Probably one of the most iconic rock album covers of the 1990s was Diary by Sunny Day Real Estate. The record, which was released on Sub Pop in 1994, came at a time when the exorbitant cash-grab of grunge music started to lose its momentum and feel stale. Newer, more challenging approaches to rock songwriting of the Pacific Northwest, such as indie, emo, and Riot grrrl, offered an earnest alternative to the commercially “alternative” music that popularized the region. Sunny Day Real Estate, who came up in the Emerald City during a time when Nirvana reigned supreme, wrote music that was pioneering and distinctive to the “second wave” of emocore and post-hardcore. Their debut record, Diary, is considered one of the most significant and celebrated genre-releases to date.
 

 
The cover and insert artwork for Diary was created by Washington painter, illustrator, and tattooer, Chris Thompson. Mixing cynicism with subtle irony, Thompson’s artistic contributions portray the everyday woes of human life, while amusingly depicted by smiling Fisher-Price “Little People” toys. Thompson lived with the Sunny Day guys while studying art at Cornish College of Arts and the “Little People” paintings were originally created for his senior thesis. Years later, Thompson collaborated with the band once more for yet another classic album cover, Sunny Day Real Estate’s 1998 comeback record How it Feels to Be Something On.
 

Sunny Day Real Estate - ‘How it Feels to Be Something On’
 
Chris Thompson describes his paintings as surrealist and inspired by one-liner jokes. There is no central meaning to much of his work, but rather he begins with a concept that he finds to be funny or odd. For the last twenty years, Thompson has been a tattoo artist around the Puget Sound region. He currently works out of 522 Tattoo in Lake Forest Park, Washington. He has continued to paint since those early days in Seattle and will occasionally show his work publicly.
 
Take a look at Chris Thompson’s surrealist artwork below.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunny Day Real Estate perform ‘Seven’ on ‘The Jon Stewart Show,’ 1994

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Trip out to the wild work of ‘Karaska’ the psychedelic surrealist from Kiev