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dazman · Joined: 07 Aug 2012 Posts: 42

This is just a simple open-question...

If you were to design your own Sgt. Pepper style album cover, who would you choose to appear?

The original featured around 70 - but don't let that be an upper (or lower) limit...

jefflewis · Joined: 21 Nov 2005 Posts: 1486

Ha, great question!!!!!
Holy cow, picking 70 people is a big chore... but of course MANY parody/tribute albums have used updated versions of the Sgt Pepper cover, so there's a lot of people who have had to do this 70-picking thing...
I'd put:
Tuli Kupferberg,
Peter Stampfel,
Robert Crumb,
Dan Clowes,
Chester Brown,
Joe Matt,
Alan Moore,
Kimya Dawson,
Adam Green,
Schwervon,
Dufus,
Professor Louie,
oh never mind this is going to be too hard and I'm going to feel bad forgetting people! This is why I rarely put "thank you" sections in my album liner notes....

misshelenc · Joined: 23 Nov 2007 Posts: 943 Location: Cardiff, Wales, UK

I think mine would mostly be authors, because I don't know all that much about music. If I was anything creative as a job full time I would much rather write, there is a degree of anonymity to it still, especially if you don't write real best sellers. I wouldn't want to be unable to do anything for people knowing who I am. But then, therefore, 70 authors would mostly look like 70 bearded weirdos from different times in recent history... Oh shut up Helen, you speak such rubbish! xxx
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lauragek · Joined: 26 May 2009 Posts: 165

Aren't musicians often bearded weirdo's too, though? I think most male musicians I know have sported a beard at least once in their career.
I'm not sure if I could get to fifty, but I'd surely put on lots of musicians, writers, and maybe some less well known people that just had a big influence in my life. Some people making videos on youtube for example, and teachers and friends. It'd be a cover full of people I admire Smile

jefflewis · Joined: 21 Nov 2005 Posts: 1486

I think you both have great points!!
HelenC I totally love your idea of including a lot of authors, because you're right, they would mostly be hard to recognize! That makes it so much cooler! Anybody who recognized one would feel really good about it. Actually isn't Edgar Allan Poe on the original Beatles album cover? Maybe I'm not remembering it correctly.
Also I love Laurageek's brilliant idea that nowadays a list of favorite people like this would certainly include internet memes! Like Charlie bit me, grumpy cat, Maru, Gangnam Style, etc. Really, it's a great idea!! WOULD it be possible to make a Sgt. Pepper album cover out of only all internet-famous people/pets/etc?!?!?!?!?!? If you could make a poster of this you'd sell a lot of copies!!!!!!!!!!
I wonder, would a poster of this have ANY staying power? Would all those people and animals stop being culturally recognizable after a year or two? I mean, it's not like using a famous image of Edgar Allan Poe for example... is anybody going to recognize "Jessica's Self-Affirmations" in a couple years?! Maybe you've have to make a NEW Sgt Pepper/meme poster each year! That would be extra hard....

misshelenc · Joined: 23 Nov 2007 Posts: 943 Location: Cardiff, Wales, UK

I think internet famous people aren't going to last long term, well, not on the whole, only those that stay over time or those that are really well known. Maybe in time they will be though, but at the moment, it's still the case that most of the world hasn't even made a phonecall, so it's not widespread enough.
I found (thanks everyclick!) a website which tells you who all the people are on Sgt Peppers, Poe is indeed on there. A brief look round notes more authors than I ever noticed: Huxley, Bernard Shaw, Carroll...so there you are, it's true, no one notices the authors!
It's true most male musicians go for beards too, it's a shame you have to have one to be seen as arty or whatever, they are so sore on soft skin when you get kisses! And most men look younger/better without one, in my opinion! Maybe they're all too busy creating to have time for normal things like shaving!
It is true that people in your actual life are a lot more influential than most 'famous' people, teachers and parents probably have most influence, they're who socialise us, even if we totally rebel, it's them we rebel from! So in that way it would be a cool album cover, imagine being old and retired and one of your ex pupils rings up and asks if you mind going on a record cover that will exist in record shops everywhere?! Quite mad really.
I'd certainly put my cats on there, and lots of other of my favourite animals too.
I think as well that whoever I ended up putting on, I'd be thinking that it would need to be updated yearly with both new cool discoveries and also all the people I regretfully forgot but deserved a place! x
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You don’t put your life into your books. You find it there.

