Album Covers - Photo Representation

Music has always had an intimate relationship with the visual, however, Up until 1938, Records were only decorated by cardboard sleeves to protect the record.

Alexander Steinweiss began creating the first cover art . As a result had a huge increase in sales. Record stores were refigured to allow customers were encouraged to flick through the artwork.

All this showed how important cover art was to the marketing of the product. Music is a product, it’s a commodity that people consume. Since you can’t sell the band itself, the music has no spatial dimension. The album cover emerged as a stand-in for the commodity for purchase.

The Personality cover

“in its simplist form, we have in a photograph ‘surrogate possession’ of a cherished person or thing’” Susan Sontag

• The album cover is seen as a visual statement for the music on it. It helps us situate the tone and feeling of what we are going to hear. Granted that it stays within the confines of a square the options are limitless. Focusing primarily on photography and album covers, I will take a selection of albums that I feel its representation could be improved, or are simply inspired by the music. I will then try to represent the music on the album through photography and digital manipulation.

Statement