With The Beatles

When I first started this Off The Record Project, I knew one of the albums I needed to include was the iconic cover of the Beatles first US album, “Meet The Beatles”. It is a very distinctive look that most rock and roll fans recognize instantly. I thought it would be fun to recreate the cover using photographer friends who were big Beatles fans.

The Original Album

The setup was pretty easy, just a simple split-light portrait in a very low-key setting. I didn’t even have to have them all here at once- which was nice, since these guys all have crazy schedules.

From there it was just a matter of working out the layout and the album graphics. I think the simplicity of the cover is what made it such a cool album to recreate.

The Remake

When I say these guys are big Beatles fans, I mean they are REALLY big Beatles fans. In fact, one of them actually brought a copy of the original LP album with them as a reference. I was shocked to see that the image had a slight blue tint to it. From the many images I had seen online, I assumed that the blue tint was just coming from an aged album or a bad scan- but apparently that’s how it really looked. Therefore, I had to make sure and give them a slight hint of blue tint.

The problem with recreating the old album covers is finding a happy medium between the old low-def image and modern digital imaging. I kind of split the difference on this one, keeping a good deal of the photographic detail, but still giving it a bit of a roughed up, aged look. I also made a slight modification to the tagline under the title to clarify who these guys were.

I was very pleased with the final image. It really did seem to capture the timeless look and feel of the original.

Who Is Next?

So who wants to be next? We’ve got several cool album concepts coming up over the next few months, but there is always room for more. Chose your favorite album cover of all time and let me know where you want to go with it!