Album Art
The first time I saw this t-shirt it was being worn by one of the cool guys in school. I didn’t know anything about Sonic Youth but I did really want the shirt. Unfortunately there was an unwritten rule that if someone from school wore a band shirt first, that was it – it just [...]
The gun featured on the cover for Foo Fighters self titled debut is the “XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol,” which was released in 1935 as a tie-in toy for the Buck Rogers comic strip and radio show. The photo was taken by Grohl’s then wife, talented photographer Jennifer Youngblood, who is responsible for some iconic images of [...]
When Johnny Cash signed with Rick Rubin’s American Recordings label in 1992, it would mark the beginning of one of the most celebrated artistic resurrections in popular music. The resulting album, released in 1994, consists of spare, dark cover versions taken from a wildly eclectic American songbook. When I look at the cover, the first [...]
Holy god. The first thing that I thought when I saw this cover was: “what a fearsome thoroughbred.” Photographer Jean Paul Goude took this photo in 1978 for a New York Magazine profile of model Grace Jones. The article (and the accompanying photographs) would help to transform her into a pop singer and gay icon. [...]
When it comes to being creative, most of us settle for a signature talent – say, drawing or juggling or composing dirty limericks. But Sam Beam (aka Iron and Wine) is one of those vexing all-rounders. Not only did he record The Shephard’s Dog, which has introduced his music to a wider audience and received [...]
For Bob Evans’ (aka Kevin Mitchell) third album, he took a decidedly different approach to the artwork. Goodnight, Bull Creek! alludes to his native suburb outside of Perth and his departure for new terrain. The artwork is a departure as well from his first two albums: Suburban Kid and Suburban Songbook.
This striking piece of action photography heralds the third studio release from New York based post-punk act Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The new album It’s Blitz is a departure from their previous work, with more polish and dark hints of disco. Lead singer Karen O’s distinctive vocals are still the band’s signature and this cover art [...]
How do you take an album cover and distill it down to a single simple image. As Heath from Illumination Ink explains “It’s basically a set of modernist re-workings of classic album covers, where the album title has been distilled into a simple little black and white pictogram which acts as the artwork. So far [...]
If ever there was doubt about what was the inspiration behind the latest cover for “Yes” from the Pet Shop boys I think this quote covers it all. “When we had our first meeting about this album, Neil and Chris said that this was their most ‘pop’ album in a long time and the idea [...]
MTV UK are running a promotion to find the MTV’s Greatest Album Ever and have asked us to post the covers here for the promotion. Mind you this is based on the actual music content not the cover art as there are some sorry examples for covers in here. It’s interesting the top albums picked [...]
