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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Dakota Suite This River Only Brings Poison (2003) |
Six Twilights Six Twilights (2007) |
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Peter Broderick Float (2008) |
2562 Aerial (2008) |
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Strangelove Time for the Rest of your Life (1994) |
John Frusciante DC EP (2004) |
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Talkings Heads Remain in Light (1980) |
Various More G.D.M. Vol.4 (2002) |
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Kraftwerk The Man-Machine (1978) |
Various A Man and a Machine (2008) |
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The Beatles A Hard Day's Night (1964) |
The Rutles A Hard Day's Rut (1964) |
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R. Stevie Moore Glad Music (1986) |
The Punkles Beat the Punkles ! (2003) |
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Refused The Shape of Punk to Come A Chimerical Bombination in 12 Bursts (1998) |
U.D.R. O Shape do Punk do Cão (2007) |
Dead American The Shape of Punk Is Dumb A Musical Abomination in Short Bursts (2018) |
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New Order Get Ready (2001) |
Texas Careful What You Wish For (2003) |
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Earth Wind and Fire All 'n' All (1977) |
Iron Maiden Powerslave (1984) |
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Sonny Rollins Saxophone Colossus (1956) |
Vienna Art Orchestra All that Strauss (2000) |
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Simon and Garfunkel Sounds of Silence (1966) |
Color Filter Blueberry (2007) |
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Charles Manson Commemorating Sixty Years of Struggle against Cowardice, Stupidity and Lies (1994) |
Bad Religion Tested (1997) |
The Divine Comedy Victory for the Comic Muse (2006) |
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The Rolling Stones Tattoo You (1981) |
Various Cover You: A Tribute to the Rolling Stones (1998) |
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50 Cent The Massacre (2005) |
50 Cent The Massacre (Special Edition) (2005) |
Fatal Bazooka T'as vu (2007) |
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Ian Hunter Overnight Angels (1977) |
Richard Ashcroft Alone with everybody (2000) |
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Big Brother and the Holding Company Cheap Thrills (1968) |
Various Kya: 21 Golden Gate Greats Vol.2 (1969) |
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Fat Tuesday Califuneral (1992) |
Pond Man it Feels like Space again (2015) |
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Metallica Master of Puppets (1986) |
Various Overload: a Tribute to Metallica (1998) |
Hewhocorrupts Master of Profits (2003) |
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Argent In Deep (1973) |
Nirvana Nevermind (1991) |
"Weird Al" Yankovic Off the Deep End (1992) |
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Catherine Wheel Chrome (1993) |
Moodswings Horizontal (2002) |
Jeanne Cherhal L'Eau (2006) |
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Foals Total Life Forever (2010) |
Marvin Hood Nevermind (2011) |
B-Tight Born 2 B-Tight (2016) |