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.
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Sophie's Dream Sophie's Dream (1976) |
Cameo Cardiac Arrest (1977) |
Moonbootica Shine (2014) |
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John Eliot Gardiner Bach: St John Passion (2011) |
Slowly Rolling Camera Where the Streets Lead (2021) |
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Pale Saints In Ribbon (1992) |
Battles Ice Cream (EP) (2011) |
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Moon Martin Street Fever (1980) |
Dave Morrison WIth Joe Soap (1981) |
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Horace Parlan Quintet Speakin' My Piece (1960) |
Freddie Hubbard Hub-Tones (1962) |
Jazz Sabbath Jazz Sabbath (2020) |
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Gary Numan The Pleasure Principle (1979) |
Band Apart Band Apart (1983/2019) |
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Caroline Rose Superstar (2020) |
Juliette Armanet Brûler le Feu (2021) |
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The Verve A Storm in Heaven (1993) |
Oranssi Pazuzu L_Värähtelijä (2016) |
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Various Tighten Up Volume 2 (1969) |
Eric Clapton E.C. Was Here (1975) |
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The Walker Brothers The Singles (2000) |
The Spencer Davis Group Live in Finland 67 (2017) |
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The Michael Schenker Group Built to Destroy (1983) |
Schneider TM and KPT.Michi.Gan Binokular (2000) |
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Kiss Rock and Roll Over (1976) |
Various Pure Fire - The Ultimate KISS Tribute (2004/2018) |
Anthrax Kings among Scotland (2018) |
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Daft Punk Random Access Memory (2013) |
Cro Trip (2021) |
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Leftfield Leftism (1994) |
M. Ward What a WOnderful Industry (2018) |
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Family Music in a Doll's House (1968) |
John Cale & Terry Riley Church of Anthrax (1971) |
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The Smiths
The Queen Is Dead (1986) |
The Smiths
The Queen Is Dead (Box set) (2017) |
Marsheaux
E-bay Queen Is Dead (2012) |
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Doves The Last Broadcast (2002) |
M. Ward Migration Stories (2020) |
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Cher Take me Home (1979) |
Nicki Minaj Queen (2018) |
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Run the Jewels Run the Jewels (2013) |
Run the Jewels 2 (2014) |
Run the Jewels Meow (2015) |
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Run the Jewels 3 (2016) |
Run the Jewels RTJ4 (2020) |
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The Aphex Twin Classics (1995) |
Grandaddy The Sophtware Slump (2000) |
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Miles Davis / Gil Evans Sketches of Spain (1960) |
Billy Jenkins with The Voice of God Collective Scratches of Spain (1987) |
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Dire Straits Making Movies (1980) |
Mkwaju Ensemble Mkwaju (1981) |
