A Sailor's Life

There's a new Richard Thompson LP out, and Graham has already aired his views about it on his blog.

I think, after one listen, I go along with Mr Ward - some good tracks, but the album is rather too long. Dad's Gonna Kill Me still stands out (and I only just learned that 'Dad' = Bagdhad, duh...) but there are some tunes which pad the LP out unnecessarily. Great guitar playing though, so it's rather hard to complain.

I'm now convinced that RT deliberately clads his records in the worst sleeves he can imagine. It's no accident of design, it's a wilful act of self sabotage. This has persisted for as long as I have been buying his records, since Amnesia in 1988. The first Thompson LP I heard was Shoot Out The Lights, which I borrowed on vinyl from Southwell library a very long time ago. That one is relatively inoffensive, although RT does look rather too jovial on the cover, considering the gloom and doom contained within.

A quick run down then, of Richard Thompson's worst album sleeves, starting with
1.Amnesia.

This one is reminiscent of the sort of conceptual nincompoopery which adorned Marillion album covers in the 80's. A random male is having a shave, whilst who should appear in the mirror but our man in a jester's outfit, juggling. Very hard to understand the relevance of this image...a good record though, Turning of The Tide was covered by Thompson fan Bob Mould.





2. You? Me? Us?
I don't know what's going on here. Just a random cut-up mess. Who does he delegate these things to? Makes no difference which record label he's on, the sleeves are still enough to bring on a migraine.







3. Mock Tudor

Not the most iconic image ever used for an LP sleeve - an old fashioned push and pull lawn mower, with (headless) father and son looking on in awe as it self-propels itself across an immaculate English Country Garden. Lord help us, what a useless image.








4. Bringing us up to date - Sweet Warrior

Oh my throbbing peepers. This one is from the inner sleeve, I suppose we should be grateful that it wasn't used for the front cover. A genius guitar player he may be, an oil painting he is not. Especially not when daubed in camouflage paint and with a tin hat stuck on his head - although I have to say this might in fact be an improvement on the otherwise ever present beret.