Who we are
My friend Tony and I are record collectors and we especially love finding old records with crazy, beautiful, sexy, funny, shocking, provocative, absurd, tacky covers. We search flea markets, salvation armies, house sales, stoop sales, garbage cans and, when we can find them, record stores that still sell vinyl. After 30 years of doing this, we kind of feel like we’ve seen everything, but still we search for that new old record with a cover we just can’t believe. eBay, while having effectively killed the used record stores we grew up loving, has opened up a world of records from other countries that we probably would not have seen otherwise. Tony and I spend far to much time (and money) on eBay clicking around for record covers that hit that sweet spot.
We’ve actually organized our lp collections into cover categories like “cartoons” and “cheesecake” and “beatniks”; even “dolls” and “monsters” and “big heads.” So we’re getting it together to show you the highlights and low points of our obsessive habit. To show you record covers that you don’t see everywhere else. Covers that might otherwise be lost to the junk heap of history.
We’ll also include some covers that are recognized as icons of graphic design and influencers of style. Covers that are quintessential in their own way and that are timeless and “cool.”
In beginning to put this blog together, we’ve also discovered on the internet how many others around the world share our love of album covers and our “inside” joke. So we’re hoping to connect with them and you and provide links to those related sites and blogs that we’ve found.
We owe a debt to those collectors and dealers who have turned us on to many of our most treasured albums, including the late Jack “Beabopa” Brown, the very much alive Will Louviere of Show and Tell Music, our buddy Otis 45, OZ, “Bollywood” Edo in The Netherlands, Preston Peek of Vinyl Lives! and others. And thanks to Fred Seibert for encouraging us to share our collections online and for showing us how.
When I’m not playing with records, I own an event marketing and promotion agency in New York City. You can contact me at matthew@lpcoverlover.com.
Check out Matthew’s full story here on Dust and Grooves!
Tony in his office with a cool vintage Philips poster.
March 8th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Matt & Tony:
GREAT JOB !! Well versed & “picturesque” -(excuse the Pun) You on my favorite places to visit
J.J. (Pola Negri Collectibles)
May 6th, 2007 at 8:44 am
Thanks J.J.!!
December 24th, 2007 at 2:41 am
My hats off to you two. Your site is my favorite cover archive online. And you’ve made my computer very happy, as the covers you feature rotate endless on the screen saver.
Cheers,
Otis
July 19th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
You guys are great and very creative. As “Chaino’s only record producer I thank you so much for entering my; “Chaino” LP’s on your “World’s Best LP Covers.
My favorite saying is; “There are some people who make things happen–others who watch things happen and– the rest don’t know anything happened.”
You guys are #1, the “Doer’s” of the world. Keep up the good work. With Respect, Kirby Allan
September 20th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Love the Site!! after 30 years i want to be where you guys are!
Thankz,
Dat Digga
ONe L
September 29th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
“What Would People Say If I Let Them See the Real Me?â€
“Mr. Tony – Tear Down This Wall!!!”
November 1st, 2008 at 7:26 am
A cool photography blog called Reciprocity Failure (reciprocity-failure.blogspot.com) wrote this about Lpcoverlover: “I spent way too much time perusing the hallowed vaults of LP Cover Lover, only to enjoy every damn second of it. Some weird, wonderful combination of nostalgia, post modern retro chic and online cabinet of curiosities. Somebody stop me…” We like that!
November 5th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
You guys are GREAT !!! Amazing friends with a wonderful idea !!! Hope to interview you in March for my Youtube show.
God luck and all the best,
Your buddy DAN
November 21st, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Thanks for all the fun trips down memory lane!! We’ve been in the retail record biz for over twenty years and it was great to see so many friends that had to be left behind !!
The Wilsons’
NYC & Charlottesville, VA
December 31st, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Nice work gentlemen. As an avid vinyl lover and collector, please keep up the good work,
Just added you to my blogroll!
Jt
Austin, TX
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:23 pm
This is treat. Absoulutely first rate!!!!! Well done, guys.
February 1st, 2009 at 2:05 am
Stumbled on the site and now 30 minutes later I have to tear myself away to get on with my life. Wonderful job on the site and collection. I’m an opera guy so collect vinyl covers of divas — see my web site http://www.vinyldivas.com. But I really do love all style of absurd or brilliant covers. Once i was being put up for business for 3 months in a corporate apartment with neutral decor, so i went to the local thrift stores and bought about 100 crazy covered LPs for 25 cents each and pinned them up on the walls in rows. It was a great bargain way to add some color and verve to the dreary place. Suddenly, all the parties of the team were at my apt! I had to toss them all when I moved on, but I’ll never forget how fun that was. Your site really brought back that great time. Thanks!
JOHNNY.
