13 Album Covers With a Concentrate on Photography

David Bowie, Talking Heads, The Who and extra

For these of us who grew up with (or now love) vinyl, the album cowl is a crucial a part of the listening expertise. It’s usually an extension of the idea or story concerned within the music. Or at minimal, it represents a brand new piece of paintings to pore over whereas listening. I really like album artwork pictures. I used to be a child with a digital camera who went to high school for advantageous artwork pictures. I even thought I’d develop into a rock photographer, however ended up within the recording studio and different music enterprise roles.

There are many iconic photo-based album covers that simply pop to thoughts. Here are a baker’s dozen of my favorites:

The Rolling Stones

Exile on Main St. (1972)

The essential shot seems like a collage, nevertheless it’s really an current Robert Frank {photograph}, an outtake from his 1958 e-book The Americans. Named “Tattoo Parlor,” the picture reveals circus performers, comparable to “Three Ball Charlie” from 1930’s sideshows. To underline a key level of the album—that the disreputable, drug-addled, tax-exiled Stones have been outsiders and freaks—the reverse of the sleeve offered photographs of the band in an analogous type. It’s a canopy you’ll be able to have a look at repeatedly and nonetheless see one thing new. John Van Hamersveld served because the designer.

The Who

Quadrophenia (1973)

Quadrophenia was a Pete Townsend rock opera ostensibly a few ’60s mod on the crossroads of his adolescent life. Quadrophenia was an bold double-album mission that included a 44-page booklet containing images by Ethan Russell for instance the story. Done in grainy black and white, these photographs conveyed the wet English grays depicted within the songs. It is an incredible piece of labor on so many ranges. Graham Hughes served as cowl photographer.

David Bowie

David Live (1974)

The cowl is an easy however dramatic picture of a classy Bowie. By all accounts, David selected this picture, nevertheless it was reproduced so poorly that he believed it made him seem like he’d “just stepped out of the grave.” His emaciated determine is probably going an indication of his cocaine dependancy on the time. The coloring of the Dagmar picture initially made him look as blue as his go well with. Thankfully, a re-release correctly color-corrected the picture. But Bowie nonetheless had the pale pallor of a recluse and the emaciated body of fragile well being.

Peter Gabriel 

Peter Gabriel (Car) (1977)

For his first solo album, we see Peter Gabriel within the windshield, raindrops so clearly outlined they develop into a texture of their very own. Hipgnosis designed the duvet. “I was sitting in a cab in a traffic jam in Trafalgar Square in the rain,” Storm Thorgerson mentioned, “with little to do but watch the cab next to me. On the bonnet of this vehicle were myriad drops … each drop seemed to have a quality and a life of its own. I thought, ‘That looks cool, I can duplicate that one day.’ Which is how Peter Gabriel came to be sitting, looking furtive, in the front seat of my beloved Lancia Flavia, which had been heavily doused with a garden hose.” Photographer: Richard Manning.

Talking Heads

More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)

David Byrne was liable for this distinctive idea. He’s a photographer in his personal proper, however he reached out to Jimmy De Sana to shoot the 529 close-up Polaroids that make up this mosaic.

Joe Jackson 

Look Sharp! (1979)

This easy and chic picture summed up Jackson’s early recordings, evoking the glossy strains and bracing city wit all through the music and lyrics. Brian Griffin—photographer.

The Who 

The Kids are Alright (1979)

A 1968 {photograph} by Art Kane options the band wrapped in a Union Jack on the base of the Carl Schurz monument in New York. Kane was impressed by the “cute little ruffians” and the concept of portraying them as “lovable in a devilish way,” like Dickens’ Fagin gang. The pose was additionally a reference to {a photograph} by Henri Cartier-Bresson.

The Clash 

London Calling (1979)

Probably probably the most rock ‘n roll photograph on any album cover. The image of Paul Simonon smashing his bass was taken by Pennie Smith during a 1979 show at New York’s Palladium. It’s uncooked, a contact out of focus and you may nearly really feel the influence of the instrument slamming the stage. The format and script type a transparent homage to Elvis Presley’s 1956 RCA debut.

Talking Heads 

Speaking in Tongues (1983)

Robert Rauschenberg created a clear plastic case with paintings printed on three 12″ round clear collages, referencing the three-color printing course of: cyan, magenta and yellow. Each disc sported a collage of photographs—together with a wrecked automobile, a freeway billboard and a suburban bed room—that may very well be spun to provide completely different results.

The Police 

Synchronicity (1983)

Duane Michals has shot all the things from style spreads for Vogue Magazine to the 1968 Summer Olympics and this cowl for the ultimate Police album. The design incorporates three rows of black-and-white images, every overlaid with clear horizontal stripes of purple, yellow or blue. It was launched in quite a lot of variations, all containing the identical images in several preparations and with completely different stripes. One image reveals Sting studying a e-book: Carl Jung’s Synchronicity.

U2 

All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000)

U2’s tenth album, and their sixth with Anton Corbin as photographer. It options Corbin’s trademark type and marks a return to the intense and monochromatic paintings of the band’s ’80s albums. It was shot at Charles de Gaulle Airport in France, identified for its futurist, brutalist look. In the unique {photograph}, the airport signal reads “F21-36”, indicating the course of check-in desks. Per the band’s request, the sleeve designers modified this to J33-3, a reference to the Bible verse Jeremiah 33:3.

David Bowie 

The Next Day (2013) 

Designed by Jonathan Barnbrook, the duvet is a white sq. with the title in quite simple textual content dropped on high of Bowie’s 1977 Heroes cowl picture. That picture was taken by Japanese photographer Masayoshi Sukita. It represents a nod to Erich Heckel’s work.

Kendrick Lamar

To Pimp a Butterfly (2015)

The grainy, distressed black and white {photograph} on Lamar’s third album cowl captures a spontaneous second throughout a visit to Washington. Loads will be learn into the photographs—it’s seemingly a celebration, however on nearer inspection you see a sure decide with eyes X’d out on the backside. A provocative and evocative picture that displays themes of financial disparity and cultural identification heard all through probably the greatest rap albums of the 2010s. Denis Rouvre—photographer.

Mark Schulz

Mark Schulz is the senior director of exterior affairs for Musicopia and Dancing Classrooms Philly.