We skirted through a discussion in a recent post of the album art for Musicology, and I thought it would be cool to hear everyone's views on all things album art for Prince. They say "you can't judge a book by its cover," but come on...you know that part of thoughts on any album stems from the packaging. Especially at first before you give the album a good listen.

So, what Prince album covers do you think will be remembered in music history? What is Prince's "Abbey Road?"

Here are my own thoughts on Prince album covers to start the discussion (as posted previously, but buried in another thread):

For You - Cool dust cover and groovy 1978 feel...for what it was and when it was made, I give it credit.

Prince - Blah. Where did they shoot that photo, the local newsroom where they do the weather on the blue screen? Failing grade, sorry.

Dirty Mind - Frickin' right on.

Controversy - A bit goofy but appropriate for the album. I say "good" despite the fact that he's never looked more like Morris Day than in that cover photo.

1999 - Way cool hand-drawn art from Prince himself.

Purple Rain - A-OK. I would guess that anyone who is a music fan of the 80s could describe this album cover for you without much trouble.

Around the World in a Day - Possibly the most fitting album cover art ever for a Prince album. Use of sections of the large painting on the single LPs was really cool. Could be Prince's "Abbey Road."

Parade - I could do without the shot of his flathead screwdriver bellybutton, but it's elegant and appropriate for the UTCM soundtrack.

SOTT - In a head-to-head race with ATWIAD for the most appropriate and beautiful cover art for a Prince album.

Lovesexy - Not a fan of naked unibrow men, but okay -- it's all about rebirth, and our little man looks like he's on those flowers, especially considering we're talking about pre-Photoshop days here. Good cover.

Batman - Doesn't even count as a Prince album cover.

Graffiti Bridge - The worst P album cover art since his self-titled LP. Looks like a photo collage project from grade school. The hand-lettering by Margo Chase is cool, but it's lost in all the other crap. Is that a frickin' floating hand for Pete's sake?

Diamonds and Pearls - Hologram was inventive and got lots of attention. For that I say "good job."

0(+> - The cheese factory is open for business again. What high school theatre did they get the props from for the video for 7?

The Hits/B-Sides - Nice duotone photography. Simple and cool.

Come - Sorry, not a fan of that. Blame it on the hair and the mustache that practically wraps around the back of his head.

The Gold Experience - Aside from the fact that it looks like they just didn't know what the hell to do with the symbol besides but a black drop shadow the size of Montana on it, I think it was well done. Nice photography treatments.

Chaos and Disorder - Well, the art fits the album, but the back cover is better than the front, I think. The WB logo in the tear...a little silly.

Emancipation - *some* of the photo illustrations are cool, but not most. The last spread of the lyric book would have made a better cover.

The Vault - Bad on purpose, I do believe.

Crystal Ball - It was supposed to look like a bootleg, but it was way worse.

New Power Soul - I've seen better drawings on the photos of the models you see in the lipstick aisle of the grocery store.

Rave - The blue foil was actually very cool. The outfit and the hair were anything but.

TRC - Cool and appropriate.

NEWS - The unique packaging saves the day -- I say cool.

Musicology - The Musicology CD art was bad. Real bad.

The digipak format does have a more "friendly," "earthy" feel than a standard plastic jewel case...but I will say this -- at least the digipak for TRC and NEWS included a method to close and seal the packaging. With Musicology, you just hope it stays shut and the CD booklet doesn't fall out.

Then there's the screenprinting on the CD -- looks very cheaply done at a really low line screen, and the cream-ish color from the album cover drifts towards pink on the CD screenprinting, too.

Typestyler went out of fashion in 1989 -- but the "musicology" text on the album cover looks like it's been revived from Macintosh System 6.

The lyric book...don't even get me started. The first page or two uses the Egyptian-looking Herculanum typeface for the lyrics, then it changes to an extended version of crappy Helvetica or Arial and just looks like a giant mistake. And could the band look any more like stuffed corpses in the group shot? Prince esta muerto...sure looks like it. Thankfully, with a digipak that doesn't close and has no pocket, the chances of losing the booklet altogether are considerably higher.
[Edited 3/18/05 20:37pm]

i would very much like it if photoshop weren't involved in the creation of prince's next album cover. a great photograph. an original painting. something. i was very disappointed in the artwork for the musicology album, especially considering how celebratory last year was. the photo of prince was great - iconic, bold, attractive, you name it - but that viney background and the ugly ESPN-looking title font just dragged the look of the cover way down into the depths. they should have gone simple. impose the profile portrait of prince against a simple black or white background, and for the title just use a nice, clean sans serif font...or if you're wanting to go for an academia theme, put the pic against a background that looks like parchment and use a font that looks like something from an old textbook, or calligraphy.

just before 'musicology' came out, several folks here on the org tried their hands at designing their own album art, and many of their submissions were far better than the official product.

this is what frustrates me - there are lots of folks who have good ideas and who have the hunger to use their talent on a high profile project like a new prince album, yet the folks hired to do the job, based on their output, seem less than inspired.

my bits n'nuggets:

for you: i actually wanted to get the pic of ol' boy on the dust sleeve of this album (him sittin supposedly nekkid with that big-assed acoustic geetar with the two ghost-like images of himself on either side of 'im) done as a tattoo at one point...i think the whole thing's nice.

prince: nice hair. thing i love about it is the calligraphy work done on p's name.

dm: and to think that warners wanted this cover in color! good thing that p got his way and it stayed black and white, because it adds to the whole punk feel of the album.

controversy: they totally over-airbrushed poor prince's face (he looks orange as hell)...the newspaper headline backdroppage was class too.

1999: one of my fave album covers, simply because p drew it himself (not too shabby either--he should do more art, i've always been curious as to what he can do as a visual artist)

pr: meh.

atwiad: i like this a lot--the gatefold design was pretty cool too.

parade: pretty self-explanatory.

sott: i've always thought of the cover photo as a painting...i love the way that p is outta focus and off to the side.

lovesexy: my very first visual introduction to prince (seen it on wrecka sto shelves when i was only 7)...it's fitting (and airbrushed like whoa)

batman: meh.

gb: if there weren't so much going on with it in the background it'd be cool.

d & p: holographic pix are cool.


....then from the album on, the covers went totally downhill.

i remember really liking the purple rain cover art...i remember the first time i saw the album in a store i thought it looked like something you should keep in your kitchen.

but the border w/ the flowers is nice attention to detail, and with all the different fonts representing each song and the poem on the back cover (or was it the inside cover? it's been a while) and the poster and the design all over the place - on the actual album label, on the sleeve, etc. - it felt like i wasn't just getting an album, i was getting a kit, silly as that sounds. you could sit with that album and listen to the music and just immerse yourself in it. i miss that kind of fun and joy and love going into the design of prince's albums. i think one day they'll rediscover it.

Awesome reviews, Doozer....totally spot on for me, too. And handclaps, your views are in line with mine mostly as well.

Nice reviews, here are my picks for his absolute best:

Dirty Mind: Excellent, badass pose and it just looks cool.

ATWIAD: Very appropriate on all fronts, love it.

Sign O' The Times: Relatively simplistic but it fits, perfect imagery for the album.

The Gold Experience: I liked this one, reminds me a lot of the Dirty Mind cover, just with more mystique to it.

Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic: The cover sucks, but all of the inside art rules - Very modern and glossy, with some cool images - Prince in the pool with his holograph hand remains a favorite image of mine.


Worst cover/artwork: Tie between Musicology (bland) and Graffiti Bridge (chaotic and sloppy).

Anxiety said:

Yes! I say let Zelaira do the next one!

Here's my views on Prince's sleeves... (part 1)

For You - pretty cool picture, not outstanding though. I like the
horizontal streaking on the image.

Prince - OK, pretty straightforward though. Personally I think the
picture on the inside sleeve is a better more interesting shot though.

Dirty Mind - His first truly great sleeve. A truly good sleeve should
somehow visually represent the music within, and this does it. The risque
outfit, the bedsprings backdrop, the fact that it's black & white, all
perfectly mirror the musical and lyrical content.

Controversy - Worst one so far. Terribly over-airbrushed and orange
looking picture. The newspapers are very basically realised and put together.
A much better idea would have been to make the cover as a whole look like a
newspaper's front page with Prince as the imaginary headline story.

1999 - Great sleeve. The hand drawn look brings to mind old Funkadelic
albums, but keeping the image graphical rather than figurative and cartoony
makes it new and fresh. Plus it's very purple and striking.

Purple Rain - Very good sleeve. Moody cinematic shot with iconic
typography. Personally, I'd have prefered the type to have been graduated
like the movie poster rather than dark purple with a yellow drop shadow, but
that's just a minor quibble.

Around The World In A Day - Great. Like Dirty Mind, this sleeve
perfectly captures the feel of the music. The gatefold adds to the whole
psychedelic vibe, and representing all the songs on the cover was genius.

Parade - Another good cover. Minimalist, but still with a certain
psychedelic-ness to the combined image.

Sign O' The Times - Great cover. Captures the mood of the album in an
unusual and non-literal way. My only gripe is the superimposed guitar on the
floor isn't executed as well as it could have been (it should've faded into
his shoulder, not cut).

I fell in love with the Rave blue foil picture of Prince on the back of the case. I don't know what it is about that picture of him, but I love it.

BorisFishpaw said:

VERY good point -- the soft focus of Prince's shoulder definitely created a problem when they added the guitar, and it's pretty evident that the guitar was added after the shot.

Great comments, everyone.

Album covers...part 2

The Black Album - Nice idea, can't go wrong really. Nice simple use
of peach typography on the labels.

Lovesexy - Good cover (but not great). The idea is good and it's well
executed, but there's just something about the composition that prevents me
from calling it great. He just seems a little too posed and upright in that
picture (plus his thigh looks a bit airbrushed).

Batman - Good cover for a movie soundtrack, though almost certainly
had nothing to do with Prince.

Graffiti Bridge - An OK cover, trying to be a bit 'Around The World In
A Day' with it's montage of images, but it just doesn't work very well. None
of the images seem to have anything to do with the movie or the album.

Diamonds And Pearls - Good cover (but not great). The hologram version
is pretty cool and was quite striking at the time, and I like the simple
classic composition of the regular blue cover too (though I think it looks
better in color)

- Doesn't quite work for me. It's a bit too stagey. I prefered the
original sleeve which was simply going to have the large gold symbol on a
plain black background.

The Hits / The B-Sides - Nice classy sepia toned photography, but I
found the typography a little uninspired. Good overall though.

Come - OK. Personally I would have prefered a less zoomed-in use of
the cover image (it looks better with more of the Cathedral in shot), and
again, the typography is rather bland and uninteresting. Even so, it beats
the hell out of the original 'fashion drawing' cover (I'm not a fan of the
Exodus look).

The Gold Experience - Not terrible, but just seems a bit clunky. I
have to say it looked WAY better (and made more sense) printed on metallic
paper as it was originally intended. I'm not keen on the typography, and the
drop shadow on the symbol is too heavy and on the wrong side IMHO.

Chaos And Disorder - Seems very un-Princey to me, but I guess it fits
with the mood of the time. OK, but a bit 'thrown together'.

Emancipation - Idea-wise it seems on the right track, but it just
seems a bit boring. It also looks indistinct and a bit out of focus.

I think "1999" is one of the most artistic covers. The collage of hand drawn pictures within the title is great. Both inside sleeves are great too. They capture the look of a futuristic world which also works really well with the sound of the music on this album. This album is artistic all the way down to the pictures of the eye on the label of the two records themselves.

I prefer it in black and white too. It also adds to the sleaziness of the album. The inside sleeve is great too. The band almost looks like it is in a police lineup. The raggedy old typewriter font on the other side of the inside sleeve even adds to the "fuck it" attitude of the record.

I think for his next release, Prince needs to remove his image from the record so that, in theory, people recieve a signal to focus on the music and not him. Prince is NOTORIOUS for AWFUL album covers. Good ones mentioned are Dirty Mind, even though I hate seeing a dude in panty type underware, 1999, ATWIAD, that's about it. Another hand drawn cover reminiscent of 1999 would be perfect. Worry about what the music sounds like, not what I look like. And for the lyric book, simple hand written lyrics, scanned, not altered, the sheet he looked at when he was in the studio singing(scribbles and all), maybe superimposed over some artsy image, but hopefully not. Back to friggin basics...that's what he's been spoutin'. Judging from the 3121 on his shirt(embarrased to say blouse) from the NAACP awards, it doesn't seem like that will happen. What do y'all think.

On a side note, for his next record, I think Prince should limit himself to a 4 or 8 track machine. He can do all the overdubs and mix-downs he wants...but no more than 8 trax. It would be wonderful to see what would happen of he did that. A hundered-and-some-odd trax is just not necessary.


spelling edit
[Edited 3/21/05 1:09am]

I loved loved loved the Rave cover.

What other man would get away with wearing ribbons and a jumpsuit?

That alone is a good enough reason to be a Prince fan in my mind....

BorisFishpaw said:

What was this? Any examples?