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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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) |
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Denim
Back in Denim (1992) |
The Soup Dragons
Hotwired (1992) |
Stone Temple Pilots
Stone Temple Pilots (2010) |
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Robert Mitchum
Calypso... Is Like So (1957) |
Philippe Lavil
Calypso (2007) |
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Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Specter at the Feast (2013) |
The Strokes
Come down Machine (2013) |
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Can
Ege Bamyasi (1972) |
Stephen Malkmus and Friends
Can's Ege Bamyasi (2013) |
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UNKLE
War Stories (2007) |
Massive Attack
Splitting the Atom EP (2009) |
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Antonio Carlos Jobim Wave (1967) |
Freddy Henry Get it out in the Open (1979) |
Silver Screen The Greatest Story Never Told (2005) |
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Carlos Berlanga Indicios (1994) |
Laid Back Hole in the Sky (1990) |
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Slow Children
Slow Children (1981) |
Lou Reed/John Cale
Songs for Drella (1990) |
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Eurythmics
Peace (1999) |
James
Getting away with it (2001) |
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I Am Kloot
I Am Kloot (2003) |
Mass Hysteria
Mass Hysteria (2005) |
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Gilbert Montagné
The Fool (1971) |
Sébastien Tellier
Sessions (2006) |
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Nas
Street Dreams (1996) |
Metronomy
Nights out (2008) |
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Norah Jones
...Little Broken Hearts (2012) |
Jenifer
Ma Déclaration (2013) |
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Jimi Hendrix Experience Axis: Bold as Love (1967) |
The High Dials Anthems for Doomed Youth (2010) |
Tom Caruana Presents Wu-Tang vs. Jimi Hendrix Black Gold (2011) |
