Elvis Calling

Ok, so London Calling is one of the best albums EVER (I don't know why writing about music makes me write like a teenager with random capital letters and excessive exclamation marks!!!!!) and this album cover, released in 1979, is one of the best pieces of artwork too, summing up the anger and disaffection of the generation. Like all good students, I had this poster on my wall as I attempted to osmote some cool. (Yep, I know that's not a word but I like it, and you know what I mean, and we're going with the whole teenage underdevloped vocabularly thing here.)

 



Now I know I should have known this already and I am aware that I am exposing myself to ridicule from certain friends (yes, I'm referring to you Bad Fairy and Our Man in London), but I never realised that it was done as a homage to Elvis Presley's first album released in 1956. The black and white image; the design, layout and font; the special relationship of one man with his guitar...

In A Brief History of Album Covers, Jason Draper writes, "A mixture of punk, reggae and rockabilly, London Calling may well be to punk/ post punk music what Elvis Presley was to rock 'n' roll - a collection of influences wider than the genres the artists were recognized as spearheading."

Incidentally, another band to riff on the themes of the album cover is the phenomenally perennial Chumbawamba. Check out Tony Blair, sent to everyone on their UK mailing list in 1999.