The music industry has undergone more drastic changes in the past 25 years then the previous 125 years before. In 1982, the compact disc was introduced to the public and replaced the need for LP’s and cassette tapes. With the introduction of Napster in 1999, music downloading has steadily become the recommended way to obtain music. Consumers no longer have to go to their local record store and buy music; it is now just a mouse click away. Moreover, there is no need to purchase an entire recording as you can now only purchase the tracks you want to listen to.

According to an article posted on Seeking Alpha in January of 2007, digital sales are showing a steady increase while album sales continue to decline. As this digital trend maintains momentum, will the need for album covers eventually be phased out like records were? Is visual art in music packaging dying?

Album art has long been just as important as the music on the record. Can you imagine a different cover for Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon or Nirvana’s Nevermind? The album cover evokes what is inside and you can almost hear the music simply by looking at it.

Pre-1966 rock album covers more often than not were simply a band photo which gave fans a glimpse of their pop icons, but weren’t very exciting. The Beatles broke new ground both musically and visually that year with the release of Revolver. The cover featured artwork by long-time friend of the band, Klaus Voormann. Part line-art and part collage, the cover was visually unlike anything that had preceded it and the creative floodgates opened. Soon art and music were merging and by 1967 the water was gushing. The Velvet Underground commissioned Andy Warhol to simply paint a yellow banana for the cover of their debut, the Doors’, Strange Days release, featured a photo of circus performers by Joel Brodsky, and the Rolling Stones’, Their Satanic Majesties Request, was in 3D Technicolor.

In 1970, Led Zeppelin were ruling FM radio and bringing in millions of dollars to their record label, Atlantic, who gave the band total creative freedom. Their third release, amply titled Led Zeppelin III, featured a complex cover which had random surreal images on a white background. Through out the cover were cut out holes. Behind the top layer was a rotating disc with more images. By moving the disc, you could change the album cover. One year later, the Rolling stones released Sticky Fingers. The cover, which was designed by Warhol, featured a man’s jeans with a working zipper that when unzipped, exposed his white briefs. Album art continued to evolve throughout the decade and some of the 20th Century’s greatest artwork adorned the covers of records.

With the introduction of the compact disc, creative album covers became less important simply because of lack of space. According to an article on Pop Cult Magazine in 2005, after the album shrunk from a 12×12 LP inches to a 5×5 CD, the aspirations of the graphic artist also shrank and the need for elaborate cover art gave way to the pre-1966 photo. While there have been some creative covers since 1982, there hasn’t been anything close to the jackets of the pre-CD age.

The first IPod was released to the public in October 23, 2001 and consumers bought them up by the millions. With the introduction of the portable MP3 player, there was literally no need for artwork as the device only featured a monochrome screen which showed the track list. In the past 8 years, the digital music player industry has seen immense growth and with the introduction of IPod’s first color display screen in 2005, the cover is again becoming an important part of music packaging. But, designers are having to rethink the way they work because the 5×5 CD is slowly being replaced by a 1 inch image. Wired magazine reported that, major record companies are signing more artists than ever before, thus the need to stand out visually has become more important than ever. Companies such as cddesign.com are working hard to save the art form and are working with artist and labels to save the record cover.

While there will never be tactility gratifying cover such as Sticky Fingers again, with new technologies, we could very well see the day of the interactive album cover. Thankfully, the future of album art looks bright and once again the two worlds, music and art, are once again being brought together.

Andy Warhol once said, “An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.” I couldn’t disagree more.

>Written by d/visible contributor Tony Engelhart.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 10:19 am and is filed under Graphic Arts, Technology, Business, Culture, Branding, Illustration, Art & Design, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.