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.
 |
 |
Ry Cooder, Manuel Galbán Mambo Sinuendo (2003) |
The Veils The Runaway Found (2004) |
 |
 |
Keith Jarrett Back Hand (1975) |
Of Montreal Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer ? (2007) |
 |
 |
Harald Grosskopf Synthesist (1980) |
U.D.O. Mean Machine (1989) |
 |
 |
Harald Grosskopf Synthesist (reissue) (1999) |
Harald Grosskopf Synthesist 2010 (2010) |
 |
 |
 |
Chet Atkins Finger-Style Guitar (1957) |
Lightnin' Hopkins Strums the Blues (1958) |
Chromatics Kill for Love (2012) |
 |
 |
Cowboy Junkies The Nomad Series Volume 1: Renmin Park (2010) |
Cowboy Junkies The Nomad Series Volume 2: Demons (2010) |
 |
 |
Cowboy Junkies The Nomad Series Volume 3: Sing in my Meadow (2011) |
Cowboy Junkies The Nomad Series Volume 4: The Wilderness (2012) |
 |
Cowboy Junkies The Nomad Series Boxset (2012) |
 |
 |
Dominique Grange La Pègre EP (1968) |
The Chemical Brothers Push the Button (2005) |
 |
 |
Don Ellis Live at Montreux (1978) |
Beastie Boys The Mix-up (2007) |
 |
 |
The Herbaliser Same as it Never Was (2008) |
Owl City Mobile Orchestra (2015) |
|
|
Stina Nordenstam
Dynamite (1996) |
David Bowie
Black Star (2016) |
|
|
Space
Deliverance (1977) |
Zombi
Escape Velocity (2011) |
 |
 |
 |
Miles Davis Tutu (back) (1986) |
Faithless Reverence (1996) |
Petite Noir The King of Anxiety (2015) |
|
|
The Freak Scene
Psychedelic Psoul (1967) |
Nektar
Journey to the Centre of the Eye (1971) |
|
|
Ben Watt
Hendra (2014) |
Various
Air Texture, Vol. IV (2014) |
|
|
Suede
Dog Man Star (1994) |
The War on Drugs
Lost in the Dream (2014) |
 |
 |
The Appleseed Cast Low Level Owl, Volume 1 (2001) |
The Appleseed Cast Low Level Owl, Volume 2 (2001) |
 |
 |
 |
Marc Copland - John Abercrombie Speak to Me (2011) |
Chapel Hill One for the Birds (2013) |
Snowbird Moon (2014) |
|
|
|
Pete Rugolo
Music for Hi-Fi Bugs (1956) |
Syd Barrett
Barrett (1970) |
Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine
Séquelles (2009) |
|
|
Grace Jones
Island Life (1985) |
Hard Ton
Selfish EP (2010) |
|
|
Don Wilkerson
Shoutin' (1963) |
Rinôçérôse
Schizophonia (2005) |
|
|
Cut Copy
Zonoscope (2011) |
Blu
No York (2013) |
|
|
Björk
Homogenic (1997) |
Fatima Al Qadiri
Asiatisch (2014) |