Go 2 - Album Cover

Album Cover

The album's cover was designed and executed by Hipgnosis. It consists of an essay about how album covers are used to attract buyers of the album. The essay reads:

"This is a COVER. This writing is the DESIGN upon the cover. The DESIGN is to help SELL the . We hope to draw your attention to it and encourage you to pick it up. When you have done that maybe you'll be persuaded to listen to the music - in this case XTC's Go 2 album. Then we want you to BUY it. The idea being that the more of you that buy this the more money, the manager Ian Reid and XTC themselves will make. To the aforementioned this is known as PLEASURE. A good cover DESIGN is one that attracts more buyers and gives more pleasure. This writing is trying to pull you in much like an eye-catching picture. It is designed to get you to READ IT. This is called luring the VICTIM, and you are the VICTIM. But if you have a free mind you should STOP READING NOW! because all we are attempting to do is to get you to read on. Yet this is a DOUBLE BIND because if you indeed stop you'll be doing what we tell you, and if you read on you'll be doing what we've wanted all along. And the more you read on the more you're falling for this simple device of telling you exactly how a good commercial design works. They're TRICKS and this is the worst TRICK of all since it's describing the TRICK whilst trying to TRICK you, and if you've read this far then you're TRICKED but you wouldn't have known this unless you'd read this far. At least we're telling you directly instead of seducing you with a beautiful or haunting visual that may never tell you. We're letting you know that you ought to buy this because in essence it's a PRODUCT and PRODUCTS are to be consumed and you are a consumer and this is a good PRODUCT. We could have written the band's name in special lettering so that it stood out and you'd see it before you'd read any of this writing and possibly have bought it anyway. What we are really suggesting is that you are FOOLISH to buy or not buy an album merely as a consequence of the design on its cover. This is a con because if you agree then you'll probably like this writing - which is the cover design - and hence the album inside. But we've just warned you against that. The con is a con. A good cover design could be considered as one that gets you to buy the, but that never actually happens to YOU because YOU know it's just a design for the cover. And this is the COVER."

On the actual cover artwork the labeling of the album's formats, and the record company, are used in place of the words "" and "" in the display of the essay. The essay on the LP started and ended with the words "This is a RECORD COVER", the essay on the cassette started and ended with the words "This is a CASSETTE COVER" and the essay on the CD started and ended with the words "This is a COMPACT DISC COVER".

On the first British pressings of the LP version of the Go 2 album the track listing on the vinyl disc label mimicked the type style of the cover art. The label is crammed full of text beginning with "This is a RECORD LABEL".

Initial pressings of the album came with a bonus disc of dub remixes entitled Go+.

The subtitle "Andy Paints Brian" for the song "Battery Brides" is a reference to Brian Eno, the band's original choice as producer for the album. Eno politely turned the band down, saying they didn't need him, as they had enough good ideas of their own.