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The Art of the LP/CD Cover Designer
5 years ago
General
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ALBUM COVERS by Jason Draper (2008 edition)
173 album covers, reproduced in a handy 6.5" x 6.5" format -- better than a 5" x 5" CD booklet, and doing what justice it can to a 12" x 12" LP sleeve. Author Jason Draper sees album covers (the better-designed ones, anyway) as "cultural statements, on which fantasies were projected and unorthodox cigarettes were rolled." In other words, he's searching some of the ultimate objects of consumer capitalism for moments of imagination and transcendence. Sounds good to me.
Weirdly, Draper declines to identify many of the photographers, designers, and artists who created the covers, giving us only his one-paragraph interpretations of the images, along with a list of songwriters for that album. Although there were plenty of talented graphic designers in the era of the 10" disc (Axel Steinweiss, Jim Flora, and Robert Jones come to mind), Draper's survey begins well into the LP era, with a selection of 'fifties jazz (the biggest-selling format for rock 'n roll was the 45 rpm single, not the album). The 'sixties, for Draper, don't begin until 1965, with Bob Dylan's baroquely symbolic cover for BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME. From there on, it's the usual suspects, with a few surprises (Scott Walker, Soft Machine, It's a Beautiful Day, Plastic Ono Band).
Rather than concentrate on the elaborate airbrush paintings that seemed to define 'seventies album covers, Draper casts a wider net and drags in absolutely everything: Pink Floyd's cow portrait, Sly Stone's "improved" American flag, Bob Marley & the Wailer's "Zippo" cover, Neon Park's cartoon paintings, Kraftwerk's Constructivist group portrait, Supertramp's NYC-as-a-breakfast-table skyline, a drunken Carly Simon on her knees in lingerie and knee-length boots. The 'eighties, the decade of new romanticism, synthpop, metal, dance music, and political protest rock, seems to have fallen back on more conservative imagery, aside from Prince's thong, the Dead Kennedys' burning police cars, Bow Wow Wow's nude, 15-year-old girl, and H.R. Giger's mutilated Debbie Harry.
The 'nineties: a decade of self-loathing slackers, hip hop thugs, and NPR listeners wondering what to make of it all. By this time, there were no consensus heroes in rock or pop, and the visual aesthetic on display here is a cool, distancing irony, occasionally leavened with deadpan humor: Ol' Dirty Bastard's welfare card, a porn star on the cover of Blink-182's ENEMA OF THE STATE, the unidentifiable thing captured in mid-leap on Beck's ODELAY.
Frankly, I don't know what to make of the album covers from 2000-2006, but some older and really distinctive covers are conspicuous by their absence: THE GILDED PALACE OF SIN (A&M, 1969); UNHALFBRICKING (Island, 1969); PINK MOON (Island, 1972); the original version of APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION (Geffen, 1987); DANGEROUS (Epic, 1991); CONGREGATION (Sub Pop, 1992); GENTLEMEN (Elektra/Blast First, 1993); LIVE THROUGH THIS (DGC, 1994). Your list will differ from mine.
173 album covers, reproduced in a handy 6.5" x 6.5" format -- better than a 5" x 5" CD booklet, and doing what justice it can to a 12" x 12" LP sleeve. Author Jason Draper sees album covers (the better-designed ones, anyway) as "cultural statements, on which fantasies were projected and unorthodox cigarettes were rolled." In other words, he's searching some of the ultimate objects of consumer capitalism for moments of imagination and transcendence. Sounds good to me.
Weirdly, Draper declines to identify many of the photographers, designers, and artists who created the covers, giving us only his one-paragraph interpretations of the images, along with a list of songwriters for that album. Although there were plenty of talented graphic designers in the era of the 10" disc (Axel Steinweiss, Jim Flora, and Robert Jones come to mind), Draper's survey begins well into the LP era, with a selection of 'fifties jazz (the biggest-selling format for rock 'n roll was the 45 rpm single, not the album). The 'sixties, for Draper, don't begin until 1965, with Bob Dylan's baroquely symbolic cover for BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME. From there on, it's the usual suspects, with a few surprises (Scott Walker, Soft Machine, It's a Beautiful Day, Plastic Ono Band).
Rather than concentrate on the elaborate airbrush paintings that seemed to define 'seventies album covers, Draper casts a wider net and drags in absolutely everything: Pink Floyd's cow portrait, Sly Stone's "improved" American flag, Bob Marley & the Wailer's "Zippo" cover, Neon Park's cartoon paintings, Kraftwerk's Constructivist group portrait, Supertramp's NYC-as-a-breakfast-table skyline, a drunken Carly Simon on her knees in lingerie and knee-length boots. The 'eighties, the decade of new romanticism, synthpop, metal, dance music, and political protest rock, seems to have fallen back on more conservative imagery, aside from Prince's thong, the Dead Kennedys' burning police cars, Bow Wow Wow's nude, 15-year-old girl, and H.R. Giger's mutilated Debbie Harry.
The 'nineties: a decade of self-loathing slackers, hip hop thugs, and NPR listeners wondering what to make of it all. By this time, there were no consensus heroes in rock or pop, and the visual aesthetic on display here is a cool, distancing irony, occasionally leavened with deadpan humor: Ol' Dirty Bastard's welfare card, a porn star on the cover of Blink-182's ENEMA OF THE STATE, the unidentifiable thing captured in mid-leap on Beck's ODELAY.
Frankly, I don't know what to make of the album covers from 2000-2006, but some older and really distinctive covers are conspicuous by their absence: THE GILDED PALACE OF SIN (A&M, 1969); UNHALFBRICKING (Island, 1969); PINK MOON (Island, 1972); the original version of APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION (Geffen, 1987); DANGEROUS (Epic, 1991); CONGREGATION (Sub Pop, 1992); GENTLEMEN (Elektra/Blast First, 1993); LIVE THROUGH THIS (DGC, 1994). Your list will differ from mine.
Susi
~susi
I'd be super surprised if there weren't at least one Yes album cover by Roger Dean in there!
Lupine Assassin
~allan
If that book doesn't include https://www.discogs.com/Bill-Evans-...../master/178730 something is definitely wrong.
chrismukkah
~chrismukkah
The late Phil Hartman was also a graphic designer, before he became a comedian - from Ive heard, he did a few album covers himself (which Ive been on the hunt for since forever)
GabrielLaVedier
~gabriellavedier
This might feel... incestuous or self-seeding, and possibly slavish or crass, but I must promote the cover of The Dirtbombs' album "Horndog Fest" for being drawn by fandom stalwart and old timer Joe Rosales. See, I came up in the middle-days and that, to my mind, was mainstream success. So I have the album, literally right by me in arm's reach. Talk about great cover design.
davewhite
~davewhite
A record shop in Santa Cruz had a display of a dozen spin-off covers from the Tijuana Brass' "Whipped Cream and Other Delights." It was like a visual Dr. Demento show.
