The Thread for Great... Album Covers

Here are a few of my favorites.

Edit:

Hugh Syme versus Storm Thorgerson FIGHT!

I love this cover for how utterly awful it is:



True facts: one of those blokes is Darren Arronofsky's go-to soundtrack composer and wrote 'Lux Aeterna'. One of the songs has lyrics that are entirely comprised of quotes from Watchmen and another is a complex exploration of what would happen if James Brown, Godfather of Soul, were to go on a murderous rampage around Atlanta.

Clint Mansell is awesome. That is all.

I say this with all the love in the world for Storm...

Neither: Lindsey Kuhn.

I'm not sure what the Watchmen song is, but the James Brown song (aka "Not Now James, We're Busy") is actually on this album.



Which also has a WAY better cover.

'Def Con One' is the Watchmen song. Which, er, is also on 'This is the Day...'. Bit of a brain fart there!

'This is the day...' is a better cover from an aesthetic point of view, but as I said, I love that the '...Lifestyle' cover is so terrible. I mean, several people - The Designers Republic, the record company, and the band themselves - looked at that design and thought 'yep!'

This was the first one that came to mind.

LIKE.

I love the designs from the jazz albums of the 50s-60s, off labels like Blue Note, Prestige, New Jazz, and Columbia.

I like those. I was at JRM in Chicago last winter and they still have Bitches Brew in the window. It's totally early 70s derivative, but I think it also shows how ambitious Miles' reach was.

Speaking of jazz

not jazz

also love

To be fair, that Boris cover is a homage to Nick Drake:

I know. That's why I like it.

also

Fair enough. From the Less Is More file:

Ooo, nice. But let us not forget

Yeah, definitely. The Live Evil album also features the same artist - Mati Klarwein - and has some similar imagery and that same evocative style.



Klarwein's artwork may be familiar from Santana's epic album Abraxas.

Reminds me of:

Good eye! It's the same artist, Neil Fujita. Incidentally, he also did some well-known book covers, including the iconic 'puppeteer' cover to Mario Puzo's The Godfather.

Nice idea for a thread!

Knowing album covers are one of those perfect examples of things that will make us feel super old one day soon. I'll take a couple of easy ones.

Both excellent covers of excellent albums. I don't recall offhand, was Dark Side a Hipgnosis design?

Speaking of which, I know you guys hate Phish but Storm Thorgerson did a cool cover for their Slip, Stich & Pass live EP. (The title is a knitting term, which may explain the imagery.)

In addition to making great albums, Sloan have a knack for killer album covers:

I love the "never Hear the End of It" title, because there are like 40 songs on that album.

Classic Danish band

(unfortunately today we got the news that Andys Bar pictured is closing down)


Same band Tintin style:


Python did some great ones:


I know he was already mentioned, but in case there's even on person who haven't seen this (NSFW, som might say):

And I always liked my Depeche Mode covers:


And you gotta love a clean design:


Iconic:


And we could probably do a whole thread just with metal covers, so I'm not including any.

The Aphex Twin cover is, alternately, repulsive and hilarious. That seemed to merit its inclusion.

As for the others:

Beyond being straight up weird, the Penguin cover has a couple of great details. Specifically, the tiny penguin on a bike and the giant penguin sharing a special moment with the naked full-human.

The Feelies cover is nice and minimalist, and they all look like pissed off nerds.

The D-Plan cover looks like an abstract rendering of a spaceman spiff cartoon. I don't know if that's why I like it, but I do [like it], hence its inclusion.

I award us all no points for not mentioning the cover of this year's re-release of Dopesmoker:

Fare thee well, Mars Volta.