Favorite Fantasy/Sci-Fi Album Covers & Music Inspired by the Lord of the Rings

Frazetta, Whelan, Dean, Gawlick, Riggs, Baizley, Away, & Matthews

Happy Lunar New Year!

I was a panelist on a recent episode of The Contrarians in which we discussed our favorite album covers. I focused on three categories with an eye toward highlighting ones with fantasy/sci-fi artwork…

Great Artists Whose Artwork Was Used On Album Covers

These are cases in which the band (or management or record company) loved a particular piece of art that already existed; the artwork was not specifically created for the album. Frank Frazetta’s album covers for Molly Hatchet, Dust, and Nazareth are good examples of this. My favorite of these is the use of “Snow Giants” for the Hard Attack album by Dust, which was originally used in a 1969 Conan of Cimmeria paperback.

A more cohesive marriage of existing fantasy artwork and album covers is Cirith Ungol’s use of Michael Whelan’s Elric paintings. The band’s unique brand of heavy metal is supported by the dynamic style of Whelan’s interpretation of the Michael Moorcook character. Their classic Frost and Fire debut album featured the painting Stormbringer on the cover. I love it so much that I bought a print of it from the Michael Whelan online shop.

Artists Whose Work Became a Key Part of the Band’s Image

Bill Gawlick is the artist behind the first two Blue Öyster Cult albums. Band manager Sandy Pearlman was impressed with a huge scroll Gawlick had made of futuristic architectural drawings. For the first album, Gawlick included a symbol that became the famous logo that BÖC would use for the rest of their career.

Roger Dean created artwork for many groups, but his album covers for Yes defined the imagery that would be associated with the band. The bio on his website describes their collaboration well:

At the time he was also asked if he would take on another commission, and the name of the band was, YES. This commission became the album cover for 'Fragile' and it was the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration between the family of YES, and Roger Dean.

The surreal and dreamlike qualities of Rogers paintings combined with the sometimes haunting, occasionally triumphant but always expansive musical adventures of YES' music, became a unique experience enjoyed by millions.

The four panels of the live Yessongs album make a perfect GM screen, as suggested by game designer Michael Curtis.

Derek Riggs’s depiction of Iron Maiden’s mascot Eddie throughout the band’s discography similarly defined the visual image of the band. Band manager Rod Smallwood describes the origin and importance of Eddie in this eslogan article:

“Eddie was born from the fact that the members of the band were very shy, so we had to invent a creature that stand up for them. I saw Derek’s work and little by little we made Eddie a cover character. We wanted him to be enigmatic. He has different shapes and sizes, he can be ethereal, wild; always fun and always on our side.”

Artists Who Are Also the Musician

When a musician is also a visual artist, you have the potential to create a perfectly cohesive presentation of imagery and music. John Dyer Baizley is the main driver behind the outstanding metal band Baroness. His album cover art is as unique and powerful as the band’s music.

This terrific older OC Art Blog interview with Baizley provides details on his creative process:

“When I’m working on Baroness artwork and music, there tends to be this sort of counterbalance between what I want to accomplish visually and what I want to accomplish sonically. Sometimes little bits of the artwork I am creating inform the music I am playing. More often than not, it’s easier to write music first and then, once those themes become apparent, you try to capture the imagery.”

…

“There is this narrative that begins to unfold itself when I am writing music. For instance, when you write a song, it doesn’t all hit you at once. You have to start with something simple that draws out the emotion, and then you have to refine, reflect, and balance things which have technique and things which speak to the heart. Artistically it’s the same thing. First I need to lay down a little bit of the heart and soul of it- the flow, the feel, the pulse- and then I have to become technical on top of it. When I am doing that, I try to leave as much up to happenstance as possible. Some people call it happy mistakes or lightning in a bottle… That’s what I judge the success or failure of a lot of my pieces on: whether or not something unintentionally cool happens with it. It’s the same with music. We could be talking about either subjects.”

Another example of musician’s who create artwork to support and enhance their music is drummer Michel 'Away' Langevin from the band Voivod. I think Phil Anselmo from Pantera provided the perfect description:

“Drummer extraordinaire known as Away, of the masters of Intergalactic Warcore Voivod, is the band’s artistic visionary, and his brand of art complements and refines itself with each LP in perfect accordance with the band’s different themes and musical growth. From chaotic, battle-ready skull-faced warriors, to his technically intimidating mecha-space stations ruling a star-dotted world of his own invention, his foreboding odd caricatures wander across landscapes on another planet, in another galaxy.

Somehow his artwork depicted the music you were hearing—and the feeling it gave you while staring at Away’s album cover artwork—like an extraterrestrial concoction exploding in your head and hurtling you through space in an escape pod, heading to another spider-spinning sandy dimension that only Away and Voivod could invent.”

In a FaceCulture video interview, Michel discusses how he was inspired as a teenager looking at album covers while listening to progressive rock bands like Yes and ELP. He wanted to be an artist for Heavy Metal magazine when he came up with the Voivod world and concept.

Michel’s art for Voivod is so well regarded that a limited-run publication of a book called Worlds Away: Voivod and the Art of Michel Langevin was produced and has become a much sought after (by me) collector item.

You can watch the full video of me and my Contrarians colleagues sharing our favorite album covers below. What are some of yours?

Music Inspired by the Lord of the Rings

In last week’s Vinyl Grooves and Brew newsletter, Joe Schoolcraft featured the 1972 album Music Inspired by The Lord of the Rings by Bo Hansson:

What's Spinning: Season 2, Vol. 4

It’s an instrumental prog rock album, and the J.R.R. Tolkien influence is obvious from track titles like "Fog on the Barrow-Downs," "Lothlórien," and “Shadowfax." It looks like Joe was spinning the original version with cover artwork by Jane Furst. The album was reissued in 1977 with artwork by Rodney Matthews:

Rodney Matthews has done album covers for other bands as well. Two of my favorites are Borrowed Time by Diamond Head and No Mean City by Nazareth.