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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Vanilla Fudge Vanilla Fudge (1967) |
Vanilla Fudge The Return (2001) |
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Sting Nothing Like the Sun (1987) |
Don Johnson Let it Roll (1989) |
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Ellen Alien
Sool (2008) |
GoGo Penguin
Fanfares (2012) |
Midlake
Antiphon (2013) |
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Black Sabbath Vol 4 (1972) |
Sleep Vol 2 (1991) |
Various Everything Comes and Goes (2005) |
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Forgotten Tomb Vol 5, 1999-2009 (2010) |
Various Heavy Nuggets Vol 2 (15 Hard Rock Gems from The British Underground) (2013) |
Charles Bradley Changes (2016) |
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Jason Lescalleet This is What I Do Vol.4 (2014) |
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The War On Drugs
A Deeper Understanding (2017) |
Pablo Dylan
The Finest Somersault (2019) |
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Green Day Dookie (1994) |
Vince Staples FM! (2018) |
Various Gilman Street's Ripoff (2019) |
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The Sonics Here Are the Sonics!!! (1965) |
Various Here Ain't the Sonics!!! (1989) |
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Iron Maiden The Number of the Beast (1982) |
Hatebeak The Number of the Beak (2015) |
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John Parish Once Upon a Little Time (2005) |
Die Toten Hosen Unter den Wolken (2017) |
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The Wailers Catch a Fire (1973) |
Circus Lupus Solid Brass (1993) |
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Vök Figure (2017) |
Jamie Lawson The Years in Between (2019) |
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Otis Redding Otis Blue / Otis Redding Sings Soul (1965) |
Azekel
Circa EP (2003) |
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Alain Bashung Fantaisie Militaire (1998) |
Stephan Eicher & Traktorkestar
Hüh! (2019) |
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Het Goede Doel Tempo Doeloe (1983) |
Manuel Göttsching
E2-E4 (1984) |
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Songs: Ohia The Magnolia Electric Co (2003) |
Kevin Morby & Waxahatchee
Farewell Transmission b/w The Dark Don't Hide It (single) (2018) |
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Swell Maps A Trip to Marineville (1979) |
The Veils
Time Stays, We Go (2013) |
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Janet Jackson Janet (1993) |
Mandinga
Adrenalina (single) (2015) |
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Roberto Carlos Em Ritmo de Aventura (1967) |
Corduroy
Out of Here (1994) |
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Ozark Henry The Sailor not the Sea (2004) |
Texas
Red Book (2005) |
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Emerson, Lake and Palmer Love Beach (1978) |
Heaven 17
The Luxury Gap (1983) |
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Eli Paperboy Reed
Come and Get it! (2010) |
Chiddy Bang
Breakfast (2012) |
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Fehlfarben
33 Tage in Ketten (1981) |
Honey for Petzi
General Thoughts and Tastes (2011) |
