Some album covers are as iconic as the music that they presented. We could even argue that they delivered some of the most iconic pieces of popular art of the past few decades. But are they still relevant? A new survey of the most recognisable album cover raises some questions.
The results threw up a concentration of album covers from the 60s, 70s and 80s (several of them feature in our own pick of the best album covers), with very few recent album covers near the top of the list. Does this mean the golden days of album covers over?
The UK electronics retailer Currys surveyed 2,000 Brits in a bid to find out which album cover people most recognise. They found that despite being 54 years old, the Beatles’ Abbey Road came out on top, with 48 per cent of all respondents saying they could immediately recognise it. Perhaps most surprisingly, the victory was fairly consistent across the generations, with 45% of younger respondents aged 16-24 saying they recognised the cover.
Next up was Michael Jackson's 1987 album Bad, which is perhaps so recognisable for the sheer simplicity of the design. The Beatles als took third position, with 37% of participants recognising Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with its lineup of cutouts including Mae West, Fred Astaire, Bob Dylan, Tony Curtis, Marilyn Monroe, Oscar Wilde and more.
The top five is completed by Nirvana's Nevermind (1991) and the Sex Pistol's Never Mind the B*llocks (1977). In fact, the 70s provides the next few spots: David Bowie's Alladin Sane followed by two Pink Floyd albums, the Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall.
We have to go all the way down to position nine to find an album that was released in the current century – 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin', followed by Green Day's American Idiot. The newest album cover in the top 20 is Adele's 25 from 2015 at number 13.
So have there been no good album covers since 2015? I think there are a few possible explanations. Firstly, there may have been some bias in the methodology that was used. Respondents weren't asked to choose freely but to respond to a "curated list of over 60 albums which regularly feature in round up lists for their covers". As such, the survey was limited to the contents of 'best of' lists, at least some of which are likely to have been drawn up by journalists and critics of a certain age.
However, there's also the fact that album covers just don't have the same significance that they used to. When music was sold as a physical object, be it on vinyl, cassette or CD, an album cover was an essential part of the product. It provided a protective cover, and we had no option but to look at it – in the shop, when opening the product and every time we played it. Fans would often pore over covers for hours while listening to the music.
In an an age in which you can buy and stream individual tracks online, album covers have become almost an unnecessary bonus; a thumbnail to show on screen while the mp3 is playing. They may be used in marketing materials, but we don't often see them at the size we would in the past, and we don't have to pay much attention to them. There's also the fact that the covers at the top of the list are iconic because of the groups involved. Few contemporary bands have been as globally influential as The Beatles and The Sex Pistols.
The survey did find a generation gap, however. Some 27% of those aged 16-24 believed the 2000s had the best album covers, something that isn't reflected in the overall results. Overall, the 80s was judged to be the decade with the best covers (24% of all respondents), while, the 60s came last despite those Beatles covers in the top three.
You can find more on the study at the Curry's website. Also see our pick of the worst album covers of all time for the other side of the story.
