Progressive Rock bands always have the best cover art. It's usually some kind of otherworldly landscape, sometimes littered with strange animals creepy crawling on giant mushrooms. Or its an image of some strange character (probably some kind of wizard) casting magic or screaming (see King Crimson's self-titled), with a moon or two (or Saturn) thrown in the background for good measure. We've all seen it, and the art works because it makes us pause and look at the record for a few seconds longer when browsing the racks at the nearby record store. Now I'm not as well versed in Prog Rock, but I do know that Roger Dean has been doing art for bands since the genre's early days. You say you don't know who Roger Dean is? Well maybe you might recognize this logo he made:
If your at all familiar with Yes, then you've seen his art. Roger Dean is the primary artists for Yes, and their entire catalog displays the progression of his artwork. They have collaborated so much together that they're trying to currently make a 3D animated film based on his art. Can't say I care to see Roger Dean's landscape in a mediocre computer-generated way. Whenever anyone forces the illustrative style into a three=dimensional CGI image, it is always terrible. But I digress.
Anyways, I'm going to focus on his art from 1970-1974. Why 1970-1974? Well because that's when he was more raw and illustrative, which I'm really into. His images are flatter and less skillful, but come off as honest and imaginative. Don't get me wrong, his later stuff is gorgeous and incredible, but I want to focus on his time before he developed the caliber of craftsmanship he has today. The other reason is because I want to show how illustrative cover art was back then, with heavy use of pen & Ink with watercolor as opposed to the overuse of Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator that we see today. I'm really into watercolor art, since it's so organic and almost chaotic. An artist can release his energy into a watercolor piece of work, and it will be captured but he medium. Anyways, If your a fan of Hard Rock/early Heavy metal, you might also recognize some of these images-
Uriah Heep:
Greensdale:
Gentle Giant:
Osibisa:
Budgie:
Yes:
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