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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Bang!
Music (1973) |
Beck
The Information (2006) |
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Beck
The Information (included stickers) (2006) |
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Circle Jerks
Group Sex (1980) |
Frank Zappa
Tinseltown Rebellion (1981) |
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Beady Eye
BE (2013) |
Brother Tunes
This Woman (2014) |
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Giant Sand Center of the Universe (1992) |
Steve Earle El Corazón (1997) |
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Alice in Chains Black Gives Way to Blue (2009) |
Bike for Three More Heart than Brains (2009) |
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The Veils Sun Gangs (2009) |
Dan Berglund Tonbruket (2010) |
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The Kooks Listen (2014) |
Allen Stone Radius (2015) |
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The Soup Dragons
Hydrophonic (1994) |
Spiritualized
Pure Phase (1995) |
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Santogold
Santogold (2008) |
MØ
Don't Wanna Dance (2014) |
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Alice Cooper
Killer (1971) |
Blackfoot
Strikes (1979) |
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Thelonious Monk
Straight no Chaser (1967) |
Jimmy Cliff
Give Thankx (1978) |
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Lio
Pop Model (1986) |
Twilight Singers
She Loves You (2004) |
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Beastie Boys
Hot Sauce Committe Part Two (2011) |
Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp
The Thing that Everything Else is About (2014) |
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The Orb
The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld (1991) |
Urge Overkill
Exit the Dragon (1995) |
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The Roots
Phrenology (2002) |
Melanin 9
Magna Carta (2012) |
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Marianne Faithfull
Broken English (1979) |
Kid & Khan
Bad English (2005) |
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Echo and the Bunnymen
Heaven up here (1981) |
Starsailor
Silence Is Easy (2003) |
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The Cars
Candy-O (1979) |
Beth Hart
Bang Bang Boom Boom (2013) |
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Secret Machines
Nowhere is Nowhere (2004) |
Jay-Z
The Blueprint 3 (2009) |
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Boards of Canada
Twoism (1995) |
The Moog Cookbook
The Moog Cookbook (1995) |
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Suede
New Morning (2011) |
Gesaffelstein
Aleph (2013) |
Kanye West
Yeezus (2013) |
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Miles Davis
Bitches Brew (1970) |
Acid Mothers Temple and The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.
Son of a Bitches Brew (2012) |
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Ray Conniff, His Orchestra and Chorus
Hifi Companion (1966) |
Morcheeba
Big Calm (1998) |
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Dire Straits
Brothers in Arms (1985) |
Brewer's Droop
The Booze Brothers (1973/1989) |
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The Frames
The Cost (2006) |
Arclab
No Spectre (2007) |