February 1st, 2009 at 8:17 am
Hi Johnny, thanks for the kind words and the story. Vinyl Divas is great. I added a link. All the best, M
June 18th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
I do not sell records and I am not in business. I am just a hobby-collector and troll garage sales in the suburbs west of Chicago. Please check out the blog I have just started http://curtiscollectsvinylrecords.blogspot.com/
What I do is (almost) every day – post a photo of a record jacket in my collection along with a short comment.
June 30th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
oh nice idea with the frames on the wall. I inherited my dad’s record collection about 5 years ago..but just starting to go thru it. What a blast. Have around 14,000 and starting to add to it already. Also about 4,000 78s..and a few thousand 45s. The artwork is so amazing. Some of the 50s albums in particular is sooo framable. Have to find some of those album cover frames!!!
July 27th, 2009 at 8:12 am
You have a great site, good content with quality photos. Where did you get the storage shelves from? Looking for a suitable storage solution for my collection of LPs, your LP collection not only looks respectable and well organized but sturdy too. BTW, my area of expertice is collecting US Elvis Presley LPs, 45s, and EPs which I am documenting on http://www.megocollector.com.
October 7th, 2009 at 2:48 am
Do we know what happened to Vinyl Lives?
Is Preston alright?
November 25th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Tony – Last year in Myrtle Beach at the former HARD ROCK PARK we saw a wall by the Led Zeppelin roller coaster ride that displayed hundreds and hundreds of vintage rock ‘n’ roll albums that – like your display(s) – are a true work of art! Add a little black lighting to it and it must POP, eh?
Happy Thanksgiving and it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas LP
Lover Cover Nation! Hello to the Rockettes too!
May 31st, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Matthew and Tony and LPCL Vinyl Pinups one and all… I took your advice last year and hit the Salvation Army stores and Goodwill and yard sales / estate sales. Thanks to you we’ve been able to pick up vinyl bargains in great quantity and our collection has increased big time! God bless…
June 10th, 2010 at 5:31 am
when I was a kid and started listening to rock music, I knew all the time while playing an album cover look … sometimes I pack more interesting than the music on it … 3 months ago I started to buy again from nostalgia lps that I once loved because of covers (Stones, Jethro Tull, genessis ……) why I like this site and I will seek a pack from the former Yugoslavia maybe you like it or you laugh:) like my English:)
June 10th, 2010 at 7:42 am
Frau Baron is from Dusseldorf in the former West Germany. Love the German quality sounds on her 60’s vinyl golden oldies. Just a glimpse of an oldy album cover and sleeve can take oneself back into time in an instant. Go GERMANY in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa!! This is the BEST vinyl album cover website in the world…
July 11th, 2010 at 4:53 am
gentlemen,
i am helping to research a book on our president. as you may or may not know, there are rumors on the net that some old nude photos may be of the presidents mother….http://graphics2.snopes.com/photos/risque/graphics/dunham3.jpg
in the photo are two record album covers, one on the table that i have identified as “Stan Kenton: CubanFire”. the other, in the rack under the phonograph i can’t identify. its obviously a black artist but who? i am hoping to use the album covers as a means of dating the picture.
any help would be greatly appreciated Thanks, don
July 11th, 2010 at 5:49 am
That’s a Nat King Cole record. But you must be kidding, right?! Are you suggesting that the woman in this photo is Barrack’s mother?!
July 15th, 2010 at 8:04 am
yes, there is a very good probability that the woman in the picture is Barrack’s mother.
i couldn’t locate the album, do you know which one it is? somehow to me the picture doesn’t look like nat king cole.
July 28th, 2010 at 9:07 am
Just came across this great site as we work on a 60’s-style retro cover for our next release. If you ever expand to include CD covers, check out for possible inclusion our lawyer rock efforts at http://www.LawTunes.com. Thanks.
July 28th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
This site is a goldmine. I can’t begin to count the number of laughs I’ve had over some of the covers (or the witty captions). Brilliant site, keep up the good work gents!
September 8th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
HI,
Love your blog ! So funny covers…
Maybe you’ll be interesting about my blog Loudvinylart. A french blog about modern Vinyl Art, chronic music for eyes and all stuff around our turntables.
Vinyls not dead !
Thanks a lot.
Merci beaucoup.
November 28th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
This site rocks, I have heaps of old albums only released here in New Zealand, and are going to take photos of them and send them to you as some are truly creepy (My Mum was a big time hippy music fan in the 60s) and then 70s disco.
December 1st, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Hi,
I’ve just finished a survey about The vinyl art of the year 2010.
Vote for your favorite 2010 LP artwork here: http://www.loudvinylart.com
Thanks
April 9th, 2011 at 6:36 am
Tony,
Great Stuff.
If you ever go to Austin, Tx check out Waterloo Records.
I have to go there often on business, and I love to stroll through there to forget……well to forget I’m in Texas!
