When Album Covers Became Art

In a recent blog, I wrote about how I was teaching myself that vinyl – lovely, shiny, lustrous vinyl –is merely a music carrier. Yes, it needs to be cared for to protect the music in the grooves, but it’s irrational to be too reverential, too precious about it. It’s just a processed thermoplastic polymer, not a work of art.

But in response, some of you have pointed out that what often is a work of art is the sleeve the vinyl comes in. And who am I to disagree (as Annie Lennox might ask)?

The most famous early example of a sleeve as art is – you don’t really need me to say, but I will -Peter Blake’s cover for the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Blake is a British pop artist, who went on to design album covers for the Who, Paul Weller and Ian Dury, and has works on display at Tate Britain, as part of the Modern and Contemporary British Art collection. So we’re talking top draw, not casual doodles.

Before Sgt Pepper, the usual format for an album sleeve was invariably an instantly forgettable image of the singer or performers, usually posed awkwardly in a photographic studio, barely a step up from the pictures taken of me at school for my parents to stand on the sideboard. Maybe the same photographers were used for both, dashing from Cliff Richard in Abbey Road to class 4a in Crouch End Primary School, the only difference being that I would have custard stains on my pullover, Cliff probably didn’t.

Sgt Pepper wasn’t entirely responsible for the change, though. Before that, Klaus Voorman – a musician who played in Manfred Mann and was a graphic designer by trade – had won a Grammy Award for Best Album Cover in 1965 for Revolver, the album released prior to Sgt Pepper. But then, the Beatles were different. For the most part, it looked like the promotions people of record companies were focused on the teen market, where the priority was to get the album on the racks in shops while the single was still in the charts and before the artists disappeared back into obscurity. Classical albums that had a longer shelf were given more time and were frequently picking up honours for their sleeve designs. And just occasionally, some pop albums of the fifties and early sixties were graced with some unexpectedly groundbreaking designs. Can you guess the two artists whose music was wrapped in these sleeves?

But sleeves as art became more commonplace in pop and rock towards the end of the 1960s, reflecting the more thoughtful (or drug-induced) music of psychedelia and prog rock. And it helped sell albums too, leading to more than a handful courting controversy. Famously, there was the Jimi Hendrix album, Electric Ladyland, featuring a group of girls who, it is reported, were offered five pounds to pose topless, and another three to remove their knickers as well. Or John Lennon and Yoko Ono who appeared naked on their Two Virgins album cover. Nudity and scantily clad women continued to be a theme, used by Led Zeppelin, Roxy Music, Whitesnake, the Slits (amongst many) – presenting record shops with an issue. For the first time, the sleeves were capturing the attention. Shops wrapped them in brown paper to avoid complaints from sensitive customers, protect the innocent and preserve the modesty of the performers. But they still were garnering new-found and unwelcome attention. The vinyl had long since been stored separately from the covers to deter shoplifters, but now, with covers themselves becoming desirable, they were constantly being filched without needing to have a record inside. The photocopied sleeve for display duly arrived.

Since then, album artwork has almost become separate from the music. It often displays no text – no identifiers, no track listings or indeed titles – needing stickers plastered on them so sellers and potential purchasers can identify what the album is. Which is ironic because at the same time, the physical dimensions of the art have been reduced. CDs – for a decade or so the prime format for music – shrunk the art from 12” x 12” to minuscule. And for downloads, there is no need for artwork at all, and where it exists at all, it’s invariably reduced to a thumbnail. It must be with a sense of relief for artists that vinyl is making something of a comeback, so their palette is once again bigger, though not quite a triptych in the National Gallery. But it once more provides opportunities to showcase visual creativity alongside the music, providing the owner with a feast for their eyes as well as their ears. And something to revere.

So, while reading this, what album sleeve have you been imagining? Do you have a favourite – past or present?

(Answer to question above = Frank Sinatra, Only The Lonely, (1958) and Cliff Richard, (1965).

Author: Richard Smith

I'm a writer and storyteller and for much if my life produced sponsored films and commercials. Subjects were as varied as bananas in Cameroon, oil from the North Sea, fighting organised crime and caring for older people. Their aim was always to make a positive difference, but, worryingly, two commercials I worked on featured in a British Library exhibition, ‘Propaganda’. View all posts by Richard Smith