RECORDS are obviously the premier cru solution for the storage of recorded sound but I will admit they are not without their flaws, writes JOSEPH THEOBALD, AKA DJ Captain Wormhole.

They weigh a ton, they’re expensive, they’re addictive, they take up lots of room, they get scratched, you can’t play them in your car, you can’t play them on the bus, you can’t play them when you walk somewhere, and they melt in the sun.

Aside from that they’re undeniably dope and not just for listening to — they come in pretty packaging too.

“What’s wrong with being sexy?” asked Nigel Tufnel. Nothing, except it might get your output proscribed by fascists and Whitehall clean-shirts.

That’s what happened to Hendrix and his 19 naked models on the sleeve of Electric Ladyland. Hendrix didn’t like the cover anyway – it was conceived as a feminist retort to 60s Playboy chauvinism... but Jimi thought the photo was just a bit too dark.

Political subversion has often been a theme in record cover art. Meat Is Murder by The Smiths is an obvious example.

Many designers and musicians had their ideas tempered by commercially minded label execs, but the boys up at Factory Records had no such issue with Tony Wilson.

The label head supposedly came up with the idea, inspired by the French Situationist Guy Debord, to wrap The Return Of The Durutti Column in sandpaper so it scratched up all your other records when you took it out of the crate.

I forget the artist but there was also a Factory release in a triangular sleeve so it would always poke out, and the label famously lost loads of money on the first releases of New Order’s Blue Monday, the biggest selling 12-inch single of all time, due to the floppy disk inspired cut-outs on the sleeve costing too much to produce.

Factory is also responsible for my own personal favourite, Joy Division’s Closer. The stark gothic image is bleak and grandiose, just like the record, which is dope.

Next week: Record Digging in West Africa (on Youtube).