pre Rise Albums primarily late 70s era TJB aand other Reissues of older albums) I loved that design The Dog Looking at the Flying Records to me was kind of special as my family had many dogs over the years
I have a few Carpenters albums with this inner sleeve—they were reissues of the originals from the early 1970s, with the white and brown A&M label on the record. I think I have one with "Singles: 1969-1973," one "Close to You," and maybe one "Carpenters" with the cute lil dog and the flying records. All really stellar albums.
 
I have a few Carpenters albums with this inner sleeve—they were reissues of the originals from the early 1970s, with the white and brown A&M label on the record. I think I have one with "Singles: 1969-1973," one "Close to You," and maybe one "Carpenters" with the cute lil dog and the flying records. All really stellar albums.
Exactly and yes they are stellar albums indeed
 
I'm not sure where this came from. It was in my box of longboxes, but it probably was included in either a CD package or an LP.

AMCatalogOffer1b.jpg
A&MCatalogOfferb.jpg
 
Back
Top Bottom