Surf's Up / Pet Sounds / Best Of by The Beach Boys

This selection of back covers by The Beach Boys are all a little drab in contrast to the front covers of two of them. The front of the third, Surf's Up, has been described as their most 'un-Beach Boys' cover. It is a painting based on the sculpture End of the Trail, by James Earle Fraser, which honours the struggle of the Native Americans (I had wrongly assumed it depicted an image of Don Quixote I half-remembered). As The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit points out, Surf's Up saw "[n]o more songs about girls, cars, or surfing" but a "new world-conscious Beach Boys attitude...duly reflected in the choice of album art". The back cover of Surf's Up continues the theme and is dark to the point of almost consuming the black font of the song titles.

Pet Sounds and Best Of (released only two months later) stick to a familiar formula; the band shown in lighter mood on the back cover, with the latter not missing the opportunity for a bit of advertising too.
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Researching these back covers I stumbled across Malcom C. Searle's excellent and marvellously in-depth Back Through the Opera Glass website dedicated to the artwork of The Beach Boys. It is worth reproducng what he says about the back covers of Pet Sounds and Surf's Up in full:

"For the rear of the Pet Sounds album sleeve Capitol Records chose to put together a collage of frames highlighting the importance of the group as they liked to see them. The candy-striped shirts were back in evidence, guitars in hand, mixed in with a number of stills taken during the Japanese leg of their recent concert tour. This was almost suggesting that this was their way of showing that the album was their boys together … not merely a frontage for Brian’s strong-minded dominance of the music within.

Whilst Brian had been recording the instrumental tracks for the new album, using Los Angeles’ finest collection of studio session musicians, and prior to the boys laying down the vocals, the remaining five-piece band had been performing a 15-date tour of Japan, followed by a one-off return journey show, on Saturday 29th January, in Honolulu. Eleven of the fifteen pictures that graced the rear sleeve were taken during this tour, four of which featured Mike, Alan, Carl, Dennis and Bruce dressed out in traditional Japanese costume, pictured during a promotional visit to Kyoto's famous Samurai studios on January 10th. The remaining tour pictures featured the band on stage, dressed in traditional Beach Boy costume. Striped shirt and white pants, Capitol Records undoubtedly smiling silently in the background, although judging by the picture of Carl wearing a Hawaiian flower Lei around his neck they are taken from a variety of the shows from the tour. Japanese-based photographer and writer Dave Jampel is credited with being the man behind the lens for this series of pictures, and at least Bruce once again made the rear cover …

“I think that album is my favourite, and it drove me crazy that I couldn’t get my picture on the (front) cover because I was still signed to CBS, from the days when Terry Melcher and I were producing for them. I couldn’t get a clearance to be on the front cover, but I’m on the back … but I’m so proud just to have been able to sing on that record …” Bruce Johnston (Beach Boy)

Brian only appears in two pictures on the rear montage, uncomfortably alienated away from the antics of his fellow band members he is seen driving his car, leaning out of the window, sombrely dressed in black, whilst the more dominant pose sees him sitting at his piano, fingers poised over the chord structure of another great composition. It’s a strange sight seeing the sad, lone figure, the group mastermind, presenting his personal masterpiece, surrounded by shots of his smiling, laughing comrades …"

 And on the Ed Thrasher-designed Surf's Up (see also):

"For the reverse of the sleeve the deep blue and green hues that had framed Fraser’s front image re-appeared, this time as an ageing parchment (or maybe even tobacco leaf). The song titles were simply laid out from top to bottom, and nothing else was printed or featured that could remove the impact of the barren, desolate creation that was held up before the eye. It really was a most impressive, yet despairingly depressive sleeve to behold....

Overall, and despite the comparison to the bands precious releases for both Capitol and Warner’s, it is clearly apparent how this one sleeve epitomises the mood of the album held within. It deserves serious listening, serious appraisal … and it is indeed a serious offering."

Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim

I have mixed feelings about ‘100 Greatest‘ lists. At best: They can introduce you to new music or make you revisit music you already own but have neglected. At worst: They are unimaginative and lazy lists with the same old albums and artists always featuring (albeit, you may argue, for good reason). I'm still a sucker for them though...

Occasionally you can be surprised. Years ago I saw a list of the 100 ‘coolest’ albums. While the term is about as subjective as they come, quite a number of albums I had never heard of featured. Three stuck in my mind and this was one of them (the other two were No Other by Gene Clark and Pacific Ocean Blue by Dennis Wilson).

The back cover turns out to be by the 'King of Liner Notes', Stan Coryn. This comes from a time (and genre) when liner notes were feted for their literary qualities. For this album Coryn evocatively reports from one of the recording sessions. Among other liner notes, he wrote those for Lee Hazelwood, Dean Martin and Everly Brothers' albums. Even the back cover seems to exude an effortless cool.

The photograph on the back was taken by Ed Thrasher. His NY Times obituary noted his, "work proved integral to the success of many...albums and helped define the look of rock. His overall art direction included commissioning photographers, typographers and illustrators for albums including the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Are You Experienced,” Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks,” the Grateful Dead's “Anthem of the Sun,” the Doobie Brothers’ “Toulouse Street” and even Tiny Tim’s purposely cheesy “God Bless Tiny Tim.” An expressively moody self-portrait of Joni Mitchell appearing on the cover of her 1969 album “Clouds,” also started a small trend for musicians to create the art for their own records."