Behind the Covers
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“1990s”

3 cover stories in our archive

Behind the Covers' archive includes 3 album covers documented under the "1990s" design theme, all from the 1990s. These covers sit within the alternative, rock tradition and feature work by Suede, Dave Matthews Band, Pixies. Each entry below includes the cover artwork, the designers and photographers behind it, and a short story about the visual choices that defined the release.

Coming Up by Suede — album cover art

Coming Up by Suede (1996)

Suede's Coming Up cover turned three models on a striped mattress into a fluorescent hallucination. Brett Anderson brought Peter Saville into the project; Saville and fashion photographer Nick Knight shaped the imagery, Howard Wakefield designed the sleeve, and digital paintbox work pushed the photograph toward the lurid, ambiguous glamour that matched Suede's brighter 1996 reinvention.

Label
Nude Records
Designer
Howard Wakefield
Photographer
Nick Knight
Genre
Alternative, Rock
Decade
1990s
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Crash by Dave Matthews Band — album cover art

Crash by Dave Matthews Band (1996)

Thane Kerner designed and illustrated Dave Matthews Band's Crash cover, splitting the sleeve between deep purple and red around a dense abstract form that seems to shift between machinery and plant life. C. Taylor Crothers photographed the band for the wider package, but the front cover itself is Kerner's illustration.

Label
RCA Records
Designer
Thane Kerner
Genre
Rock, Alternative
Decade
1990s
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Trompe le Monde by Pixies — album cover art

Trompe le Monde by Pixies (1991)

For Pixies' final album before their original breakup, Vaughan Oliver and Simon Larbalestier built a false planetary surface from salt and real bull's eyes. The result is one of the strangest sleeves in the band's 4AD catalog: tactile, bodily and deliberately deceptive.

Label
4AD
Designer
Vaughan Oliver
Photographer
Simon Larbalestier
Genre
Alternative, Rock
Decade
1990s
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