Would Sgt. Pepper's be exactly the same without Peter Blake's cover ? At a time when full-length records do not mean much any longer and album covers even less, I found interesting to make a website on sleeve design. Long before videos, record covers were the visual embodiment of music, a way to put images on sound. I remember having spent hours as a teenager detailing the cover of records while listening to them. Later on, I realised that some of them had things in common in their design, revealing either a mere sign of the times or a more deliberate connection. Some records even obviously copied famous sleeves, as a tribute or as a mockery. Here is a collection of record covers I came across, which share some common visual features.

Twisted horns












Tue-Loup

La Belle Inutile (1999)

Interpol

Our Love to Admire (2007)


The other Pepper












The Rolling Stones

Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967)

Various

Rutles Highway Revisited (1990)


Exclamation mark




















Ornette Coleman

Ornette! (1962)

Flying Padovani's

Font l'Enfer (1983)

Clinic

Internal Wrangler (2000)

Yesterday's New Quintet

Yesterday's Universe (2007)


Cooling in water














Olivia Newton-John

Come On Over (1976)

Jackson Browne

I'm Alive (1993)

George Harrison

Early Takes Volume 1 (2012)