The Importance of an Album Cover

Juniper Wolff

Local Music Journalist

We have all seen an album cover before. We have all seen the iconic The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd or Nevermind by Nirvana. Album cover art is often unappreciated. It adds a lot more depth and creativity to the album than you may think. The goal of an album cover is to provide and add on to the overarching theme or emotion that the record is meant to provide.  Back to the Nirvana example, the album cover portrays an infant swimming after money. This imagery intertwines with the overall genre and message of the album. Many great album covers come to mind not only from Texas, but from the local area in San Marcos. 

One fantastic example of a thematic album cover by a local band is Dear, Wormwood by The Oh, Hellos. The rugged look of the cover emphasizes the folk music inside of it. It truly tells a story. The album cover, meant to look like a letter, adds an interesting and representative visual of the album title Dear Wormwood. It provides a unique, artistic visual take that is often not explored in music of the era. At that point in time, many album visuals included headshots of the artist or overly colorful displays. As a great contrast to 2015’s flamboyant artistry, Dear Wormwood stays humble and represents the folk genre well. 

Another great example of fun, unique album art is Window Shop’s self-titled album, Window Shop. Diverging from the subtle colors of Dear Wormwood, Window Shop brings a kaleidoscopic palette of colors to the table. This album does an exceptional job at representing the internal contents of the album in a visual manner. Like the cover, the music sounds like a beautiful collage of color working together to create a masterpiece. 

Another fantastic Window Shop masterwork is their sophomore album, Window Shop II. The design of this cover strays away from their debut album, but there are still some artistic choices which carry over between the works. The use of collage and mixing different pieces of media and art into their covers is used throughout their entire discography. Contrary to their other albums, this one takes a unique approach by tying in the “I Spy” aesthetic. They utilize this style by adding a bunch of children’s toys, miniatures of each band member, and including their band name spelled out in Scrabble tiles. Overall, the use of this design adds to the cute and cozy nature that this local indie rock band has to offer. 

A final (and favorite) example of an aesthetically pleasing album cover belongs to Hey, Hallelujah! by Haddon Stauffer. This delightful acoustic album is all about nature and mountains and the album cover reflects it perfectly. The use of saturation isn’t overly excessive, but adds the right amount of color to make it pleasing to look at and helps it stick out from the similarly colored border. The hand-drawn border adds to the DIY energy and feeling of this fun, wholesome indie album. 

Album covers are an often misunderstood and misrepresented piece of artwork. They are almost always overlooked by the musical content of an album. Famous and noteworthy album cover art stands out not only from how pleasant it is to the eye, but with how it interconnects with the music and its theme. Next time you look at an album, appreciate the artwork that is displayed overtop of it. You will appreciate your favorite records even just a bit more.