8 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 8 album covers documented under the "experimental" design theme, spanning the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s. These covers sit within the hip-hop, r&b, electronic, alternative, rock tradition and feature work by Mac Miller, Danny Brown, FKA twigs, Coldplay 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.
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.
Jesse Kanda created LP1's uncanny portrait from photographs of FKA twigs, sculpting and altering her head in 3D, changing texture and lighting, and then painting over the image. Release credits name FKA twigs and Phil Lee for design and Kanda for photography.
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.
Vaughan Oliver and Simon Larbalestier turned the Pixies' 'Monkey Gone to Heaven' image into Doolittle's bronze-toned cover: a monkey specimen beneath a halo, the numbers 5, 6 and 7, and a Golden Section grid inspired by Black Francis telling Oliver that successful music was mathematical.
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.
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.
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.