While we’re on the subject of good album covers, that of Traffic’s 1971 album, The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, continues to divide opinion on whether it’s a classic or not. I say it isn’t; everyone else says it is.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s quite poor, faintly reminiscent of The Who’s Tommy, and possibly designed as a portent to what lies within.

Nevertheless, Rolling Stone would list Tony Wright’s artwork as one of their “100 Greatest Album Covers”, but what do they know? Then again, what do I know? Very little, obviously. That’s why I’m sat here writing this barely coherent nonsense for free.

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album reviews, prog rock

The first thing that strikes you about Traffic’s Mr. Fantasy is the album cover. A red-hued photograph of the band avoiding a hard day’s graft in the rustic Berkshire cottage where the album came to fruition, whilst watching a peculiar harlequin/marrionette figure sat before the fireplace. Presumably the Mr. Fantasy of the title.

It’s a cover that mixes the cosiness of a countryside cottage offering protection from the elements, with a suggestion of the hallucinatory uneasiness associated with the darker aspects of late 60s drug culture.

But that’s just the cover, what about the ruddy recording?

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album reviews, psychedelic rock