How Album Covers Enhance Listener Experience
BY Britney Phan
We may remember certain albums not just by their songs, but by the images which are featured on their covers: a provocative illustration of a banana, for example, or a shot of four men walking across a street in London. When it comes to shaping the identity of an album, album covers are not given nearly enough credit. An album cover can give new depth to an album by highlighting its most important aspects—and the greatest album covers have helped to preserve and redefine the legacies of their musicians. Therefore, it stands to reason that an album cover can also have a great impact on the listener’s experience of an album. In an era where most music interaction has moved into the digital realm, album covers are still as relevant as they’ve ever been, thus making them worthy of discussion and analysis.
Despite being a staple in the world of music distribution today, the idea of an album cover was still relatively novel when Alex Steinweiss first introduced it to music executives in 1938. Working at the time as an art director under Columbia Records, Steinweiss had grown bored of the drab, cardboard sleeves which records were typically sold in, noting that “this was no way to package beautiful music” (Kennedy). Though his idea was initially met with some resistance, it ultimately proved to be a success, with Columbia seeing an “almost nine-hundred percent” increase in record sales (Kennedy). Soon, a new industry developed under Steinweiss’ vision, one which would bridge the worlds of musicians and visual artists. Steinweiss made album covers for all different types of musicians, ranging from Beethoven to jazz icons such as Bessie Smith, and in the same vein, took inspiration from abstract painters like Wassily Kandisky. Motivated purely by his own love of music, Steinweiss would continue producing covers despite being paid little for his efforts. In his book, Alex Steinweiss: The Inventor of the Modern Album, he remarks, “I love music so much, and I had such ambition that I was willing to go way beyond what the hell they paid me for. I wanted people to look at the artwork and hear the music.”
Following in the footsteps of Steinweiss came Herman Leonard and Charles Stewart, photographers who spearheaded the shift from illustrated album covers to photographs which featured the musicians themselves. Like Steinweiss, they too led extensive careers; Stewart was responsible for cover shots “on more than 2,000 albums” (Chilton). They mainly specialized in the realm of jazz, working alongside legends like Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis, but they occasionally photographed other musical stars such as The Beatles or Led Zeppelin. Alongside photography, the 60s also saw a rise in experimental cover design as companies sought out artists such as Andy Warhol, Roger Dean, and Burt Goldblatt to create covers for their artists. This would result in a new wave of eclectic covers which would push the boundaries of what an album cover could be. In particular, a cover commissioned for the album The Velvet Underground and Nico featured a banana print, which when peeled off would reveal the flesh-colored fruit underneath. In other cases, musicians were the ones who requested specific artists to design their covers, such as when punk band The Offs commissioned Jean-Michel Basquiat to design their album First Record. By the end of the 80s, album covers had gone beyond just being a way to package music to becoming a legitimate art form which both musicians and artists took seriously.
Frank Ocean’s sophomore album, Blonde, along with its cover, stand as a testament to the enduring importance of album art in the twenty-first century. In addition to being an eclectic album on its own—Ocean pioneered a new wave of alternative R&B with artists such as Daniel Caesar following in his trail—the cover was produced by photographer Wolfgang Tillman, who aimed to perfectly capture the album’s melancholic and reflective themes. What they produced in the end was a portrait shot of Ocean hiding his face from the camera with a bandaged hand. Though we’re seeing Ocean at his most vulnerable and naked, both physically and metaphorically, his hand serves as a veil which prevents us from looking any further. It speaks to the elusive persona he’s formed over the years, rarely giving interviews and sparsely updating his social media. In a way, the cover art for Blonde also shows off the adaptability of album art as you can easily see such an image as a tile on Instagram. In a world where musicians are expected not only to be musicians but influencers, Ocean is a rarity as he lets his songs, which range in subject from lost loves, and being forced to leave his hometown of New Orleans, to the nature of life itself, speak for themselves. The tiled background behind Ocean in the cover harkens back to “Close to You,” the 13th track of his album, wherein he croons in a heavily auto-tuned voice: “let my mind run underneath warm jets”, with “warm jets” most likely in reference to a shower (0:20-0:28). Throughout Blonde, there is a sense of restraint being exercised, whether it be in its often slow, quiet instrumentals or on tracks like “White Ferrari,” where Ocean passively reflects on an ex-lover and his regret about not telling them his true feelings. Blonde’s cover manages to perfectly encapsulate that and what’s more, leaves the viewer with a deeper understanding of the album.
