Before music album imagery became a thumbnail-sized afterthought, it had ambitions. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, cover images were still trying to convince us they contained meaning, mood, and occasionally a fully formed identity.
Looking across them now, a few visual habits start to feel less like coincidence and more like collective instinct. Cigarettes appear with surprising consistency. Tuxedos show up like a uniform nobody agreed to but everyone respected. And then there are the ritual poses: the choreographed leap, the solemn gathering, the long stare into an unspecified future.
We’ve selected a few of our favourites to build this collection. But instead of organizing these covers by genre or chronology (both of which would imply order where there often isn’t any) we’ve grouped them by motif. Consider it a taxonomy of aesthetic compulsions, preserved in 12-inch format.
The Nicotine Aesthetic
The Tuxedo Industrial Complex
The Boys in Blush
Feline Fine
Better Together, Better Framed
Caught Mid-Groove
A Healthy Disrespect for Objects
Life on the Road
A Little Cultish
Press Start to Play
Have a favourite album cover that belongs in one of these categories? Or better yet, one that demands an entirely new category? Let us know in the comments.
xx