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the album art thread (NSF56k)
The Green Eyed Monster
i blame hip hopRegistered User regular
i blame hip hopRegistered User regular
This thread is not about what your favorite band is, it's not about the albums the critics say to love, it's not about what's hot on the radio or anything like that.
This thread is about cool album art. Not campy, funny album art like awkward Christmas albums or whatever, not about some album cover you like cuz there's some chick with lots of skin on it, and not about fucking Beatles' album covers because we've all seen them a heptihogamajazillion fucking times already, but about album covers that are great images that end up honestly being a part of what the album represents when you think about it.
I haven't thought too much about what entries I would most like to put in here, I'm more curious to see what other users will add, but to get things started off I'll start with the cover from the Lifesavas most recent album, which actually has nice design on the interior as well as the front image:
Note: please spoiler images to avoid forcing everyone to scroll all over.
Thanks, have fun!
This thread is about cool album art. Not campy, funny album art like awkward Christmas albums or whatever, not about some album cover you like cuz there's some chick with lots of skin on it, and not about fucking Beatles' album covers because we've all seen them a heptihogamajazillion fucking times already, but about album covers that are great images that end up honestly being a part of what the album represents when you think about it.
I haven't thought too much about what entries I would most like to put in here, I'm more curious to see what other users will add, but to get things started off I'll start with the cover from the Lifesavas most recent album, which actually has nice design on the interior as well as the front image:
Note: please spoiler images to avoid forcing everyone to scroll all over.
Thanks, have fun!
The Green Eyed Monster on
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I also really like the way the album case unfolds and the "make your own jewel case" stickers.
I think OK Computer has the best album art of all of them, although the booklet you could get hidden inside the jewel case itself in the early editions of Kid A was pretty special itself.
Really, any peter saville cover.
Journey have always had some cool covers, what with that weird little scarab-thing. Yes album covers are trippy as hell, too.
I don't have pictures, sorry.
It's just a screencap of the front page of the old In Rainbows site but hey, I liked it.
I really like Kanye West's Good Life single art for some reason.
See also Food & Liquor by Lupe Fiasco:
Sonic Youth: Goo. It's Maureen and David. Murder is involved.
But seriously guys, spoilers.
This one fits the album so well it's uncanny.
Alexisonfire - Alexisonfire
And she drove a dagger directly through the heart of St. Angelis
Autechre - Amber
Circa Survive - On Letting Go
Explosions in the Sky - All of the Sudden I Miss Everyone
Hopesfall - The Satellite Years
Sigh...I love music.
Man, that's not even the best EitS album art!
Explosions in the Sky - The Earth is not a Cold Dead Place
I was never too hot on the F&L cover, although I appreciate what he seemed to be trying to convey.
I like Yessongs
Also Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
The best thing is that the CD inside is so goddamn good.
The animated flash cartoons were fucking awesome, to boot.
Todd Rundgren - Something/Anything?
The Who - The Who Sell Out (You need the front and back album art to get the full effect)
Petra Haden - Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out (Wonderful tribute to the original album, couldn't find the back cover art though)
The Who - Odds & Sods (The Chili Peppers did a cool tribute to this for Stadium Arcadium, however it was in the liner notes and this thread is about album covers)
John Frusciante - Shadows Collide With People
I'm also a fan of John Lennon/Yoko Ono's Two Virgins cover art, but that's hardly suitable for this forum.
joy division - closer:
tiger army - music from regions beyond (also one of the coolest album names ever):
swans - filth:
division of laura lee - black city
alkaline trio - maybe I'll catch fire
starlight mints - dream that stuff was made of
acid bath - paegan terrorism tactics:
because it is a painting done by dr. jack kevorkian.
Electric Wizard-Come My Fanatics and Dopethrone
The album case is a cardboard one and unfolds into a scan of this great table lamp that hayden always puts on his piano at the live shows. This image really doesn't do it justice.
Tom Waits - Mule Variations
(I also like the cover of Small Change, but that one is NSFW)
B.B. King - Live At Cook County Jail
..badass.
Dead Kennedys - Frankenchrist
classic.
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
The most recent one, Cassadaga, is at first sight a plain static-like pattern, but inside is a "secret decoder" window that reveals a lot of messages and art. Considering that a theme of the album is telepathy and psychic shenanigans, it fits.
