Dreamscape

Abstract Thursday: Dreamscape

Do you remember Dreamscape that long forgotten rock band from the early 70's?  This is the front cover of their eponymous album "Dreamscape"  .... the band were so cool and hip that that this album didn't even have the band's name or the album title on the front cover.  

You may not remember seeing this album cover, despite the reasonable sales success it managed worldwide.  But if you catch yourself humming an irritating little ear worm from the early 70's that you just cannot place, then the chances are that its come from this album.

Apparently Cloudy McCloudface of Hipgnosis got the idea for the cover when driving through fields of lavender in France early one morning completely out of his tree on something that had been surreptitiously dropped into his bedtime cocoa the night before, when he wasn't looking. 

His first idea had been to shoot as many naked women as the budget allowed, draped over the band's tour bus; this for no better reason than he was single and lonely and hoped to be able to chat up one of the models. The idea was strongly vetoed by the band's wives and girlfriends.  In Cloudy's defence, this was the early 1970's and gratuitous female nudity was regularly used to sell everything from new cars to budget albums of pop song covers from K-Tel for sale in your local Fine Fare.  This, of course, seems morally reprehensible and exploitative to modern audiences.

There had been a bit of a dispute between the guitarist and the vocalist over the album's title.  This was to be the band's 3rd album and the guitarist wanted to call the album IV, but everyone else thought that, whilst this would be quite funny, it was still a crap idea. The singer wanted the album to not have a title at all but everyone else thought that, whilst this would also be quite funny, having an album known as "unnamed" was just as bad an idea. 

When the two band members had finished thumping each other, and were at their lowest ebb, the drummer suggested the eponymous title "Dreamscape" to end the impasse, and the legend was born.

The record company didn't mind the cover art, but was very unhappy indeed that the band's name and the album title would only appear on the cover's spine, not the front.  In an effort to achieve some sort of compromise and enable them to sell the wretched thing, the band finally agreed to the Record Company's masterstroke -  the back cover would feature the band's name in large letters, along with the track listing, but upside down.  

At the record company's insistence the record was always displayed upside down and back to front in the record shops and as a direct result most people wrongly assume that the back cover is actually the front.  Which probably explains why its not that familiar to you despite its considerable sales.  If you still have vinyl, then you may well have a copy, although like everyone else you probably have it stored the wrong way round in your collection.  Go on have a look ...

(Cloudy was so disappointed that his art work was largely ignored that he quit Hipgnosis and became a wedding photographer.  It was this change of focus that allowed him to meet Claire, the woman who would go on to become his wife and business partner - so a happy ending of sorts after all.)