July Collective Collaborative Blog: Virtual Album Art Gallery

Design by Andres Duarte

From artist portraits to illustrative landscapes, album covers have provided some of the most spectacular art in popular culture.  For the July collaborative blog, we present galleries of some of our favorite album art and discuss the dynamic relationship between music and visuals. 

Randy's Gallery
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Album: The City (2018)
Artist: Sunny Day Service

I tend to like album covers that don't have the album or artist/band name on the cover- let it speak for itself. I'm drawn to the wholesome yet slightly off-kilter look of this one. The band members are hidden in the photo, and no context is given as to who these people are and what their relation is to the album, if any. It's also slightly sinister in that the songs in the album are not what you'd expect from the photo; The first song are the words "fuck you" repeated over and over.
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Album: Hattori (1989)
Artist: Unicorn

Another album cover with no title, just a photo of an aged man looking straight at you. Unicorn is a Japanese band that can be compared to Ween in that they tackle a variety of genres with both juvenile and sharp self aware humor (this album begins with an orchestral overture of the proceeding songs, as if to cement the legacy as a stone cold classic). It's a concept album about a man named "Hattori" who begins his life as a male gigolo. I suppose we are to take the album cover as the man in question, which makes it funnier.
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Album: Guitar (1999)
Artist: Daisuke Tobari
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The album cover is musician Daisuke Tobari standing triumphantly on a rock. Not much is known about Daisuke, and online searches indicate that he's a reclusive artist without any social media presence. The photo is a great indicator of the music contained within- mysterious, self aware, and befuddling. It's a cover that makes you question who this person is, with songs that don't come close to answering the question. Yet it's as honest as music gets.
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​Album: HH (2017)
Artist: Gabi Losoncy

There's nothing else on the cover- just Gabi Losoncy herself handcuffed in a public bathroom with a slightly torn shirt. The music is a field recording which seems to take place in the very bathroom that the album cover shows. I like that the cover is really the only clue to go off of, and everything else is up to the listener to interpret. It doesn't make sense unless you analyze both the recording and the photograph.

Parisa's Gallery

I'm endlessly fascinated by the way album covers attempt to visually capture sound. It's an artform that doesn't seem to get the praise it deserves, especially now when streaming is the main source of music consumption and album art is reduced to a grainy little thumbnail. That's just one of the many reasons I love visiting record stores and physically flipping through vinyl, you can see the artwork in all it's glory!

I realized while doing research for this post that while I've loved some of these covers for years, I never knew the artist or photographer that was behind the cover. I ended up spending hours in portfolio wormholes, checking out other covers they've done, and work beyond the music. It's a practice that I intend on carrying forth from here on out, because it's been an incredible journey of discovery. While I wasn't able to leave notes on all the covers I've presented below, I highly recommend if that one strikes you, do some extra research on the artist! 

Below, I present several slideshows, or "themed exhibits", of some of my favorite album covers. I know there are so many great ones I'm forgetting, so please feel free to share some of your favorites in the comment section below this post. 
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Portraits

I find portraits to be a fascinating way for an artist to visually represent themselves and their sound. Portraits covers can capture the exact essence of the artist, and relay the album's attitude and personality in a precise way that an abstract piece would fail. Sure, there are plenty of covers out there that are super shallow, especially for highly marketable artists that are trying to sell an image rather than music. When a portrait is done right, however, it's more than just a glamour shot* -- it's a bold, in-your-face (literally) statement.

*Though I will say that glamour shots aren't necessarily a bad thing. Like disco covers are all glam - but so was the music! 

Illustrative Art

A general statement, but illustrative art is by far my favorite style for album covers. It allows for a more abstract interpretation of the music and focuses less on the musicians themselves. It's a massive genre with endless excellent examples, but above show a few favorites that come to mind. 

Some quick notes on a few covers displayed above:

Collection 001 - Teebs: The first photo of the slideshow, and one of my favorite covers ever. Painted by Teebs (Mtendere Mandowa) himself. I love when musicians also do their own album art, it makes the experience of putting on the record that much more dynamic. 

Lateralus - Tool: I'm sure this goes for a lot of people, but seeing this cover is what got me first interested in album art. Tool's music and Alex Grey's artwork are such an ideal match, both working in the realms of Fibonacci sequences and heady, subconscious layers. This record is a great example of the connection between music and album art; the two have become so intertwined that it's hard to imagine Tool being represented any other way.

