Harvest/EMI Records
Since 1977, Battersea Power Station has been more than just Battersea Power Station. For almost 40 years, this power station in South West London has been closer identified with Pink Floyd and a giant flying pig. That’s because it was on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals.
As someone who still mainly listens to music in an album format, the cover is important to me. It is an important part of the album as a whole. The music is the most important part, but if an album has a lackluster cover, I might think twice about buying it.
In many ways, the album cover has become one of the most important genres of pop art for the last half century. From the Beatles crossing Abbey Road to the Old Hollywood fantasy of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road‘s poster-like cover or Andy Warhol’s simplistic print for The Velvet Underground And Nico, album covers have provided us with images that are burned into our cultural lexicon that will become touchstones of their eras.
So what separates the best album covers from the rest of the pack?
Since it is a piece of visual art, the cover of an album has to aesthetically work. It has to work visually. You have to want to look at it and be interested in it or think about it. The best album covers can be hung up on the wall and framed like a painting, print, photograph, or poster.
But an album cover is also an accompaniment to the music itself. It has to convey, or at least hint at some of the themes and sounds of the album. It has to feel right with the music. A perfect example of this is The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Axis: Bold As Love.
MCA Records
Axis: Bold As Love is an explosion of blues-rock psychedelia, and the cover perfectly conveys that. The musical and visual aspects are very much in sync with each other. When you listen to the music, you are encouraged to look at the cover. It’s all part of the experience.
The focus on cover art began in the mid-1960s, right as the album underwent its large expansion as a format from a group of singles with some extra filler to a larger, more cohesive artistic statement. So the art had to keep up. For example, this is what a Beatles album looked like in 1963:
EMI/Parlophone Records
And here’s what a Beatles album looked like in 1966:
EMI/Parlophone Records
The album cover became a prominent artistic force, especially after the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, with its iconic cover art. The cover became a limitless canvas, able to purvey any message that the artist wanted to make about the music. They became wilder and more ambitious. Soon, the artist didn’t even need to put their name or the title on the cover of the record, letting the cover completely speak for itself.
Over time, artists and labels have learned the art of the album cover and how they can tell the message of the album all by itself. A perfect example is James Taylor’s 1970 album Sweet Baby James.
Warner Bros. Records
The cover of this album tells you everything you want to know about the album without actually listening. Its up-close portrait of Taylor’s face, as well as his denim shirt, conjure up a feeling of stark, personal intimacy and back-to-the-land plainspokenness. These messages perfectly cultivate Taylor’s singer-songwriter image.
The best album covers tell the story to the listener before the needle hits the record, as well as add to the album’s story. In one image, the best album covers tell an artistic statement that sheds a little light where the music couldn’t quite get to, as well as send the listeners’ imaginations spinning with visions of the music in their heads.