Another album, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, used very dark plastic to conceal an image that only revealed itself when you took the booklet out of the case.
I know it sounds really hokey, but for me, it helps with the concept of the albums and puts it above being just a case to hold the disc.
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
I second that! :P
I'm gonna go to town here
Keane:
The Cops (Australian band, not be confused with The Cops from the US):
Grant-Lee Phillips:
The Black Keys:
The Roots:
Josh Ritter:
The Coral:
The Flaming Lips (this is just the Special Edition of 'At War With The Mystics' but all the covers of the EPs and Albums of 'At War...' and 'Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots' are awesome. Wayne Coyne, the lead singer, does all the art himself):
Patrick Watson:
The Shins:
Beck (this one is interesting because it was a blank album case that comes with a bunch of crazy stickers, so the picture is only one of many possibilities):
Also The Decemberists' Castaways and Cutouts but that's been posted already
And sorry but I must include a classic, The Clash:
The Who Sell Out is definately a great cover, but Quadrophenia doesn't get enough love sometimes.
Frank Zappa always had cool covers, but Weasels Ripped My Flesh is just awesome.
I couldn't find a decent picture of it, but King's X had an early album called Gretchen Goes To Nebraska. Great title, and great cover.
Herbie Hancock's Headhunters is a classic, and the cover is too, but the follow up Thrust is even better. He just looks like one bad space-dude, and he controls his spaceship with his synths and clavs! Count me in on that journey.
That reminds me of this:
Matthew Good Band, Last of the Ghetto Astronauts.
http://newnations.bandcamp.com
art by Dave McKean
http://lexiconmegatherium.tumblr.com/
Chemical Brothers - We Are The Night
The Butterfly Effect - Begins Here
Blind Guardian - A Twist In The Myth
Beck - The Information
Electric Six - Switzerland
Dethklok - The Dethalbum (Limited Edition)
Deerhunter - Cryptograms
I like these but also, if someone has a higher-resolution version of any of the following I'll have some hookers sent your way.
Foo Fighers - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
Fatboy Slim - The Joker (Single)
Eagles of Death Metal - Peace Love Death Metal
Especially since it has multiple colors and interacts with the CD!
Descendents - Milo Goes to College
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Geto Boys - We Can't Be Stopped
Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstacy
A few Peter Gabriel albums
The Nice - Elegy
a smattering of Pink Floyd
Quatermass - self-titled
Catherine Wheel - Chrome (possibly NSFW?)
The Cranberries - 'Bury the Hatchet' (possibly NSFW) and 'Wake Up and Smell the Coffee'
Dream Theater - Falling into Infinity
Europe - Secret Society
The Mars Volta - 'De-Loused in the Comatorium' and 'Frances the Mute'
Muse - Absolution
Alan Parsons - Try Anything Once
Styx - Cyclorama
Thornley - Come Again
Umphrey's McGee - The Bottom Half
Younger Brother - Last Days of Gravity
Yourcodenameis:milo - Ignoto
Murray Street by Sonic Youth (I really like this photograph)
Yes, I like Sonic Youth. :P
Some other favorites:
23 by Blonde Redhead
Feels by Animal Collective
Remission by Mastodon
Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie
You cant have this discussion without mentioning Tool. I read an article recently where they were talking about how they missed album art these days... These guys have been doing awesome things with their albums for years.
The first album I bought (Aenima) was actually a 'custom lenticular jewel case' - the standard plastic cd case was a lenticular lense, and the sleeve was a series of hologram cards that depicted all sorts of weid scenes. (burning screens, rotating eyes, LA falling into the sea)
Lateralus' art can is describes as:
'The cover is translucent and flips open to reveal the different layers of the human body. Partially obscured in the brain matter on the final layer is the word "God."
and later...
Their most recent album was truly awesome. The CD packaging for 10,000 Days consists of a thick cardboard-bound booklet partly covered by a flap holding a pair of stereoscopic eyeglasses, which can be used to view a series of images inside (including, for the first time since Undertow, an individual portrait of each band member). Viewed with the glasses, the artwork produces an illusion of depth and three-dimensionality.
As with most of the art, its hard to depict as an image, but you can see how it works below.
I dont know who this guys is, but here is an "action shot"
I love the work these guys do...