99.9% - Kaytranada: The album artist, Ricardo Cavolo, has a stellar book called 101 Artists to Listen to Before You Die. Great music recommendations with even greater illustrations.

Paegan Terrorism Tactics - Acid Bath: I never knew this until tuning into By This Wax I Rule! on Gimme Metal a few weeks ago that this cover is a painting by Dr. Jack Kevorkian. (And subsequent research lead to me to find that Kevorkian was a multi-instrumentalist jazz musician?!)

John Dyer Baizley - The resident album artist for Baroness, Skeletonwitch and Kvelertak, and featured on many other rock and metal album covers. Similar to the Tool description above, I love when there's a continuing relationship between musician and artist, it feels like you're witnessing a story unfold with each release.

Sci-fi & Fantasy Artwork

​With sci-fi or fantasy themed music, it seems almost imperative to have album art of equally epic visual proportions. Can you imagine a band singing about sword and sorcery, and then having a portrait cover showing like four dudes wearing jeans and drinking beer or whatever?  It would ruin the whole vibe! I love the intricacies of fantasy artwork and how they expand on the stories within the music, which are already very visual in nature. (Though I did add some covers in here that aren't completely sci-fi albums, like Dopesmoker and Nazareth, but have fitting covers.)

My favorite fantasy covers come from Cirith Ungol, who take their images from Michael Whelan's art in the Elric of Melniboné saga. You can read my interview with Cirith Ungol where we discuss album art, fantasy themes, and more here. 

You can also read about T&E's favorite fantasy and mythological albums here.

Metal Aesthetics
​*nsfw*

 
It comes as no surprise that metal bands would have some of the most over-the-top and outrageous album covers out there. While many may be turned off by the gore and blasphemy of it all (and sure, there are some bands imo that take it to way too far), there's no denying that the metal genre has taken the art of album covers to unprecedented lengths. From the super grainy, b&w black metal covers that,  look as lo-fi as the music sounds, to the hyper-detailed, museum-worthy thrash covers, metal artists have gone to extreme measure to shock, provoke, and like any good art should do, challenge the status quo.

There are so many incredible resident artists within the metal genre, like Wes Benscotter, Andrei Bouzikov, Justin Barlett (who is currently battling cancer - donate to his GoFundMe here) Paolo Giradi, Vince Locke, just to name a few! 

Despite all the insanely intricate art displayed above, my favorite of this bunch might be the Stiny Plamenu covers. My dear friend and T&E writer, Andrej, showed me this super obscure Czech Republic black metal band he discovered back in high school during one of his Metal Archives deep dives. Their lyrical themes are all based on anti-Christianity and...sewage worship. Their cover for "Dive Into the Wastewater" is the singer all decked out in his corpse paint, posing grimly knee deep in a sewer tunnel. That cover alone is a testament to how bizarre and ridiculously niche metal subgenres can be.

The Humanure - Cattle Decapitation cover is a great parody of Pink Floyd's cover for Atom Heart Mother, but I love that it unintentionally looks like vegan propaganda. This is the future vegans wants!

I realize that I didn't include Mayhem's infamous The Dawn of the Black Heart cover as I wouldn't call that a "favorite", but it certainly does go down in history as the most controversial cover art of all time. If you don't know about it already and are curious to read more, please be advised of very triggering content: i.e. suicide, violent imagery.

Also, a big shout out to the Gimme Metal chatroom friends for brainstorming some of these great metal cover artists with me.

The Works of Ed Repka

This "exhibit" could fit under the metal aesthetics, but I wanted to give Ed Repka his own spotlight as he's my favorite album artist.

Ed Repka is known as the "King of Thrash Metal Art", and has created dozens of iconic metal album covers and logos since the '80s (despite him not even being a big fan of the genre.) His style reflects his deep love of comic book illustrations and vintage film posters, but with a uniquely grotesque and dystopian aesthetic. Each piece has a fully realized concept and storyline, and there's no mistaking his artwork when you see it. His work for the first three Death albums are by far my favorite album covers of all time, specifically Spiritual Healing being my #1. 

Quick anecdote, my boyfriend was recently working at the record shop he owns, and a woman came in with (presumably) her grandson, who was all decked out in his metal jacket. She told him he could get one record as long as it was appropriate. He picked out Death's Spiritual Healing and the grandmother looked at the cover and said, "Oh how nice! Is that a Christian album?" and he went "umm...yes." Truly, a record store moment for the books.

Mics. Covers

A collection of other covers I love that don't quite fall in the other exhibits above. 

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