main_stem wrote: The album concept was not around then.
-Kevin
Actually, the album concept and reality was around back then....it's why they call them "albums". 78 rpm records would often be issued in albums that contains between (usually) 3 - 5 records, oftimes new recordings; sometimes reissues. The artists name would be on the cover of the album with some type of cover art.
Lots of jazz and pop and tons of classical recordings were issued in album form.
I have a collection of a few hundred 78 rpm albums that I simply saved for the cover art and design. I tossed the records out b/c they were common or beat up.
I want to do a gallery showing of them someday. Some of the 'worst' music had some of the best covers.
They also used to sell specific, though generic artist albums w/o records in them so you could store all your Ellington or Dorsey or Shaw or Miller or James records in a nice looking art cover album instead of just having them laying around in paper sleeves or sleeveless or in those really common ultra generic albums that would hold 10 single records.
OK...done.