If best-selling albums had been books instead… Click on an individual tome to learn more about it.
You can buy some of these as prints and postcards at The Rockpot.
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Christophe Gowans 
My favorite is definitely कोई बात नहीं by निर्वाण. Very elegant wit in that one.
Hi Chris, Love the Record Book images! You mind if I use these for a blog post, with proper credit and links back to your site?? Thanks! Adam
Hello Adam. Thanks so much! Do go ahead and blog, yes, with links please.
If you could find it in your heart to mention The Rockpot as well, then that would be excellent.
I most certainly will. Thanks!
I most certainly will! Thanks! Might I also contact you privately regarding a project I am working on, that I think you could be perfect for from a design perspective?
Of course, Adam. I’ll contact you by email.
These are brilliant. I can’t decide which is my favorite, they’re all so clever.
Merci Madame :-)
I love this. Why is the second half of the list unclickable?
Sorry, Antoine… I’m still working on those… Follow my blog and you’ll get alerts when I do them! :-)
Congrats, Chris, nice job! Greetings from Chile
Hey Gabriel, gracias!
These are really cool but i wish either the flickr stream didn’t have the text over them or they were all here because there some i haven’t seen and would really like to see them all
Ok, Charlie, I’m on it. I keep putting the completion of this transferral off… but no more! :-)
Brilliant work! I think my favourite so far is Born to Run but I love the look of the The Man Who Sold the Word and Let England Shake, hahah!
Thanks Sarah! As it happens I made a screen print version of The Man Who Sold the World yesterday!
See HERE
How come some of the images aren’t clickable?
These are great btw. As an avid music fan and a bookseller, these rock!
Thanks Tim… there’s still a handful I haven’t got around to catalogueing, sorry about that. I’m on it, I’m on it!
This is pretty fantastic. I think the “Bad” one is the best blend of design and the nature of the record, but there’s a lot of good ideas here.
Love them. Very elegant and great fun. I have the highest admiration for anyone who can picture Dark Side of the Moon without the prism and yet still capture its essence in an image! ;-) I’m now trying to work out in my own mind whether it is a credit to the book jacket design business that the genres are so instantly recognisable or a sad reflection on it…..
These are superb. I’m trying to do something vaguely similar – but with completely imaginary books. Your graphics skills put mine to shame though!
Really like the graphics. Funny and nice and everything!
jealous of those skills. More pls.
This is great — “Are You Experienced?” made me laugh out loud. We’ll definitely be sharing this in our weekend links on Saturday.
Lovely, thanks for the comment.
Laugh out loud is good :-)
These are quite great.
Just a quick echo of all the other praise for these. Blood on the Tracks as a pulp Jim Thompson paperback with the last 30 pages missing is my favorite, but they’re all amazing. Thanks.
Thanks everyone for the kind words :-)
Would love to see your interpretation of Rush songs or albums, like 2112 or Hemispheres.
Well, Rolf, there’s this one :-)
Great job! love the designs :) very creative
AMAZING WORK! At soundsnletters, I write flash fiction based on songs that I like. If one day, I decide to publish a collection, you are definitely going to design the book cover! :) Can I reblog this on my blog? :)
Feel free to reblog… spread a little happiness :-)
Awesome. Thanks! :D
I’m going to the used bookstore now! I’ve got to have these books.
This is a work of sheer genius. The covers work on so many levels! Queen and murder mysteries…both are hugely popular but not always considered “high art”.
Did you draw all the images? Or was photoshop part of the it?
Hello Han. Thanks for your kind words :-)
Some images are almost entirely created from scratch, some are almost entirely taken from the real world, all the rest are somewhere inbetween :-)
Very, very well done!
Great idea, great art, great everything! You should do something with Depeche Mode.
Do you know? I already did :-D
Violator
Haha, that is really good! :-)
These are really great – witty and entertaining and original. Found this page via your version of Scott 4, which has been posted on the FB page for SW. Are you open to suggestions for album titles to convert? – or is inspiration strictly from within?
Hi Kathi, thanks :-)
I love to hear suggestions of albums to bookify, let me know.
Also could you copy me the link to the Scott Walker facebook page? (There’s a few on there!)
Cheers!
Just type ” Scott Engel (Walker) ” into the searchbox on Facebook, that will get you there. As for suggested titles, I’ll have another look at your list first before coming up with a couple.
These are absolutely fantastic. Well done!
Very Cool! I want to read some of these. Hard to pick my favorite, maybe Purple Rain.
Thanks for sharing.
So good it’s untrue!
‘Pet Sounds’ made me laugh out loud.
Desecration! A further disregard of archaic album art.
Yay! Desecration!
Don’t worry Gordon, archaic album art can be regarded here…
Great idea, humor, and execution Christophe!
This is just wonderful. I loved each one! The idea on itself was already great, but what you did with that is beyond amazing. Cheers, Christophe! :)
This is a great series, there’s just such a great range of styles in here that hit the mark perfectly. Proper labour of love.
Absolutely fabulous.
Please do David Bowie’s, ‘Space Oddity’.
If Rockpot make it into a screen print, I’d buy it.
I’ll have to add that one to my list of things to do… s’getting loooooong :-)
FELICITACIONES, I Love when a
desing work is so great and creative that make me smile (from a Chilean Designer)
:-D Gracias!
Great Designs. Received my prints i ordered today and they’re perfect! Soooo happy with them. May I suggest a few albums? How about Stiff Little Fingers – Inflammable Material. Nirvana – Nevermind or The Verve -Urban Hymns? Would love to see what you came up with if you do! Keep creating!
Brilliant news, glad you like ’em!
As it happens, one of your requests is already on this very page but it is easy to miss… here’s a link: Nevermind
Just mind-bogglingly brilliant. That Commando look for Dire Straits (Every Man has to Die!), Koi Baat Nahin, the failed Elektra line. Too good.
:-)
Thanks Jai!
Not sure where to start – but this is as close to utter genius as it gets! I know you’ve already done a Pixies one, but would love to see what you could do with ‘Doolittle’, my most favourite album of all-time.
Such a kind comment!
Thanks… Hmmmm… Doolittle. I shall have to let that one stew in the brainpan for a while…
What nothing by the Smiths? (Unless I missed it) – The Queen is dead perhaps or Meat is murder? Brilliant, love and sharing with everyone I know and some perfect strangers.
And then she sees Hatful of Hollow. Sorry :-(
:-D Thanks!
H of H is low-key so you are excused.
I think these are just wonderful and clever.
Thanks, Anon.
Sweet! The ultimate collection for those who are both music geeks and bookworms.
Fantastic! A big mention to Kevin Cummins for posting this link on Twitter, otherwise I’d have been blissfully unaware of these. I’ve just purchased both sets of postcards as an investment for my 7yo. Oh, and for me to stare longingly at. Brilliant stuff, I am in awe!
Oh, a good one for me would be Alien Lanes by Guided By Voices (or anything by GBV with their obscure album titles).
Hmmm ok Brendan, I’ve quite a long to-do list… I’ll pop GBV on it. Thanks for the kind words :-)
Fantastic pieces on here. My wife has just bought me a Power, Corruption and Lies print for my birthday and I’m properly over the moon. Now waiting for Christmas and planning on dropping some heavy duty hints to the rest of the family
Thanks Grant…. enjoy! :-)
Love these. I’m getting some for our studio. I know everyone has suggestions for more….here are mine.
Cat Scratch Fever by Ted Nugent, Slippery When Wet by Bon Jovi, and Bridge of Sighs by Robin Trower…all remained as trashy, pulpy paperback romance stories.
Ah Tony, I will get round to your requests one day I hope ;-)
Thanks spellcheck. That was supposed to be “reimagined”, not “remained”.
amazing work! i hope you’ll make movie to album art next time.
Thanks :-) ….trickier proposal you got there…hmmmm…
Hi there, You’ve done an incredible job. I’ll definitely digg it and personally suggest to my friends.
I am confident they will be benefited from this web site.
Good post! this list of books are great. this list of books will help the readers to choose from different books and enjoy reading them and appreciate them.
Still hoping for a Kristin Hersh/Throwing Muses one – there’s a few to choose from! :o)
Ahhh… yes. Ummm… perhaps after my ‘The Record Books’ show at Rough Trade East, Brick Lane, London 29th Oct 7pm-9pm (then exhibiting for 3 weeks! ;-)
She’s there the night before, you need to sneak it in quickly for that :o)
D’ahh!!!
Blimey – just looking at these again – apparently I was requesting a Muses/Hersh one a year ago!