3 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 3 album covers documented under the "cinematic" design theme, spanning the 1970s, 1990s. These covers sit within the soul, funk, r&b, hip-hop, electronic tradition and feature work by Curtis Mayfield, Raekwon, Portishead. 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.
Curtis Mayfield's blaxploitation soundtrack cover became as iconic as the film itself, featuring stark typography and street-level imagery that perfectly captured the gritty urban world of early 1970s cinema.
The purple-tinted cover of Raekwon's solo debut established the visual template for Wu-Tang's cinematic crime saga aesthetic. Shot like a noir film still, it transformed hip-hop album art from street photography into sophisticated visual storytelling that matched the album's mafioso narratives.
The grainy, noir-ish photograph with a woman's face partially obscured in shadow creates an atmosphere of nocturnal melancholy — the purest visual expression of the 'Bristol Sound' aesthetic of dark, cinematic trip-hop.