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Nov
12
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Album Covers : Best Of

It’s been said that album artwork is just as important as the music inside. That’s a rather terribly misguided statement, but album artwork is nevertheless still pretty important. After all, without it, the internet would be sorely lacking in blog posts like this discussing it. Which would be, of course, a Bad Thingâ„¢.

Now that you’re thoroughly convinced of the eminent importance of a good album cover, let’s eliminate from the running a good 70% of them.
Rule #1: If your picture is on the front of your album, you automatically lose. If you want to be taken seriously, that is, so Weird Al is therefore exempt. Off The Deep End is a great parody of perhaps the second most overrated album cover ever.

Illuminate Now without further ado, onto the running. The David Crowder Band’s album Illuminate is the essence of good design: Minimalistic, smooth gradient, good font, and orange (ok, orange really isn’t a rule, but look at the header and you’ll see I’m rather partial to fiery varieties of orange myself). And for bonus points, the image is quite appropriate to the title.

Nord Nord Ost Second, we have Subway To Sally’s Nord Nord Ost (North North East). It’s a rather ornate cover, but unlike others of its sort, the focus is clearly on the compass - the Aurora Borealis above and the waves beneath complement it without distracting from it, and the title font above fits the dark and surreal mood of the cover well.

Break The Silence Lastly, there’s Regicide’s Break The Silence. It’s a rather visually unimpressive album, but what’s so great here is the concept: one man otherwise indistinguishable from the identical and seemingly apathetic crowd screaming in frustration. It evokes the same atmosphere of Apple’s famous 1984 commercial with the mindless crowd apparently doing whatever they’re told, though the album has more of a connotation of helplessness in contrast to the commercial’s connotation of victory. And on top of that, they have a pretty cool logo.

Getting the list down to three was certainly a challenge - there are quite a few runners up that I couldn’t bear not to mention:
Rammstein - Rosenrot. Evocative photo.
Nickelback - Silver Side Up.
Breaking Benjamin - Phobia. Surprisingly poignant cover for a surprisingly good album.
Vintersorg - Ödemarkens Son. Fits well with the Swedish mythological themes.
Within Temptation - The Silent Force. Perhaps a better desktop picture than album cover (I actually had it as mine for a while), but a nice graphic nonetheless.

Any album covers you prefer?







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