The Best & Worst Album Covers

Marc HenshallCulture & Industry9 Comments

The large-format cover art of vinyl records is one of the key draws for many music fans. There’s nothing quite like the blank canvas of a 12inch record cover for making an artistic statement that compliments your music.

In the digital age, some would go as far to say we’ve lost the art of making great album covers – a situation not helped, of course, by the limited screen real estate on your typical smartphone. Despite this, I’d argue there are still plenty of artists releasing music with inspiring cover art, and with new vinyl sales continuing to rise year on year, many of these designs will have the chance to shine in their full glory.

From time to time, however, an album surfaces whose artwork would probably benefit more from succumbing to the missing artwork placement image on i-Tunes than it would from large format vinyl.

To celebrate the importance of strong artwork as part of the complete package that makes a great record, we’ve compiled a selection of the best and worst album covers known to man.

Starting with the worst… partly because I just fancied a chuckle. Whether it be the slow creep of time or simply bad choices, these album cover are just plain wrong:

Worst Album Covers

Oh Ken…. Still waiting for those requests.

John! What exactly happened at Julie’s Sixteenth?

Jumping to present day, here’s an odd one from that ever eccentric character, Kanye West. I don’t know much about the contents of this record musically, but from this album cover, I can’t quite work out if he’s being ironic, facetious, or just plain mental.

As if it wasn’t enough that the slow creep of time would inevitably date Gary’s flared jeans and questionable haircut, he had to pose like that and name his album β€œGetting Down to Business”.

If there’s a running theme throughout all the bad cover art, it’s that appearing on your album cover in the fashions of your era can really come back to haunt you. This example for The Faith Tones is case in point really.

Best Album Covers

The Smiths shied away from putting themselves on album covers, and instead opted to showcase Morrissey’s pop-culture influences.

The genius behind this approach is that it gave the band’s releases a uniform identity unlike anything else at the time, while simultaneously helping to prevent the covers from dating.

I’m particularly fond of β€œThe Queen is Dead” cover featuring French-Swiss actor, Alain Delon.

In my eyes, no list of great album covers would be complete with featuring Pink Floyd’s iconic Dark Side of The Moon album cover.

A cliche, perhaps, but its success speaks for itself; rarely does such a simple piece of imagery become so synonymous with a single band.

Walk through any shopping mall today, and there’s a strong chance you’ll encounter at least one person wearing this cover as a T-Shirt.

More interesting, is the age of said T-Shirt bearers, which varies from 6 to 60. (I plucked that figure out of thin air, but you catch my drift).

The sentiment behind avant guard music and Pop Art were intrinsically linked by their desire to break with convention. In this sense, the experimental performance style and challenging lyrical sentiments of The Velvet Underground are a match made in heaven for Andy Warhol’s eccentric brand of 1950’s and 60’s Pop Art. He’s also credited with producing the album.

Early first pressings actually featured a β€œPeel slowly and see” feature that revealed a flesh-colored banana underneath. These first pressings are now a much sought after collector’s piece.

Aside from being one of my favorite albums of all time, the cover art for Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is also a great example of how artists can make appearing on their covers work in a timeless way.

The cover features Stevie Nicks as her stage persona, while Mick Fleetwood poses in a classical getup with the infamous dangling balls.

Some say the album cover simply represents Mick Fleetwood’s leadership of the band through much turmoil during the making of Rumours, but whatever the meaning, I just love the beautiful simplicity and timeless quality of this iconic album cover.

It’s not just classic albums that feature inspiring cover art; there are plenty of new acts pushing creative boundaries with new techniques. Take Alt J’s An Awesome Wave, for example.

This cover art was made by layering multiple radar images of the Ganges river delta in Bangladesh.

The result exposes a multitude of colors formed by the variations in radiation occurring between each radar shot. Creative, modern, and more than befitting of Alt-J’s brand of Art School Rock.

It’s Very Subjective – Share Your Favorite Album Covers

The best (and worst) album covers is a very subjective topic. No doubt your top 5 would be different to mine. For me, the cover of a great album is equally as important as the music itself, and the large format of vinyl certainly helps bring it to the forefront. Often, great album covers become classic and completely inseparable from the music.

I’d love to see which album covers really made an impression on you (good and bad). Drop us a line in the comments with your favorites.

Author

  • Marc Henshall

    Marc is the owner of Sound Matters and a musician with a BSc Honours Degree in Music Technology. His love for records grew in the fallout from digital downloads and a feeling that, somehow, without the physical medium, the magic was lost.

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Geoff Burns

I’d still put Sabbath Bloody Sabbath up there – a lovely piece of art.

Niko Tuunanen

One of my all time favorites, in which the artist poses himself, is Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness On The Edge Of Town. http://www.springsteenlyrics.com/lyrics/1978_darkness/darknessontheedgeoftown_alb.jpg

So many bad covers out there that I don’t even know where to start.

David Lipka

Cover in this link, It speak for itself:
https://www.israbox.life/3137532602-omega-discography-1968-2012-mp3.html

Omega!
This is for the worst cover, just to be clear!
A bit of excess with hair dryers and fancy clothes but I have to say that musically it is very interesting!

Best cover for me is Santana, superb illusion artwork!

https://musicofourheart.me/2012/05/16/santana-album-art-and-artists/

Marc Henshall

Wow! Those are some interesting outfits and hair styles – probably best left in the 60’s πŸ˜‰

Good call on the Santana covers – timeless.

David Lipka

πŸ™‚ yes, seeing these tights pants make you understand the high pitched voices of this period of rock!
Is always a pleasure to grab this album and try to understand their motivation to dress like that. An album I bought in a brokery just because of the cover! Thank you OMEGA

Lady Audio

Some of my favorite covers are The Who – Who’s Next; Steely Dan – Aja; XTC – Drums and Wires; World Party – Private Revolution; King Crimson – In the Court of the Crimson King (this one kind of scares me though)

Two covers I don’t like are The Police – Zendata Mondatta and ELP – Tarkus (I hate that tank thing!)

Marc Henshall

Hey Lady Audio, nice to see you on the site. That King Crimson one is amazing if a little creepy as you say – I guess that’s surrealism for you! And yea, the Police one is pure cheese!

Jack Deckard

Best Ever, The Usual Suspects:
The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
The Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed
The Doors – People Are Strange
Alice Cooper – School’s Out

Marc Henshall

Thanks for sharing Jack. I debated Sgt Peppers myself. As you say, a usual suspect, but so iconic. I also like the sentiment of featuring many of their influences.