At His Satanic Majesty’s Request
TIM MADDISON

The Rolling Stones initially appalled the nation’s parents with their ‘brutish’ looks as much as their horrifying rhythm and blues beat music. But for a band possessing some of the most recognisable faces on the planet, there was a time when they cultivated a striking invisibility.

After the psychedelic foolery of Their Satanic Majesties Request, 1968’s Beggars Banquet not only revealed the Stones revitalised by the blues but also saw the band proposing to replace their earlier run of relentlessly dreary album cover photos – with an extraordinary Barry Feinstein image of a squalid graffiti-scribbled lavatory that Jagger, Richards and Anita Pallenberg had chanced upon, a place reeking of needles, urine and drunken couplings.

Appalled, Decca refused to use the picture and won the ensuing stand off, with the band eventually trading the album’s release against a plain white cover. But this was to be the last time, baby, as the Stones’ desire for financial and creative freedom grew. From now on, the Stones’ studied primitivism and appetite for shock was underpinned, and enhanced, by a very thoughtful and controlled approach to image, marketing and money, particularly on the part of Mick Jagger. It was a reaction to the financial fallout from the Decca years and their unhappy dealings with manager Allen Klein.

One striking sign of this was their almost complete throwing over of conventional rock design and presentation in favour of what was to prove a wonderfully fruitful and committed collaboration with the top creative talent of the day. The result was the most sophisticated graphic output yet seen in rock.

Jagger was always the guiding hand behind the artwork and developed a key relationship with a young Royal College of Art student, John Pasche. Pasche designed the lips logo for the Stones’ eponymous new record label and was a brilliant exponent of the distinctly acid-warped Art Deco revival style that is now utterly synonymous with the period.






Pasche depicted the band making a 1920s-style gangster getaway into tax exile on their 1971 UK Bye Bye Britain tour poster and celebrated the glamorous international jet-setting of what was rapidly emerging as the decade’s new lotus eating elite on the 1970 European and 1972 North American tours.

These were all created, of course, without the slightest desire to picture the band itself: a major statement of confidence both in themselves and in the integrity of the artistic talent they employed.

Pop Art was an important ingredient in the Stones’ retro-pop cultural gumbo, and so it was only fitting that Andy Warhol and Jagger should collaborate (some years after their first meeting) on the most infamous of all the Stones’ covers: that of 1971’s ‘interactive’ homoerotic tour-de-force Sticky Fingers.

As the music became looser and bluesier, so its packaging became ever more sophisticated.



Both photography and David Bailey made a return on 1973’s Goat’s Head Soup (Bailey had previously worked with the band in the Decca days) but in a form so bizarre as to be utterly divorced from the bland Decca-era covers, and indeed from any notion of conventional rock photography.




1973 also saw a rich crop of brilliant tour posters (now extremely rare), including that for the cancelled tour of Japan and the fabulous rampant dragon for the cancelled Welsh castle concerts. We know little about their creators but the standard of the internationally famous artists was triumphantly upheld. By now the lips had become a brand, recognizable around the globe.

The campaign for Exile on Main Street was another high point, with the remarkable trio of Robert Frank, John Van Hamersveld and Norman Seeff creating the now-rare – and highly sought-after – promotional poster and the astounding billboard.



Van Hamersveld commented perceptively on the decadence of Jagger at that time but also on his status as ‘really a pop artist, too’.

It’s pretty clear that the summit years of both the Stones’ musical and graphic artistry coincide very closely. As both were so dependent on Jagger’s level of commitment, this isn’t surprising. By the time of 1974’s It’s Only Rock N’ Roll that commitment was flagging. For the cover, Jagger cheekily poached the brilliant Belgian artist Guy Peellaert from David Bowie. Peellaert’s book Rock Dreams is a seminal work in the popular culture of the 1970s and his cover for Bowie’s Diamond Dogs is unforgettable, but it’s obvious Jagger was unable to get the best out of him, for the cover of an album of less than stellar achievement.



However, when the energy of punk and New York’s multi-ethnic nightlife revitalized the band for the last burst of truly great form that was 1978’s Some Girls, the artwork once again rose to the occasion, in Peter Corriston’s brilliant sleeve design. Stylistically and thematically, this was a summation of many elements that had come before, and was pleasingly controversial in its unauthorised used of celebrity faces (the sleeve was withdrawn and emended). It was a fitting last hurrah: both the ‘70s and the Rolling Stones’ creative well-spring were coming to an end.



Tim Maddison, is Night and Day's resident poster expert from The Movie Poster Art Gallery

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April 7th, 2011 1:08amZiggy
Jagger didn't "poach" Guy Peelaert from David Bowie - it was completely the other way around. Jagger told Bowie about an art show in Chelsea for Rock Dreams and told him that Guy was going to do the next Stones album artwork. Bowie nipped in and got Guy to do his Diamond Dogs artwork before Jagger got the chance to. Bowie said years ago in an interview with Playboy: "Mick was silly. I mean, he should never shown me anything new. I went over to his house and he had all these Guy Peellaert pictures around and said, "What do you think of this guy?" I told him I thought he was incredible. So I immediately phoned him up. Mick's learned now, as I've said. He will never do that again. You've got to be a bastard in this business."

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April 7th, 2011 12:20pmTim Maddison
Ziggy, thanks for the correction! I remembered the story but had a nagging feeling I might've got the poaching the wrong way round, but it was midnight and deadline time. "You've got to be a bastard in this business." Such a great line.

[www.spectator.co.uk]

'Relentlessly dreary' album covers? Between The Buttons?!

Nice article. Thanks.

Quote
Thricenay
'Relentlessly dreary' album covers? Between The Buttons?!

dark yes - dreary never!
both Aftermath covers were relentlessly hip
and Out of Our Heads/December's Children is wonderfully hot
the Now cover art maybe hasn't aged too well, but at the time that beat esthetic was very with-it

Now maybe hasn't aged too well, but at the time that beat esthetic was very with-it

Oow YEAH AND remember the first time ya held Now .... It had a Chicago
haze and thee whole thing just stunk of R&B even before ya pulled those grooves from the sleeve.... Still doin' it job .......





ROCKMAN

the article is terribly overwritten, blecch.

This was created by Tadanori Yokoo for the 5 days back to back concert.

He was once offered Mick Jagger's solo album artwork, but that didn't happen.