7 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 7 album covers documented under the "experimental" design theme, spanning the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s. These covers sit within the hip-hop, alternative, rock tradition and feature work by Mac Miller, Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Danny Brown and others. 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.
A painted portrait of Mac Miller by Alim Smith became the centerpiece for this posthumous album's Grammy-nominated package, designed by Portuguese artist Bráulio Amado. Miller commissioned the artwork in 2016 for this experimental 2014 recording.
A fashion shoot gone legendary: Norwegian photographer Sølve Sundsbø's experimental 3D scan of a model became Coldplay's iconic 2002 cover after Chris Martin spotted it in Dazed & Confused magazine.
The Rolling Stones' psychedelic masterpiece featured the first 3D lenticular cover in rock history, created by fashion photographer Michael Cooper. The elaborate shoot took place in a rented studio with elaborate costumes, flowers, and optical effects that cost a fortune.
Danny Brown's Atrocity Exhibition features stark, industrial artwork that mirrors the album's chaotic hip-hop experimentalism. The cover's brutalist aesthetic perfectly captures the Detroit rapper's descent into addiction and mental fragmentation.
Photographer Herb Greene captured Jefferson Airplane in an infrared dreamscape that perfectly matched their psychedelic sound. The otherworldly technique turned the band into ghostly figures floating through a surreal landscape.
David Byrne created this stark, unsettling cover by photocopying his own face repeatedly until the image degraded into a haunting, pixelated portrait that perfectly captured the album's paranoid themes.
Simon Larbalestier's heavily manipulated photograph of a macaque — distorted through multiple exposures and analog techniques — captures the Pixies' surrealist sensibility, connecting to the album's themes of nature, primitivism, and the relationship between humans and animals.