Look closely, and you’ll see buttons all over album covers. Here are five brought to you by Busy Beaver Button Co.
5. Thee Makeout Party
How many dudes wearing buttons can you fit on a record cover? Thee Makeout Party toured with fellow button head Nobunny, and you can grab their new album on Burger Records. Their Anaheim, California sound is like Mickey Mouse making out with the 1910 Fruitgum Company.
4. The Who
The Who album art for a 1987 compilation features a Richard Evans painting with super-mod-buttons on Pete Townshend, and an enormous “ELVIS FOR EVERYONE” button on dead hero Keith Moon. His badge is probably 4-inches in diameter, which is the second largest size in the industry. The comp features “Bald Headed Woman” and a Jimmy Page guitar solo from when, “he owned the only fuzz box in the country at that time.” Click for Richard Evans‘ awesome website smattered with badges.
3. BBQ
What yields greater joy than a big button on an album cover? Tie Your Noose is Mark Sultan’s second solo album on BOMP! Records, and the record design features a 1-inch button pinned to a leather jacket. There’s lots of Sultan buttons to be collected from his other Montreal groups like King Khan & BBQ, Les Sexareenos, and Mind Controls. The BBQ website even uses buttons as the menu bar!
2. Submarine Races
What do Jeffrey Lee Pierce from Gun Club and In the Red Records rocker Ian Adams from Submarine Races have in common? A single Hank Williams button.
Theresa K. took this great Pierce photo thirty years ago, and her shots of the LA punk scene include Stiv Bators, the Ramones, and Blondie in her Punk Turns 30 photo gallery. This Submarine Races cover came along decades later, and features Ian Adams also of The Ponys and Happy Supply wearing the same exact Hank button design. Check out the jumbo glow-in-the-dark 2.25-inch button from Adam’s new band, Maximum Wage on MySpace.
1. GG Allin
A mysterious element featured on the iconic GG Allin record cover “Always Was, Is, And Always Shall Be” is a Brian Jones 1.5-inch pin. Is it a mini-porthole into his soul, or a wearable crystal ball into his future? We may never know.
Honorable Mention The MC5
The insert for Kick Out Jams by the MC5 is a button hall of famer where the White Panthers wear their hearts in the form of badges on their bare chests. Buttons have been a “well-rounded” way to show dissent since the 1800s, to the 1960s, to present day (more here). Pin out the jams, brothers and sisters.
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