Album Covers

I have decided to explore further into CD covers and their historical background. From personal experience I can define how an album cover is used to attract buyers due to the artwork on the front cover, whether its simple or just effective, as Music, and CD’s sell. I also know that they act as a protective sleeve for the CD. I have extracted some information from ‘Wikipedia’ to generalise the definition further and explain its purposes:

‘An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially-released audio recording product, or album. The term can refer to either the printed cardboard covers typically used to package sets of 10″ and 12″ 78 rpm records, single and sets of 12″ LPs, sets of 45 rpm records (either in several connected sleeves or a box), or the front-facing panel of a CD package, and, increasingly, the primary image accompanying a digital download of the album, or of its individual tracks.


The cover serves three main purposes:

1. To advertise and identify the contents of the music product.
2. To convey the artistic aspirations of the original artists
3. In reproductions of the artwork, to serve as a primary image in the promotional efforts surrounding the product, as an identifiable image associated with it’

Over the decades since album covers were revolutionised, there have been many controversial album covers. Aspects of artwork associated with sexuality/nudity, religious beliefs, trademarks have been either banned or dismissed due to violence, graphical content or plagiarism.


 RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS- MOTHER’S MILK (1989)

The album cover features a black and white photograph of the band sprawled across the arms of a proportionately larger naked woman. A rose conceals one of her nipples while Kiedis’ standing body conceals the other. Several national chains refused to sell the record because they believed the female subject displayed too much nudity. A stricter censored version was manufactured for some retailers that featured the band members in far larger proportion than the original.

 Appetite for Destruction released on July 21, 1987

Album's original cover art, based on Robert Williams' painting "Appetite for Destruction", depicted a robotic rapist about to be punished by a metal avenger. After several music retailers refused to stock the album, the label compromised and put the controversial cover art inside, replacing it with an image depicting a cross and skulls of the five band members (designed by Billy White Jr., originally as a tattoo), each skull representing one member of the The band: Izzy Stradlin, top skull; Steven Adler, left skull; Axl Rose, center skull; Duff McKagan, right skull; and Slash, bottom skull. The photographs used for the back of the album and liner notes were taken by Robert John, Marc Canter, Jack Lue, Leonard McCardie, and Greg Freeman. The original cover was supposed to be on the 2008 re-pressing of the vinyl, though the record label replaced it with the "Skulls" art at the last minute. The re-pressing of the vinyl, though, is the first Guns N' Roses release to have the Parental Advisory label printed on the artwork; previously, like on the CD, this was a sticker on the cellophane wrap and later (on the CD and cassette releases) on the case itself.

With the increasing popularity of digital music downloading services and the inflating cost of conducting business, the purpose and prevalence of the album cover is evolving. While the music industry tries to keep up with technological and cultural shifts, the role that packaging (and thus the "album cover") will play in consumer music sales in the near future is uncertain, although its role is certainly changing, and digital forms of packaging will continue to surface, which, to some degree (and to some consumers) take the place of physical packaging. Both MP3 and WMA music files are able to contain embedded digital album artworks (called cover images or simply covers) in jpeg format. As of 2008, physical music products, with a physical "album cover", continue to outsell digital downloads.

In August 2008, album cover designer Peter Saville, responsible for cover art on albums by New Order and Roxy Music, suggested that the album cover was dead.

Alternately, some artists have used Internet technology to generate even more cover art. For instance, Nine Inch Nails initially released its album The Slip as a free download on the band's website, attaching separate but thematically connected images to each individual track. On February 14, 2013, rapper Tyler, The Creator announced his new record Wolf (Tyler, The Creator album) would be released with three different available album covers.

One digital solution is the iTunes LP format for interactive album artwork introduced by Apple on 9 September 2009.

Album art is still considered a vital part of the listening experience to many such as myself, and despite the less-tangible nature of digital images, there are still many collectors trading cover art and music.