Sleeve Talk

ELO’s 1977 magnum opus Out Of The Blue had a sleeve to match it’s ambition. Besides the spectacular gatefold it also included a poster and a 3D cardboard spaceship. The cover was painted by airbrush wiz Shusei Nagaoka who did lots of other album covers you’d know like the cosmically spiritual series he did for Earth, Wind, & Fire.

I pored over the sleeve for hours, identifying each band member on the inside spread and noting little details like the album’s catalogue number on the side of the shuttle craft entering the ship. We’re so used to hyper-real computer imagery these days it’s easy to forget this was done by a human hand with paint on a canvas. The original art would most likely have been done twice the finished size so any blemishes or paint strokes wouldn’t be visible once it was shrunk down.

The concept was the brainchild of legendary designer John Kosh who had also been responsible for the covers of Abbey Road, Who’s Next? and Hotel California among others. Kosh had designed the cover of ELO’s previous album A New World Record and created the band logo for it based on an old Wurlitzer jukebox which proved to be very successful and soon became closely identified with the band.

The spaceship idea came to him when he and his son were playing with a Frisbee which had a sticker of the logo on it, and seeing it fly through the air he had a moment of inspiration. In my experience this is usually when the best ideas come: when you’re not looking for them. I get most of mine on the bus or when I’m trying to get to sleep at night which is really annoying.

ELO were by far my favourite band at the time and he couldn’t have come up with a design that appealed more to my 15-year-old sensibilities if he’d tried. I was a huge fan of airbrush artists like Chris Foss whose work graced the covers of the the SF paperbacks I bought. One of the highlights of my professional life was hiring Foss to illustrate a magazine cover a few years ago and speaking to him on the phone. He was a lovely fellow.

After Punk this sort of art went out of fashion for years in the same way the associated music of Prog and ELO’s Pomp-Rock did but has recently come back into fashion again -— like ELO and Prog have too. I went off this sort of art for years too and preferred things that were more edgy, but now I think it looks cool again. Still think Prog is shit though.

ELO carried the spaceship concept through to the world tour they did in 1978 with it’s flying saucer stage set and laser show. This was their opening number when I  saw them, the first notes playing as the roof of the saucer was lifting up and the band came out of the floor. Very far-out stuff when you’re 15.

Download: Standin’ In The Rain – Electric Light Orchestra (mp3)