Take a Look At My Cover

Recently, it was time again for Turntable Talk, a fun monthly recurring feature hosted by Dave who pens the great A Sound Day blog, where he invites posts from fellow bloggers on topics he picks. This time the ask was to write about an album which had cover art or packaging we dig. Following is my contribution, which first was published on Dave blog on June 18. The post has been slightly edited to fit the format of this blog.

Summer is back and so is Turntable Talk, the gift that keeps on giving! In this 27^th round of the monthly feature, host and fellow blogger Dave asked us to write about the packaging of an album we like, be it the cover art, the liner notes or any inserts. Sometimes when Dave sends us a topic, I have to sleep on it. In this case, not only did I decide right away that I wanted to focus on an album cover, but I also immediately knew which cover I wanted to highlight.

My spontaneous pick may be surprising, given there are so many albums with great covers. The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers, Nirvana’s Nevermind and Deep Purple’s In Rock are some that come to my mind. When making my decision which album cover to write about, I only thought of The Dark Side of the Moon as the next option after I had decided on my pick: Breakfast In America by Supertramp.

While my decision to get the album on vinyl around the time it was released in March 1979 was solely driven by the music, I’ve always thought Breakfast in America has one of the coolest covers I know, especially the front. The cover was conceived by English designers Mike Doud and Mick Haggerty. It resembles a view of Manhattan through an airplane window. In the front there’s an image of American actress and singer-comedienne Kate Murtagh as the Statue of Liberty. She’s dressed as a diner waitress, holding up a glass of orange juice on a small plate in one hand (instead of the statute’s torch) and in her other hand a menu titled “Breakfast In America.”

But the truly amazing thing to me is the depiction of Lower Manhattan in the background: an assortment of breakfast items and utensils, including a cornflake box, ashtray, cutlery, pancake syrup bottles, egg crates, salt and pepper shakers, coffee mugs, ketchup and mustard bottles, etc. The twin towers of the World Trade Center (at the time) appear as two stacks of boxes. There’s also a breakfast plate representing The Battery, formerly known as Battery Park, a public park located at the southern tip of Manhattan.

The back cover photo is less spectacular but certainly fits well. It shows the members of Supertramp, with each reading their respective hometown newspaper. Kate Murtagh makes another appearance as the diner waitress. The image was taken at a Los Angeles diner called Bert’s Mad House. I suspect it no longer exists, though I couldn’t verify that.

The cover won Breakfast in America one of two Grammys at the 1980 awards, for Best Album Package, defeating albums by Chicago (Chicago), Talking Heads (Fear of Music), Led Zeppelin (In Through The Out Door) and Joe Jackson (Look Sharp!), among others. The album also won in the category of Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording and received nominations for Album of the Year and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.

Since this is a music-related post, I’m leaving you with three songs from Breakfast in America. All were written by co-founder and co-frontman Roger Hodgson (vocals, keyboards and guitars), who penned most of the band’s hits.

The Logical Song

Breakfast in America

Take the Long Way Home

Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube