Rough Trade Records - Jenny Lewis

Jenny Lewis

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Yesterday Jenny Lewis and her good friend Elvis Costello performed ‘Carpetbaggers’ on Lettermen. In case anyone’s wondering, the term carpetbaggers originally referred to politicians from the north who moved south during America’s reconstruction to free the slaves.

For some the best bit of the performance was quite simply the fact that Letterman introduced Jenny whilst holding a copy of her new LP that looks like a massive sheet of blotter acid. But don’t fear, it’s not all juvenile laughs here as this has reminded me to introduce you folks to Alex Steinweiss who, in 1938, invented the album cover.

Previously 78’s had just come packaged in brown paper, but thanks to Alex they now came in better protective packaging adorned with pretty literal illustrations that were usually entirely inseparable from the work they contained…

For instance, if the album in question is Franky Carle ‘At the Piano’ then just to make things clear Alex would include some hands and a piano:

Or for an album of virtuoso harmonica recordings, hands and said instrument….

But then the abstract Jazz scene grew in popularity and things got a little tricky. Check out this effort where Alex tries to raltionalise an album called ‘Abrstract Slant’…

‘1+1=2?’. There’s something beautiful about the fact that he couldn’t bring himself to suggest that 1+1 might equal three or four, but instead just questions the proposition that it’s 2. Not just content with inventing the album cover, in 1948 he also invented the LP sleeve. We wonder what he would have made of Jenny’s: