4 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 4 album covers documented under the "trip hop" design theme, all from the 1990s. These covers sit within the electronic, alternative tradition and feature work by Massive Attack, Tricky, 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.
Nick Knight's extreme close-up of a stag beetle — rendered with scientific precision in high contrast — is simultaneously beautiful and menacing, perfectly matching the album's dark, claustrophobic, paranoid atmosphere.
Tricky's debut album cover features a stark black and white portrait that perfectly captures the dark, intimate atmosphere of his groundbreaking trip-hop masterpiece. The minimalist design became an iconic representation of mid-90s alternative culture.
Protection does not abandon the visual language of Blue Lines — it transforms it. Massive Attack's 1994 sleeve places torn, burned-looking flammable-gas hazard artwork over a cold metallic surface, with the silver Eurochild figure at the center. Original-release credits list artwork to Massive Attack and Michael Nash Associates.
Portishead's Dummy cover is not an anonymous model photographed for a retro fashion shoot. The blue, blurry image is vocalist Beth Gibbons in a still from the band's own noir-tinged short film To Kill a Dead Man, carrying the group's cinematic world directly onto its 1994 debut.