Rolling Stones, “Some Girls”
The Rolling Stones, Some Girls (1978)
The Rolling Stones
Designer: Peter Corriston
Illustrator: Hubert Kretzschmar
Some Girls marked The Rolling Stones’ fourteenth studio album (sixteenth in America) and became one of their most critically and commercially successful albums. It spawned several successful singles, including “Miss You” and “Beast of Burdon” and became the band’s only album to be nominated for an Album of the Year award at the Grammys. The band’s artwork is notable for it’s bright colors, die-cut design, and its famous lawsuit.
The album art was designed by Peter Corriston, who would become the band’s go-to designer for their next few album covers, and illustrated by Hubert Kretzschmar. It features a series of faces that are die-cut, with images on both sides of the album sleeve that line up with the cut out faces on the cover. The faces are those of the Rolling Stones along with the faces of famous female celebrities, such as Lucille Ball, Farrah Fawcett, Raquel Welch, Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. The faces were inserted into an old ad for Valmor Products. Another version of the release was made without the die-cut peepholes, while another was made using hand drawn sketches instead of images of the band and celebrities.
Not particularly flattered with their photographs in the artwork, Ball, Fawcet, Welch, the estate of Marilyn Monroe and Liza Minnelli (on behalf of her mother, Judy Garland), sued the Stones for using their likeness without permission. Additionally, Valmor Products took legal action for use of their ad, and were given a monetary award. The other lawsuit, however, caused the label to scramble. The artwork was redesigned and reissued with the images removed, in place of colored blocks and text that says “Pardon our appearance — cover under re-construction.”
The album cover features different colored appearances depending on market. There are 15 known variants of the cover and innersleeve design. There are bright colored versions, that use green, yellow, blue and purple boxes in various order and dull colored versions, that use muted tones of those colors. Some variations also change the color of the album title from red to blue.