Last time, I found a great Steve Goodman record, “High and Outside” with a great cove.
Cheers,
Taps
April 22nd, 2011 at 5:45 am
Found your site while surfing for cover art. Many laughs and am enjoying the photoshopped covers.
Steve T
May 21st, 2011 at 9:42 am
Check mine out, too:
http://www.danacountryman.com/danacovers/danacovers.html
May 28th, 2011 at 4:54 am
Dana, you were one of the pioneers! I used to enjoy your magazine too. Thanks for paving the way.
December 22nd, 2011 at 9:35 pm
Hey guys, love the site, but I keep getting malware notices. Avast is blocking trojans when I go to some of the sections.
December 23rd, 2011 at 5:21 am
Thanks James I’ll look into it asap. Anyone else see any problems, please let us know! Happy Holidays!
December 23rd, 2011 at 9:20 am
Frohliche Weihnachten, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year 2012
to Matthew, Tony and the Manhattan LPCL Golddigger Gals…
– Red & Baroness von Vixenmuffin and Squadron!
March 1st, 2012 at 12:15 pm
Hello. My name is Robert Champion and I have been reading your blog as well as a few of the links that came along with it and I wanted to introduce myself and invite you to collaborate with me on a project that I am working on dedicated to vinyl records. I think this might actually be a great fit. I produce a show with my good friends from Chicago Bob & Ron. The name of the show is simply Bob & Ron’s Record Club. The premise of the show is to play only vinyl records and talk about the records while also incorporating pop culture clips from various eras to tie everything into each other and weave the program throughout the two hours. This cloudcast is a not for profit project. We do not make any money on the cloudcast and do not intend to ever do so with the program. We have a passion for this genre of music collecting and our collection is very large so we want to share it with a new audience. In fact, I spend my own money from my sales job in Chicago to produce the content and get it on my mixcloud site. However, we have been struggling to get listeners.
We know that there is an audience for this type of stuff and we don’t want to spam a bunch of websites. This is why I am writing to you privately right now. I’d like to invite you to listen to one or two of the cloudcasts and if you like what you hear then maybe you could help us out by putting a link to the show on your website for your readers to check out. In turn we will create commercial spots for your website and will include them on future episodes to be aired in the near future. We would be happy to offer you free advertising and our commercial production tools are extremely professional and of a high quality.
Here are the links to the first four shows that we have uploaded. I am not asking you to share the link right now on your website. I just want you to take a listen and judge for yourself if this material is relevant content for your website. If the answer is yes then I can send you the widget player for each program and you can embed the code one with a little blurb about the show if you feel that it might enrich what you are doing. Our passion is music and getting new music in record form out to the listeners that share our passions. Take a listen and let me know what you think. Again, this is a non profit effort and we are only doing this purely for the music and the fans of vinyl. Thanks for your time!
http://www.mixcloud.com/robertchampion/bob-and-rons-record-club-archive-1-episode-80/
http://www.mixcloud.com/robertchampion/bob-and-rons-record-club-archive-2-episode-79/
http://www.mixcloud.com/robertchampion/bob-rons-record-club-archive-3-episode-78/
http://www.mixcloud.com/robertchampion/bob-rons-record-club-archive-4-episode-70/
March 11th, 2012 at 8:29 pm
I’m just seeing this and will take a listen!
April 13th, 2012 at 5:25 am
As to WHO WE ARE, you’re in Tina Turner’s song: “SIMPLY THE BEST!”
April 8th, 2013 at 3:40 am
hi Tony & Matthew,
very nice blog and it is always good to meet people that share an interest in those beautiful records of old!
i started my own blog on this subject recently, maybe you would like to check it out: http://finestvinylalbumcovers.wordpress.com/
the coming weeks i will share some realy gorgeous ones…
December 8th, 2013 at 12:28 pm
Tony updated his photo?!?! CAPITOL idea!
January 17th, 2014 at 4:10 pm
Just discovered your website – greetings from Germany – you guys are great – keep covers coming – this website is part of our cultural memory – love what you’re doing – Rock’n’Roll !
April 20th, 2014 at 1:06 pm
Thank you guys for putting together this awesome treasure trove of awesome covers.
June 15th, 2014 at 6:39 am
My favorite site on the internet. I LOVE what you guys are doing.
January 16th, 2015 at 7:47 am
Now this is simply just great, not to say super great!
I am a dedicated Lover of old records playing with one of my 6 turntables. I have for each decade a dedicated turntable: 60ies records I do Play with a Thorens 124 MK 2, 70ies with a Thorens 160, 80ies with a Technics SL 120 and so on.
I love your side, go ahead and never stop!
Michael
Duesseldorf, Germany
January 16th, 2015 at 2:31 pm
Thanks for the love from Duesseldorf Michael. Keep spinning! 6 turntables?!