Album covers/art: Faves and neighs

[PanicProne]

Had this discussion with few friends a while back and came to no conclusion other than the fact that a lot of album covers are pretty "meh". What are some of your faves? Why? Which ones do you consider overrated? What actually makes a good and/or bad cover? Discuss! Stop not posting!

[Phosphene Audio]

great topic, I will weigh in at some point.


I have a metric ton of old modern classical records with insanely good covers, imo.

[coupleonapkins]

P. sure this is all I think about at the moment, but the LP resurgence has made this blindingly obvious as it's a superior format for staring at for hours, even though most label's art departments are like 5% capacity vs. the good ole thymmes at the height of it all (I would say it cusped around the 80's, around when the vinyl pressings started to get stingy, and all the standard studio LPs were pressed as thin as K-Tel comps from the 70's).

Also, I believe the covers vs. the quality of the content are more moot than ever b4, only cause nobody's listening past a few minutes in the first place! But really, seeing glossy rekkids at Target is kinda weird, but I'll be damned if I pay 35 schmigadoons fer dat Charlix XCX slab - she's a CD artist by design, obviously! That juan dose look quite good on LP, though. If, for some reason, it was ever released in mono, I'd pay $50, howebber

[dubkitty]

before i ever heard the albums i was in love with the art on the San Francisco psychedelic bands' albums, particularly the lettering of Rick Griffin which appears on the Dead's Aoxomoxoa and Quicksilver's first album among many other places.

[coupleonapkins]

I dunno what makes a cover overrated, except for the ubiquity of something in your field of vision constantly. And I dunno if we're really past that point or not, but maybe I am? Are those old Dwarves records suddenly popular again or something?

Dark Side Of The Moon is everywhere you'd think it should be, but it's also a great cover that has a singular identity at this point. The Division Bell? Not sew musch.

But so much of rock music is bourne of these types of cliches because of the quality of the music first, I believe, but I still can't tell you which Doors LP covers are which at this point.

Classical has always fared better, punk/hardcore/speedfreq moreso, and folk perhaps the template for simple, clean & direct ideas that reflect the contents therein. This is why Metal Machine Music works perfectly: it's all three at once!