Because of the new iPod, I’ve been searching out album art to tag my MP3’s with. While trying to find the cover for an old Mediaeval Baebes CD, I came across this, the cover to the Washington Symphonic Brass album Carmina Burana & Other Delights:
Why is this monk covered in whipped cream, you ask? For that, we have Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass to thank. The cover to their 1965 album Whipped Cream and Other Delights, features the model Dolores Erickson wearing a dress made out of the stuff:
Alpert’s whipped-cream-coated cover is a fixture of “Sexiest Album Cover Ever” articles,* an image so iconic that it has spawned a host of parodies just as unfortunate as the Burina monk. Here are just a few:
From left to right, that’s Pat Cooper’s Spaghetti Sauce and Other Delights, Soul Asylum’s Clam Dip and Other Delights, and the Frivolous Five’s Sour Cream and Other Delights. Viewed in light of these, it’s clear that the Washington Symphonic Brass messed up. If you’re going to name your album Carmina Burana and Other Delights, the monk on the cover should be slathered in Carmina Burana, not whipped cream. Poor form, Mr. Symphony Brass. Poor form.**
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*Such as this one, this one, and this one.
**To be a purist about it, the monk should probably be naked, too, but you’re never going to hear me calling for more monastic nudity.