Every now and then I have to stop and pay homage to Great Album Cover Art. After all, the point of album cover art is to suck the viewer in and make him or her buy the album. This cover is a prime example of good album art. One glance, and I was forking over the $2.00 at the Salvation Army for this masterpiece. You won’t find Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, conducted by Ernest Ansermet with L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in any Rolling Stone’s 500 Zilion Greatest Album Covers of All Time list, but in my opinion, this is the greatest album cover ever made. Move over Sgt. Pepper, move over Dark Side of the Moon, Le Sacre du Printemps is in town, and it’s going to ritualistically prance all over your butts.
What makes this album cover so great, you ask? Is it merely Ming the Merciless, clad in a chain mail and blue leopard fur toga, effortlessly brandishing Rita Rudner, hastily wrapped only in my grandmother’s kitchen curtains which she neglected to remove from the clothesline that has earned this record a permanent home on my bedroom wall? Is it the pastel-hued pointy bits that reach skyward to accent the lofty concept of this album art? Is it the jaunty font of the title, in hot pink and green faux-primitive block letters of varying size that makes this album so great? Is it the gall of the record company to allow a nekkid boobie on an album cover (and a classical one, no less!)? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding “yes.”
The music itself on the record pretty standard—it’s no different from any other rendition of The Rite of Spring one would hear. Maybe that’s why the record inside is in mint condition? There isn’t a scratch or a scrape on this baby. Was it gently loved by many generations of classical music lovers? Was it revered by a hardcore fan of Ernest Ansermet’s conducting? Or did the scantilly clad maiden render it a tricky Eisenhower era deposit into the Spank Bank? We’ll never know.
Now, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring has been controversial from the start. When it premiered in 1913, its radical departure from traditional ballet literally caused a riot in the Paris theater. Stravinsky wrote the piece to evoke primal urges, as it is the depiction of a pagan fertility ritual. So, the nudity on the cover is completely in keeping with the themes. I’m not sure where Ming’s gold lamé yarmulke fits into Stravinsky’s whole picture, but it does evoke laughter in me, which is certainly a primeval response.
Other album covers of this piece have focused on the rural nature of it, and left out the rest of the ideas completely. Of course, classical music albums seem to always feature pastoral scenes that have nothing to do with the pieces, but that’s a whole other story.
What I’m still wondering is, how many Cold-War era dads bought this album because they truly were classical music lovers? I can picture the dialogue now…
DAD (strategically covering nekkid boobie with hand): Hi honey, I’m home! Look what I got. I decided it’s high time we got some cultcha in this family.
MOM: why John, What is it?
DAD: it’s a new phonograph record. You know how Johnny Jr. is taking trombone lessons at school? Well I thought it was high time we all had some cultcha. This here is by a fellow named Stravin-sky… you know, from “Fantasia,” the little dancing unicorns?
And then, staring at the album cover, alone in his Den late at night, John can picture the scene from the liner notes:
The orchestra feverishly hammers out its maddingly incessant syncopations, as the maiden continues her dance, but suddenly ceases as she falters to the ground, lifeless from sheer exhaustion. This was indeed a Dance of Death–the Chosen One has completed her sacrifice, and the Rite of Spring is over.
One Comment
Pretty Funny! Sorry to spoil your imagery, but “Rite of Spring” was more primal - played to volcanic eruptions, earth upheavals forming mountains, etc. Or maybe that was your point? Thrusting, squirting, pounding, pounding? Anyway, the dancing unicorns were in the segment that used parts of Beethoven’s 6th Symphony (The Pastorale). Of the 9 symphonies, the 6th is my favorite.