Hipsters, I mean.

No, Columbia wasn’t the hippest label in the 1950s, but the cover of their Columbia House Party LP did nothing to hurt them.  Covered with hipsters hanging around with portable pets, drinking martinis, smoking who knows what and carrying on, it eerily echoes the kinds of things that I see contemporary hipsters doing still.  The music on this one not so cool (snorelights include Norman Luboff, Liberace, Guy Mitchell, Rosemary Clooney, Mitch Miller), but the record is so beautifully well packaged I can’t not blog it.  Check out this amazing cover by Naiad Einsel (click the image for a fuller view)

The back cover is great too, detailing what would appear to be the full line of Columbia phonographs and tape recorders:

I think I’m going to hit up eBay for a set of “his and hers” model 412s.  My wife, I’m sure, will be speechless, but it’ll all be worth it if she and I someday end up on a record cover just like this one, shown listening to records on our matching 412s.

DTN FUDD