The cover for Norman Fucking Rockwell!, Lana Del Rey’s sixth studio album, is nothing short of vibrant, a peppy combination of both the Californian and Americana aesthetics which have both cemented themselves as staples in her career. In it, Del Rey can be seen reaching towards the camera with an outstretched hand. An American flag looms behind her, while Los Angeles burns faintly in the background. At her side, a man sits atop a railing of a boat on which the couple are sailing. But where are they headed, and what are they running from? Norman Fucking Rockwell! is a notable album in that it signals a new turn in Del Rey’s career, neither a departure nor a dismissal of her previous work, but the culmination of a years long attempt in trying to capture the so-called American dream. Now older and more mature, she concludes that the America she saw may have never existed at all. There’s an inherent self-awareness accompanying her lyrics as the singer grapples with the state of the country and her fascination with a bygone era, a conflict that is clearly reflected on the album’s cover. In “The Greatest,” for example, Lana sings “L.A. is in flames / it’s getting hot” (3:35-3:36), a reference to the damage climate change has wreaked upon her city. There are also the more obvious American motifs laced throughout her songs and on the cover: the comic book-esque font harkening back to an era of beach culture and surf rock, genres which are touched on in tracks such as “Doin’ Time,” a cover of the Sublime song by the same name. And who can forget the influence of Norman Rockwell, a painter whose style permeates the cover and the album title itself? Like Rockwell, an element of idealization is present throughout the cover and the album, but underneath Del Rey’s attempts to capture the American dream lies a layer of disillusionment. Norman Fucking Rockwell! remains memorable because it so perfectly reflects the changes happening within Del Rey’s career, both embodying and criticizing the artist that serves as its namesake, and setting the stage for what the listener is about to experience.
CTRL by SZA is an album not only notable for its raw storytelling, but arguably for its cover. You are immediately pulled into its intricate world as you set your sights upon its lush green background, and your interest is piqued both by SZA herself, who looks daringly into the camera, as well as by the mountain of computers towering behind her. As SZA puts it, her album is about the “the illusion of control,” with the topics of each song ranging from being the side-chick to her fears of growing up and fitting within society’s standards. “Supermodel,” in particular, is a track that’s written in freestyle that’s in the form of a letter for an ex-lover, with SZA admitting, “Let me tell you a secret / I been secretly banging your homeboy / Why you in Vegas / All up on Valentine’s Day?” (0:44-0:54). Along with her lyrics, there is definitely a modern element being brought to the album that’s not just in its instrumentation, which takes influence from the distinctive trap sound on tracks such as “Love Galore.” The title, “CTRL,” is not spelled as “control”, but rather as the shortened version of the word which appears on the keyboard. The theme of technology carries on through CTRL’s cover, where SZA is posed next to a mountain of old PCs with their wires pulled out. Her gaze is pointed directly at the viewer. Instead of looking away, she approaches the camera head-on, unashamed. She’s reached a point where she doesn’t feel the need to hide behind her words anymore. But the dated PC models also ground the singer back in the past, a strategy which she also employs throughout her album with the use of interludes at the end of her tracks from both her grandmother and her mother. By both embodying the past and future, and the themes of technology throughout the album, the cover art for CTRL manages to be simple, striking, and timeless.
Album covers—album art—have proven to be just as worthy of discussion as the albums themselves. In an age where digital streaming has become the main way for many to listen to music, cover art has continued to remain relevant as visual artists, photographers, and musicians work together to create a meaningful and striking image. Frank Ocean, Lana Del Rey, and SZA are shining examples of how artists in a post-streaming can still pack meaning into their album covers and inspire others to do just the same.
Works Cited
Chilton, Martin. “Cover Story: A History of Album Artwork.” udiscovermusic, 23 February 2022, https://www.udiscovermusic.com/in-depth-features/history-album-artwork/.
Jones, Josh. “The Groundbreaking Art of Alex Steinweiss, Father of Record Cover Design.” Open Culture, 22 October 2014, https://www.openculture.com/2014/10/art-of-alex-steinweiss-father-of-record-cover-design.html.
Kafka2001, “Album cover analysis.” Reddit. October 2021. https://www.reddit.com/r/lanadelrey/comments/op05r2/album_cover_analysis/
Mugrabi, Colby. “Album Covers.” Minnie Muse, 10 June 2020, www.minniemuse.com/articles/art-of/album-covers.
Sandomir, Richard. “Chuck Stewart, Jazz Photographer, Dies at 89; You’ve Seen His Album Covers.” The New York Times, 28 Jan. 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/arts/design/chuck-stewart-jazz-photographer-dies-at-89-youve-seen-his-album-covers.html
About the Author
Britney Phan is a rising sophomore at Fordham University where she is considering a major in English. Born and raised in New York City, she is content to go wherever life takes her and plans to read as much as she can. Apart from reading, she also enjoys listening to music. Her favorite artist of all time is Frank Ocean.