This new book revolves around the brilliant sleeve collection of Steve Goldman which first appeared at a public exhibition in Huddersfield (current dates at end of page). It then reappeared at Stoke’s excellent Spode Pottery Museum and we went over to see it, meet Steve and discuss the idea of a book. There are any number of “worst record sleeve” galleries out there on the internet, most seem to recycle the same poor jpegs over and over. There have even been a handful of very cheap books on the subject. But we figured that while these covers can be seen as bad from a variety of angles, there had to be a story behind them. So we’re tackling the subject properly, talking to some artists and designers and researching the covers in detail. You can chuckle over some utterly astonishing covers (there are around 300 in the book) but also read the stories behind many of them. The core of the book is album vinyl of course but the odd (and we mean very odd) single does turn up as well! For lovers of vinyl and students of sleeve design and anyone wanted a good laugh!
Some excellent reviews out there already, we have posted a few on this site (under the Bizarre Sleeves menu). And the foreword by Stewart Lee is probably worth the cover price alone!
There are some PAGE PREVIEWS up on the site.
The book has been designed by Simon Robinson at Easy On The Eye, who has a website ST33 devoted to vinyl art (good and bad!), and has a gallery of strange sleeves up there. Check it out via the link below. There is an article on the website about the cover design as well.
Bizarre Sleeves {1}
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EXHIBITION Northampton in May and Warrington in September. Details to follow.
Northampton Museum and Art Gallery
4 May – 22 June 2025
northamptonmuseums.com
Check details and review of the display on this site. Steve has his own Instagram page which has more about the bizarre sleeves project on.
easy on the eye books 