Music fans will be all in a spin at an exhibition featuring the best of vinyl album artwork as Lincolnshire helps mark the coming-of-age for an annual record cover of the year award.
Now open at Lincoln’s The Collection Museum – and running until 22 January 2023 – Best Art Vinyl: Album Artwork Through the Ages is a celebration of record artwork from 1949 to 2021.
Showcasing the creativity and ingenuity behind vinyl album cover designs, the exhibition also promotes the 18th Best Art Vinyl Award, an annual search for the most creative and well-designed cover of the year.
A diverse shortlist of the 50 best designs are compiled by a panel of industry experts for the Award, and anyone can vote for their favourite online or in person at the exhibition from 8 November, with the final winners revealed on 5 January 2023.
The exhibition itself reveals some of the best winners of the past, spanning seven decades of popular art, music and design, marking the cultural impact of the album format.
On display are sleeves that contributed to the last 17 winners of the Award, including Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures, the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks and The Beatles’ The White Album.
Visitors will also be able to record their most treasured music memory via a Museum of Music Memories in the Courtyard Gallery, as well as listen to their favourite tracks from previous decades, thanks to a juke box installation.
Lincolnshire’s sometimes surprising musical past will also feature, including newspaper articles about its very own version of Woodstock that was staged in a rural Lincolnshire village in May 1972.
The tiny village of Tupholme, near Bardney, became the unlikely venue for The Great Western Express Festival when 50,000 people watched some of the biggest names in music, including Rod Stewart, the Beach Boys, Joe Cocker, Roxy Music and Genesis.
Best Art Vinyl: Album Artwork Through the Ages is a touring exhibition in collaboration with The Civic, Barnsley; and Art Vinyl. Tickets cost £5 per person, or £3.50 for concessions.
For more information about the exhibition, and to book, visit https://bit.ly/3zbaRi9
For details about visiting, and staying in, Lincolnshire, see www.visitlincolnshire.com