surf-a-gogo: artfully defaced album covers

Jive Time Records in Seattle runs a few fantastic graphically oriented music sites, but my favorite is Deface Value - a collection of decaded album covers. Most of my faves are the deliberately manipulated covers, but I'm also quite intrigued by at few of the "found" covers. There's loads to like - here are few of my faves.

This Zappa collage by dinagadia is simple, but works so damn well it could have passed as the actual cover.

Another simple alternation, this collage by Jules Gayton makes me laugh everytime I see it.

As long as I've been shopping in used record stores I've had a fascination with records people wrote on. I've always treated records as a bit too sacred to write on, so I'm a bit envious of people liberated enough to deface their album covers. This found copy of Help! just amazes me.

Out of everything on the site, the cover that intrigues me the most is this altered copy of Steve Martin's A Wild and Crazy Guy (“Grabbit” by Harmony Korine). Maybe there's a sentimental attachment since it was one of the first albums I ever bought, but in this form it's such a haunting image.

There doesn't seem to be much turnover on the site lately, but that doesn't really bother me since I seem to go through all of the covers again every time I visit the site.