I only know one graphic design joke which goes like this:

Q: How many graphic designers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Does it have to be a light bulb?

A real thigh-slapper huh? What the punchline is (attempting to) make fun of is how designers are taught (or should be) to question assumptions when presented with a problem. These days they call this “thinking outside the box” but I won’t because I don’t want to be the sort of person who says things like thinking outside the box. Like, does a record sleeve have to be a cardboard square that opens at the side? Why can’t it be round? In a tin cannister? Die-cut like a floppy disk?

The original UK sleeve of Elvis Costello’s 1978 album “Armed Forces” takes similar liberties with the traditional sleeve format. On the front (above) is a rather naff painting of elephants (which I’ve always assumed was some conceptual joke about the military) with the amateur, cack-handed quality of art you’d find at a jumble sale. But flip it over and things get a bit more interesting. The album doesn’t open at the side but has four brightly-decorated, interlocking flaps..

… that open out like an Origami puzzle…

…into a riot of Jackson Pollock-, Kandinsky-, Pop Art-, and Mondrian-inspired graphics.

Remove the inner sleeve and you get the image that was on the front of the American version of the album (they added “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding?” to the tracklisting too, which sound-wise doesn’t fit in with the rest of the album at all.)

This is the work of a designer called Barney Bubbles who is a cult figure among other designers but is barely known outside the field. Unlike contemporaries and followers like Peter Saville, Neville Brody, and Vaughan Oliver there has never been a book published or a museum exhibition of his work. Barney was publicity shy, never gave interviews and was rather nonchalant about credits (his name doesn’t appear anywhere on the “Armed Forces” sleeve) reasoning that it was just packaging and there’s no designer credit on a box of soap powder. He was closely associated with hippy rockers Hawkwind before making the transition to a more punk/new wave aesthetic working for Stiff Records in the late 70s where he produced an amazing body of work marked by a wit and conceptual brilliance that have kept them fresh today. He designed all Costello’s sleeves up to the “Imperial Bedroom” album and other notable work included The Damned’s “Music For Pleasure” and Ian Dury’s “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick,” but his most famous design is probably the brilliant “Blockhead” logo.

“Armed Forces” is probably his Sistine Chapel though, an inspired example of what a great designer can do when given the opportunity to stretch his wings. Costello’s previous album “This Years Model” was a big hit so I imagine Barney was told to make a splash with the sleeve of the next one. Above all, it looks like he’s having fun, piling on the visual puns and references in a way that matches the intricate, dense wordplay of Costello’s lyrics.

Download: Goon Squad – Elvis Costello & The Attractions (mp3)
Buy: “Armed Forces” (album)

For a more in-depth look at Barney’s life and work (sadly he committed suicide in 1983) read this excellent post at John Coulthart’s site for which I contributed the above photos (larger versions can be found here.)

I almost posted “Silly Games” by Janet Kay when I wrote about school discos the other week but it came out in 1979 and by then I was already hitting the pubs and clubs of London so I was a bit beyond forlorn nights pining over schoolgirls in dingy classrooms. Instead I was spending forlorn nights at nightclubs like The Best Disco In Town at the Lyceum Ballroom or chrome-plated meat markets in the suburbs with names like Tiffany’s and Cheeky Pete’s where I’d still be pining over girls but at least I could drink and smoke (two newly acquired habits). But this track is such a classic anthem of it’s time and place I felt I had to post it anyway.

Lovers Rock was an offshoot of Reggae that came out of South London in the 1970s which was more laid back and soulful than the seriously heavy roots sounds of bands like Culture, The Upsetters, and Burning Spear who were always banging on about Jah and Babylon over thick bassy riddims. That stuff was very hip with the Rastas and Punks around Ladbroke Grove but didn’t mean a whole lot to a Soul Boy from Fulham. I don’t know how big it was outside of London but round my way it was very popular indeed, at my school there was a conflict between the Soul Boys (who were mostly white) and the Reggae-loving West Indian kids about whose music was the best — a battle often fought over the Youth Center record player — but Lovers Rock was the one thing they both liked. More importantly, girls loved it and anything that could get you in with them was good.

“Silly Games” is about the most beautiful Lovers record ever made (that I’ve heard anyway) and was the biggest hit the genre produced, getting to No. 2 in the charts. Written and produced by Dennis Bovell (who went on to work with The Slits and Orange Juice) who was trying to emulate the sweet sound of Minnie Riperton and got Janet to record the song because she was able to hit the same really high notes as her. (at times on this she reaches notes only dogs can hear).

This is the long 12″ version with the spacey Dub section at the end that was compulsory on all Reggae 12″ singles at the time. Even after all these years it sounds as lovely as ever.

Download: Silly Games – Janet Kay (mp3)
Buy: “Reggae Love Songs” (album)

With all the interminable bollocks written about the “revolutionary” sounds of the 1960s (and still being written, I wish they’d shut up about it) it’s often overlooked that the charts then were also full of the likes of Tom Jones, Dionne Warwick, Petula Clark, Shirley Bassey, and other “square” music bought by untrustworthy over-30s like my mother. Her generation was raised on Frank Sinatra and by the time rock and roll hit the scene (she was 21 when “Heartbreak Hotel” came out) their idea of cool sophistication had already been shaped by Ol’ Blue Eyes. So even though she quite liked The Beatles, by the time the Summer of Love rolled around my mother was a bit too old to be a hippy and her idea of a swinging good time was cocktails and classy music, not drugs and dancing in a field (but thankfully she wasn’t so square that she was into Val Doonican either). Besides, by then she had two kids to raise on her own and couldn’t exactly go gallivanting off to see The Stones in Hyde Park.

So in our house “Light My Fire” was by Jose Feliciano, not The Doors. In fact it was years before I even knew that this was a cover version, my mother played this so often it still sounds like the original to me and I think of The Doors’ version as the overheated, vaguely cheesy cover. Feliciano might not have worn leather trousers and written bad poetry but he sounded plenty soulful and intense on this, though I bet the hippies hated it.

Even better is his version of “California Dreaming” which transforms the breezy hippy anthem into something darker, The Mamas and The Papas were all cheery and sunny while Jose sounds very lonely and lost. I absolutely love the Spanish bit at the end, my O-Level Spanish is a bit rusty so I’m not entirely sure what he’s saying. It sounds dead moody though.

Download: Light My Fire – Jose Feliciano (mp3)
Download: California Dreaming – Jose Feliciano (mp3)

Both of these are from his 1968 album “Feliciano!” which was a ubiquitous presence on the record shelves of just about everyone we knew back then (along with “Bridge Over Troubled Water”) and one of the few records my Dad took with him when he left home which says something about its popularity — and something about its place in my memories.