If Famous Albums Were Best-Selling Books, They'd Look Like This
Purple Rain is a dystopian sci-fi novel. Blood on the Tracks is a lurid pulp paperback. And Are You Experienced? is a self-help book from "a charismatic Harvard whizkid."
These are visions from an alternate universe where classic albums exist only as cheesy best-selling novels (also, it's a hilarious website called the Record Books). And the images from this familiar but twisted reality are as terrifying as they are strangely believable.
Take the backstory for Purple Rain, written by P. Rogers Nelson: "When a form of acid rain, caused by a comet ploughing into Uranus, appears to stunt the growth of every living thing on Earth, mankind’s very existence is on a knife edge. When a group of pygmies realize that the peach is the only plant unaffected, they found a new society, with the peach stone as its currency."
Firstly, let's acknowledge that a book with this plot is probably sitting in a dusty second-hand bookstore right now. Secondly, I can somehow imagine the real Prince actually reading this.
We've posted some of the funniest "albums as best-selling books" below, but you should definitely checkout the full library from Christophe Gowans' the Record Books. And be advised that you can buy prints of these at the Rockpot, which you probably should. Hey, they're a more memorable gift than a Starbucks card.
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