Gered is an English photographer who has shot hundreds of record covers.
He now fronts the band Peter Hook and The Light and has written three books about his storied music career. ‘Hooky’ needs no introduction to music fans – he was the bass guitarist and co-founder of Joy Division and New Order. We’ve put together a panel of 20 pundits to help us choose the finest album cover art. The most popular picks made our shortlist. The criteria were to choose LP covers based on creative photography, use of photography, overall visual impact and how the power of the imagery may have helped to contribute to an album’s success. They were asked to vote independently for their Top 10 favourite album covers of all time. Since the 1960s thousands of iconic album covers have been produced, but which ones are The All-Time Greatest Album Covers? To find out AP spoke to 20 experts – photographers, art directors, designers, music journalists and musicians – to get their insights into the very best album cover art. A new generation of creatives was producing increasingly inventive album sleeve designs and great album photography. This was followed by the 1964 releases of Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Ĭhangin’ (photo by Barry Feinstein) and the Rolling Stones’ debut album, which only had Nicholas Wright’s moody photograph of the band and the Decca logo on the cover.Ī rapid evolution of album cover possibilities gave photographers, art directors and graphic artists the freedom to explore creative photography, stunning graphics, illustrations, band logos, and gatefold sleeves. The Beatles were at the forefront of this and photographer Robert Freeman’s iconic image on the 1963 album With The Beatles set a new style. The early 1960s heralded an explosion of young musicians who wrote their own music and wanted to project a cool image. Standard practice was for a record company’s in-house ‘creatives’ to use a single PR photo (usually black & white) of the artist framed within a cover, with a panel naming the artist and album. I convinced the executives to let me design a few.’ In the mid-1950s he began working with photography and deployed garish colours, odd lighting set-ups and visual puns.ĭespite this, even in that mid-1950s period, album covers were often bland and boring. Of the LP covers of that time, he said, ‘They were so drab, so unattractive.
Steinweiss is widely credited with spearheading a new era of album cover art. In 1938 Columbia Records hired Alex Steinweiss as its first art director.
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