Vinyl album covers

I am fortunate to be old enough to remember when the LP was king. There was no CD or download back then. One of the things about LP's that you don't (can't) get with cd's or downloads is the wonderful LP cover art.

Some of the designers for this art became famous in their own right, the late great Storm Thorgerson for example (Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel to name but a few of the bands he worked with) or photographer Mick Rock (David Bowie, Lou Reed, Queen) but most never really got the recognition they deserved.

Some of the covers are so intricate they need to be seen full size to be able to take in the detail, Elton John's album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy is a good example (See the video above). Others are just simplistic pieces of art that become iconic, the obvious example here being Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

The album art should compliment the music, to perhaps give a clue as to what the music will be about, Bat out of Hell by Meatloaf does this well. Remember, when the LP was king most of us had no idea what the album was going to be like until it was purchased and listened to. So the cover had an integral part to play in enticing the music fan to buy.

Gate-fold sleeves and inserts were further progressions to encourage the buying public, all now lost to the CD/download world. Although, more and more artists are releasing their albums on vinyl now, but I don't see the LP making a large scale comeback.

The video at the top of this post does a good job of exploring the cover of the LP in question. Some of my other favourites are shown as pictures below. Please click on the pictures to see a larger version.