I purchased this lp sometime in the late 90s, in the second hand section of a record shop in Dublin called 'The Secret Book & Record Store', so called because although it is located just off one of the busiest shopping streets in the heart of the city centre, it is also situated at the end of a long, narrow corridor behind a rather inconspicuous doorway, completely hidden away from street view. The lp itself is a double, released by CBS in 1970 as the fourth and final in a series of budget priced rock sampler albums. It features 26 tracks in total from various artists such as Bob dylan, The Byrds, Dublin's own 'Skid Row' and Blood Sweat & Tears. And although I have one other in the series, this is definitely my favourite of the two, purely from a visual point of view though, musically I prefer it's predecessor from 1968 which was called 'Rock Machine I Love You'. I was instantly attracted to the sleeve design, which features a newspaper print photograph of Arnold Schwarzenegger from his Mr Universe days superimposed onto a vibrant pop art graphic background, it reminded me of aspects of the work of so many artists that I admire, from Peter Blake to Richard Hamilton. Being a classic 70s double lp, it also features a gatefold sleeve (the champion of cover art and loyal friend of the liner note) so even the inner cover is noteworthy. A more detailed view of the track listing can be found here. And you can view the work of pop artist Peter Blake as mentioned above in one of my previous post here.
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IMAGE CREDITS
All images scanned by Sweet Jane from Rock Buster 1970, Compiled by David Howells, Sleeve Design & Art by Bloomsbury Group in Conjunction with Arthur Bayes Associates. Photograph of Arnold Schwarzenegger courtesy of Weider (U.K) Ltd.
LINKS
Read more about The Secret Book & Record Store here.
View another of my posts about pop artist Peter Blake here.
Visit the first comprehensive retrospective of the work pop artist artist Richard Hamiltion here.