jefflewis · Joined: 21 Nov 2005 Posts: 1486

That brings up another point, if many of the people in your personal Sgt Pepper cover are people from your own life, maybe there's a way to make a computer program that can create the image based on who shows up most in your emails and searches and stuff... it could keep updating itself automatically as your life and interests change.

misshelenc · Joined: 23 Nov 2007 Posts: 943 Location: Cardiff, Wales, UK

That's a thought, depends on who you search for and why?! Like, I have a thing for researching criminology and serial killers and went through a bit of a ww2 thing recently where I kept reading nazi websites and looking on the Auschwitz one and stuff....people may get the wrong idea and somehow think I am some kind of nutter rather than the sort of person who can't even kill a spider and puts it out the window humanely... it would be ok if you could vet each choice before it updated. And it would make me sad every time a friendship ended and I'd have to accept someone had gone from my life that I enjoyed talking to for a while. And I bet someone would sell information the programme created to marketers and use it to look for patterns so they could sell you more rubbish!
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Dav · Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 5:22 pm Post subject:

That's a great topic.

My cover would feature :

Uma (my dog)
Syd Barrett
Brian Wilson
Roger Zelazny
Boris Vian
Serge Gainsbourg
Chris Knowles (a good friend of mine)
David Simon
Martin Scorsese
Alan Moore
Jeffrey Lewis
Chewbacca
Fry (from Futurama)
The motorcycle boy (from the movie rumble fish)
Caravage

it's hard to get 70 names...
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Dav · Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 5:09 pm Post subject:

I would had a couple people i forgot yestarday

Billie Holiday
Lonie Johnson
Blind Blake
Skip James
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jefflewis · Joined: 21 Nov 2005 Posts: 1486

Yeah, I'd also put
13) Stan Lee
14) Jack Kirby
15) Rom Spaceknight
16) Ash/Bruce Campbell
17) John Carpenter
18 - 23) maybe 4 or 5 members of Crass
24, 25) Nadezhda and Maria of Pussy Riot(currently still in jail)
26) Howard Zinn
27) Colin who makes the "Slice Harvester" zine

Arrgh, I'm still a loooooong way from 70!!!!!!
Of course there's also so many obvious ones that are probably all on the original Sgt. Pepper cover anyway (Dylan, Hendrix, Stones, Ghandi, etc)

Dav · Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 5:09 pm Post subject:

I got to reach the 70!

20 - Adrock from the beastie boys
21 - Sam Cooke
22 - Steve McQueen

I'm sorry but i got to steal some from you Jeff...

23 - John Carpenter
24 - Ash

I watched evil dead a year ago, i always loved the movie, but that last time i watched it i was blown away by the direction, especially that shot that goes upside down Ash, such brillant directing, the coen brothers were working on it...they learned their lesson from Sam Raimi.

25 - Planet of the ape's Cornelius
26 - 1979 Robert Smith
27 - Kimya Dawson

to be continued...
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jefflewis · Joined: 21 Nov 2005 Posts: 1486

I'm so curious why Adrock rather than other Beastie Boys?

misshelenc · Joined: 23 Nov 2007 Posts: 943 Location: Cardiff, Wales, UK

Ricky Gervais for me at the moment. The last episode of Derek is the best script writing I've seen on British television in years. Perfect. I keep watching it and it never loses the sadness and joy. x
_________________
You don’t put your life into your books. You find it there.

jefflewis · Joined: 21 Nov 2005 Posts: 1486

Never heard of "Derek"... is that a british TV show on currently?

aarrrgh I don't have Syd Barrett on my list yet!!
Okay so I'm up to:

28: Syd Barrett
29: Skip Spence
30: Roky Erickson
31: Mark E. Smith
32: Joseph Conrad
33: Virginia Woolf