Music and images have had a strange relationship over the years. In the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s it seemed music and images were meant for each other. Even in the ‘90s there was still a connection. But recently the relationship between the two has dwindled. With the ever-growing influence of technology in the world, people don’t seem to have time to look at something and listen to it at once. It is depressing. Most younger people will think of music videos when they think of the connection between music and images, but before that the most essential visual component of music was the album cover.
As Yahoo! contributor Christopher Wiegering Gianoli wrote back in 2008, “A book’s cover usually has less to say about its content than a CD’s cover” The reasoning behind this is that a book’s cover changes with new editions, but the album cover never changes and can become an iconic image on its own. There are albums people have probably never heard in their lives, but they can identify it by the image on the cover. Personally I try to avoid listening to Fleetwood Mac at all costs but I know they made an album titled Rumors because that cover with Stevie Nicks and some other guy in the band holding hands and posed strangely has stuck with me. And that was the joy of the album cover decades ago; you didn’t even have to listen to the band but that image they put out in front of you was enough to make you remember them.The album cover came into existence in 1938 when Columbia Records hired Alex Steinweiss and he began putting illustrations on record sleeves. Once 1950s rolled around, thanks to photography and the birth of rock and roll the iconic album cover began to emerge.
When Elvis Presley walked into Sun Records in the early 1950s and cut his first few songs, music began to change. Soon the rock and roll movement swept across America and acts like Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis became huge national stars. The most recognizable album cover from this era was for the self-titled Elvis Presley record released on the RCA label in 1956. The black and white photo with the pink and green text would become a cultural landmark that numerous musicians would pay homage to throughout the years, most notably by The Clash for the London Calling cover in 1979. Tom Waits’ 1985 record Rain Dogs cover also bears similar structure to Elvis’ self-titled record. All three are pictured above and to the left.
Of course Elvis and his dancing completely revolutionized the relationship between music and images, but that will be discussed later. But that cover for his first album went a long way in setting the standard of using the album cover as a work of art that would make people remember you. Once the ‘60s and ‘70s rolled around bands took this to heart. There was no Youtube or Twitter for bands to use to get their names out and the music video wasn’t a big art form yet, so the image on the album cover was the biggest way to show what a band was about. That image on the cover had to define whatever you were about to do in the music that followed.
The Kiss album Love Gun immediately comes to mind since looking at that image on the cover of the band standing around like kings as women are gathered at their feet makes you step back and think “Wow these guys are like total hardcore rock gods, get so many chicks, and must be awesome.” Then you throw on the album and the opening lick of “I Stole Your Love” melts your face off and you see that cover got you prepared. Same goes for their Alive! record since the first time I saw that as a six or seven-year-old my reaction was essentially, “Holy crap.” Then I turned on the album and my reaction was, “Holy crap.” The songs fit the image of this big, powerful group commanding a stage. It was the perfect joining of album cover and album.
In a 2008 piece, Christopher Knab of Fourfront Media & Music wrote, “Your cover is your calling card to the industry and to the consumer.” That image you put on the cover is going to be the first thing people see and will be image that comes to mind whenever they hear a song from the album. It is the easiest way to advertise your music since if the cover looks cool, original, or interesting people will want to hear what you have to say. That was the philosophy which lead to album covers being so monumental and legendary in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
The ‘60s saw a great many iconic and instantly recognizable album covers. The Velvet Underground & Nico is memorable for there being no title on the cover, just the signature of Andy Warhol and his painting of a banana. The banana skin on the original pressings of the album was a sticker that could be peeled away, revealing the image of a pink banana underneath. Another classic cover came on The Who Sell Out where each member of the band is advertising a different product. Both are to the left.
Of course the most memorable album covers of the ‘60s came with the biggest band of the ‘60s, the Beatles. The hand-drawn cover of Revolver is classic. Even more than that is the cover for The Beatles, which has prompted the album to be known as The White Album. Rolling Stone magazine voted the cover for Sgt. Pepper as the greatest album cover of all time. The image of the Beatles wearing the bright military uniforms among the cut-outs of other celebrities is one of the most famous images of the band. Numerous artists have made pastiches of the covers from their records. Most notable are the Abbey Road tributes and homages.
(Revolver, The White Album, Sgt. Pepper)
(Top LtoR: Abbey Road, The Abbey Road E.P., Late Orchestration; Bottom LtoR: The Simpsons, Sesame Road)
The cover for Abbey Road is one of the most famous, if not the most famous album cover of all time. The image of the Beatles crossing the street has been redone by The Simpsons and even Sesame Street. The Red Hot Chili Peppers even crossed a street naked for their Abbey Road E.P. cover. Kanye West paid homage to it for his Late Orchestration live album, which was recorded at Abbey Road studios.The Abbey Road cover is associated with the urban legend that Paul McCartney died and was replaced with somebody who looks and sounds just like him. People think the cover of that album is a sign, as McCartney is walking out of step with the others, is not wearing shoes, and is smoking. The fact people could theorize like this over the image on an album cover is a prime example of how important the art used to be with music.
In the 1970s there were even more notable and famous album covers. In 1971 The Rolling Stones released Sticky Fingers, which has the well-known image of a man’s crotch in tight jeans. The original cover for the vinyl LP was designed by Andy Warhol and featured a working zipper and belt that could be undone to reveal the image of a man in his underwear. Kiss had paintings on the covers of albums which appear on cups and blankets to this day, and Love Gun even came with an actual cardboard toy “love gun.” Artists today don’t put this same kind of effort into their product.
(LtoR: Nevermind, Get Behind Me Satan, Graduation, Born This Way)
How many iconic album covers have there been since Nirvana’s Nevermind in 1991? Music videos took over as the dominant visual expression so album covers stopped mattering. The only ones from the 2000s that come to mind are Get Behind Me Satan by the White Stripes and Graduation by Kanye West. People don’t even care about album covers anymore since with so many people downloading music illegally you don’t get the album art with it. If you buy songs off iTunes you are more likely to just buy single tracks rather than entire albums, and the artwork doesn’t even matter since you put it on an iPod or a phone and throw it in your pocket. Even the biggest stars of today like Lady Gaga don’t put the effort into an album cover. That cover for Born this Way was laughably bad.
Album covers used to be a clever marketing tool and would oftentimes have an image that would be synonymous with that musician forever. It was a way for the listener to get to know the artist. By the advent of MTV in the 1980s, the iconic images that symbolize an artist’s career like Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run or Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell (to the left) were gone and replaced with a whole new medium that would change the relationship between sound and vision for over two decades.
Also as far as clever pastiches go, Sesame Street even got The Boss. They can’t do that anymore since nobody makes a cool album cover.
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Sources (Why were so many people writing about album art in 2008?):
1. Benson, Robert. "Album Cover Art History." Yahoo! Contributor Network. Yahoo!, 25 Feb. 2008. Web. 07 May 2012. http://voices.yahoo.com/album-cover-art-history-1030815.html?cat=38.
2. Wiegering Gianoli, Christopher. "The Importance of Good Artwork for Your CD Cover." Yahoo! Contributor Network. Yahoo!, 5 Sept. 2008. Web. 07 May 2012. http://voices.yahoo.com/the-importance-good-artwork-cd-cover-1875424.html?cat=33.
3. Knab, Christopher. "Your CD Cover Is Your Most Important Advertisement." Music Biz Academy.Com. Jan. 2008. Web. 07 May 2012. http://www.musicbizacademy.com/knab/articles/cdcover.htm.
4. The History of Rock and Roll class I took Freshman year at SUNY Albany
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