Introducing Word Magazine's Album Atlas

Album AtlasWe have a new toy for you.

Using the technology provided by the clever people at Google Maps, the Word Album Atlas is an ever-growing visual guide to the geographical location of iconic album sleeves.

We've started the ball rolling with 50 sleeves, but the best bit is that you can use basic web skills to add more covers yourself - no coding necessary. It is literally fantastic.

Huge thanks to Ian Reeves, who built the Album Atlas.

nice idea

put one up
they may need to turn the satelite round for this one

and isn't this in west london being from south river don't venture into welsh climes like this....

and waht are we going to do about the emi building for the red and blue lps

Chris G | 26 June 2008 - 12:46pm

tried to post

elton john Single man on royal mile in windsor great park and it was there and then not
and then DH: nicked my Eric clapton post!

Chris G | 26 June 2008 - 2:31pm

Description!

You didn't provide a description for either like we ask - sorry! You should have something interesting to say about the album sleeve or the location.

Fraser Lewry | 26 June 2008 - 2:47pm

fair enough

fair enough he still nicked though

Chris G | 26 June 2008 - 2:49pm

Great fun

Though before long (and it's already started) there's going to be a massive concentration of dots in London and New York...

Metal Mickey | 26 June 2008 - 2:45pm

There's a big world out there

Who can plant their flag in China or the former Soviet Union?

David Hepworth | 26 June 2008 - 2:49pm

Hey...I managed Canvey Island....

That's about as east as you're going to get!

Nodge1970 | 26 June 2008 - 4:10pm

Re: There's a big world out there

I'm at Heathrow Airport and, looking at the departure board, can confirm Mr Hepworth's assertion.
South America's also looking rather lonely on the map. Surely there must be landmarks there that have provided backdrops for some of rock's more flamboyant characters? Macchu Picchu? Angel Falls? Those funny lines in Peru you can only see from the sky?

Closer to home, someone out there must know where the bus stop is on the cover of The Streets' A Grand Don't Come For Free. Can you put me out of my misery?

IanR | 27 June 2008 - 11:37am

I'm still

cross at you, Hepworth, because you got first dibs on Sweden! Still, I can console myself with you describing Skansen as being a 'replica' 19th century village... I've had to go with the second choice of The Arrival instead...

Jason Carter | 27 June 2008 - 2:29pm

Tech klutz alert!

I hit "Save and add" too soon before linking to the album artwork. Can I get in to edit it, or could someone do it for me? (It's Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here.)

Archie Valparaiso | 27 June 2008 - 11:24am

Fix

ed

Fraser Lewry | 27 June 2008 - 11:31am

T

a :)

Archie Valparaiso | 27 June 2008 - 11:48am

How come

we are invited to "add your favourites", only to find them excised from the list a little while after we've added them?

Vulpes Vulpes | 27 June 2008 - 12:55pm

We remove albums

When the uploading guidelines have been ignored - where the location given isn't exact ("near Saigon" etc), or where the 'Details' box is used to offer a personal opinion on the record rather than providing some factual background. Follow the guidelines on the "add" page written in red type, and nothing should get deleted.

Fraser Lewry | 27 June 2008 - 1:04pm

Stamps feet.

Porcupine must go!

Vulpes Vulpes | 27 June 2008 - 1:15pm

Can you make the artist's name field a little longer, Fraser?

Poor old Donald Ross Skinner has been truncated.

Vulpes Vulpes | 27 June 2008 - 1:17pm

It's a bug.

I've reported it, thanks. Just noticed: your standing stones appear to be in the sea.

Fraser Lewry | 27 June 2008 - 3:33pm

That would be the famous...

...Drowning Stone.

David Hepworth | 27 June 2008 - 3:39pm

Yes,

I didn't have my glasses on when I dragged that one into place, and I didn't spot the little cross-hair below the blob. Ooops.

Vulpes Vulpes | 27 June 2008 - 4:47pm

Spoil sports

You removed my flag in Papua New Guinea for the cover of Y by The Pop Group. I'll bet you a case of beer no-one can come up with another album cover shot in Papua New Guinea that they can locate exactly.

