Picture this: a world where people didn't sell 7" record company sleeves for $3 each

Not for the first time (and almost certainly not for the last), I'm currently experiencing a few tedious "music storage problems". Sleeves-related (I won't bore you). But, in the course of rectifying the situation I did end up looking through some of my 7" singles. And once again I thought, "some of these in-house sleeves are pretty nice". Well, of course they are. That's why people put them on Pinterest and other places. It's mildly ironic that these designs - at their best - are far more attractive than the ugly stuff that bands/performers themselves (or their designer mates) came up with for their picture sleeves. But there you are - sometimes the in-house "corporate" people are good. (Or maybe sometimes, because they're hardly even trying, their casual, dashed-off stuff ends up looking stylishly "minimal" compared to the try-hard artwork produced by people who cared a bit too much). Anyway here are a few fairly nice sleeves from my 70s-era (mostly) disco/funk singles, a collection which is almost certainly the envy of all the dance DJs in the country.

An enviable collection

As people who follow my every move on social media (hordes of 'em) will already know, the Mercury sleeve in the bottom-left corner has only just been acquired. My sole purchase from the cheap box in a stupidly-expensive shop in Milan last week. It was one Euro for a truly terrible country record, but also for a fairly nice sleeve - so, deal!

The Bar-Kays do not agree with the selling of this sleeve for personal profit

By chance, I just clicked on the same orange-and-purple sleeve design on Pinterest and - would you bloody believe it - it clicks through to bloody Ebay and somebody bloody selling the same bloody sleeve (used) for bloody $3. Bloody hell! Sometimes, I hate the whole world of music and everybody in it. Bye!