COVER OF THE WEEK

Cover # 34 is Ummagumma, a Pink Floyd album originally released in 1969.

It consists of one studio record and one recorded live. Even the CD release is divided that way.
The cover is one of Pink Floyd's better ones. At least we get some nice photos of the band members.

The front cover photo shows one of the lads sitting in the doorway of a house and the others just outside on the lawn. On the upper left there is a similar photo but the band members have changed places. On the upper left of THAT photo hangs a similar picture...and so on.

If you own the double LP it may be one of those that is nice to sit and glare at while listening to the music. Also check out the somewhat phony photo where all the touring equipment, guitars and amps and all, is set up in the road. Just like Mike Oldfield would do some years later, huh? Overall a quite nice album cover, but the music on the album hasn't aged that well.

This may be Floyd's most experimantal release. Each member had half a LP side to fill with stuff. Kind of like The Beatles white album deal: Let's let each guy compose his part of the album on his own.
But in Pink Floyd's case it didn't turn out very good at all.

The studio album is filled with pretentious sound experiments.
The live album consists of four longer jam-like pieces. This may have been the ultimate choice of music for a late 60's hippie but 35 years later one may feel that this album is just too tedious.

S.H.

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