Vulpes Vulpes | 27 June 2008 - 4:53pm

English Settlement

I put this XTC album up on Uffington, Oxfordshire because of the White Horse. Vulpes put it up later. We've both had it excised. Why? It may be an artistic representation of the horse rather than a photo, but it is accurate and has to be a more valid entry than Live at Leeds, (otherwise every live album in history has to be flagged).

CarlP | 27 June 2008 - 9:36pm

Horsey

Yours was removed because the spot you pinpointed wasn't correct - you could see from the satellite version of the map. Vulpes' version is exact, and remains in place - it hasn't been excised.

Fraser Lewry | 28 June 2008 - 9:37am

There was some glitch

Definitely wasn't there when I looked.

Maybe it went for a run at Epsom.

CarlP | 1 July 2008 - 12:13pm

I shot it

and we had it with a nice chianti and some fava beans.
fff fff ffff

Vulpes Vulpes | 2 July 2008 - 8:06pm

Why, you cad!

I shall be reporting you to the RSPCA. Expect a knock on your door.

CarlP | 3 July 2008 - 1:10pm

Let's just celebrate our successes, shall we?

Just look up Daryl Hall and John Oates's "Abanndoned Luncheonette"!

David Hepworth | 28 June 2008 - 10:45am

Great Toy and

it must be good as passions seem to be riding high.

Bruised Mike | 28 June 2008 - 11:02am

Fairports

Jewel in the Crown has a photo of the curry house of the same name on Moseley High Street,Birmingham.

Steve Turner | 28 June 2008 - 12:44pm

Rockin' Around Britain

I was just thinking the other day someone should turn Pete Frame's book into a Google map.

I even started but didn't get very far!

http://dadsstyle.googlepages.com/wordrocknrollmap

PaulHThompson | 28 June 2008 - 6:01pm

Fantastic tool

Wish I had something to add the map. Instead I shall offer my hearty congratulations to all concerned.

biscuitbiscuit | 28 June 2008 - 8:37pm

Oh dear

Which rule did I unwittingly break with my Jimmy Webb El Mirage entry? Please not another yellow card!

Bruised Mike | 28 June 2008 - 8:53pm

My fault

On that one, I think - a combination of clumsy fingers and the 'update' and 'delete' buttons being in close proximity. Apologies.

Fraser Lewry | 30 June 2008 - 12:20pm

May I

re-submit then?

Bruised Mike | 30 June 2008 - 5:18pm

Yes

Please

Fraser Lewry | 30 June 2008 - 5:24pm

Time (The Revelator)

Bit of shameless boasting to add to my entry about Gillian Welch's Time (The Revelator)...

The tour guide showing my little group around RCA Studio B in Nashville back in 2004 was so impressed that I recognised the seat covers from this album that she let me have a go on the battered old studio piano.

That's the one Floyd Kramer played... the one Elvis used to bash away at during vocal warm-ups with the Jordanaires... the one you hear on nearly Everly Brothers hit.

So it's really a terrible pity that I can't actually play the piano. I did manage one rich and sonorous C-chord. And I can still hear it now...

BrianH | 29 June 2008 - 11:24pm

Blues from Laurel Canyon

Why the red card for this one. Does that bounder Vulpes want to steal my credit again?

CarlP | 3 July 2008 - 1:15pm

Precision

Sorry for the early bath, but we want exact spots, I'm afraid. The location you listed, Laurel Canyon, is a neighborhood... and quite a large one at that. If you could be as precise as (for example) 10657 Mulholland Drive, and pinpoint that, brilliant. If not, it'll probably get deleted.

We'll also delete when a location is added based on the title of a record... unless the cover photograph contains some geographical feature that places it in the same location, or you can cite evidence that confirms the same. It's all about the cover photo, nothing else!

Fraser Lewry | 3 July 2008 - 2:21pm

Right place, wrong time

Whoops, in my haste I made a mistake in my "details" of the Cher album. Of course Aretha didn't record at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios at 3614 Jackson Hwy, Sheffield, Alabama. She recorded at nearby Fame, two years earlier, then the fight broke out between her then-husband and a trumpet player, and she never returned. She recorded with the Muscle Shoals guys many times, but always in New York from then on.
Duh. Soul 101. But Wilson Pickett's 'Hey Jude' ...

chrisbk | 4 July 2008 - 5:24am