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Classic Album Art

Cover Front

Frank Zappa - We're only in it ...

Hey! Hello! What about this?

Classic Album Art

release - 1968
album art - Cal Schenkel
Jerrold Schatzberg


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Zappa phoned Paul McCartney, seeking permission for a Art-parody on The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. McCartney told him that it was an issue for business managers, but Zappa responded that the artists themselves were supposed to tell their business managers what to do. Nevertheless, Capitol objected, and the album's release was delayed for five months.


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Cover Back

inverted package

Cover Back

Verve Records decided to package the album with inverted cover artwork, placing the parody cover as interior artwork (and the intended interior artwork as the main sleeve) out of fear of legal action. Zappa was angered over the decision.

Cal Schenkel (art director / photographer) felt that the Sgt. Pepper parody 'was a stronger image' than the final released cover.

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artist

Artist

Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, songwriter, composer, guitarist, record producer, actor and filmmaker. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist.

Zappa's lyrics reflected his iconoclastic views of established social and political processes, structures and movements, often humorously so. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship.


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