Best covers:

Lovesexy
TRC
Controversy
PR
Parade
SOTT
D&P

Here's my quick 2c on each album cover...


For You - kinda OK cover, nothing special, but well executed.

Prince - Good, nice typo, good picture, like the pegasus pic on the back.

Dirty Mind - Great cover, really expresses the musical content. Certainly has that 'Uh-Oh, WTF?!' thing.

Controversy - dull cover, nasty airbrushed mug shot. Shoulda made the cover into a newspaper style like G'N'R Lies or that Tom Waits album.

1999 - cool, hand-drawn weirdness. Has that kinda P-funk vibe, but up to date.

Purple Rain - great iconic shot, perfect. Not entirely convinced by the flower borders, might have prefered it without, like on the Let's Go Crazy sleeve.

Around The World In A Day - Again, captures the mood of the music, though I did like the original airbrushed painting cover.

Parade - Classy b&w cover. Striking image, like it.

Sign O' The Times - great cover, so much going on. Again captures the left of centre feel of the album. Would have been nice if it had been a gatefold though, but I guess they did that to keep costs down since it was a double.

The Black Album - does exactly what it says on the tin. (smell the glove, anyone?)

Lovesexy - Great image, though he does look a little uncomfortable. Compositionally, I think it would have looked better tilted about 20 degrees, so he's a bit more reclined.

Batman - just follows the movie imagery, OK.

Graffiti Bridge - Well executed picture, but for some reason I can't put my finger on, I've never really liked it. Doesn't seem to tie in with the movie at all.

Diamonds And Pearls - Classy pic, both hologram & blue pictures. A lot more straightforward.

- not sure about this one, nice still from the 7 video, but I think I would have prefered the original plain black cover with the big gold symbol.

The Hits - Nice sepia toned pics from the D&P era, nothing special. With a title like 'Hits' they shoulda used that 'James Bond' gun mic photo.

Come - more about the state of play with WB than the music. Would have looked better with the full picture, so you could see the catherderal. Better than the original 'fashion sketch' cover.

The Gold Experience - It looked SO much better printed on foil paper! looses all it's impact just being 'gold colored'.

Chaos And Disorder - contract filling album, contract filling cover, nothing special.

Emancipation - Just the same picture that already been used for thedawn.com, bit dull really.

Crystal Ball - Looked a lot better with the round booklet in the 'hockey puck' case. Looks uninspired on a jewel case.

The Vault...Old Friends 4 Sale - another contract filling cover for a contract filling album.

Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic - Even the groovy foil blocking can't make me like this one. It just doesn't seem to 'gel'. Lots of much more interesting images were in the calendar from the same year. What about the swirly fall leaves pic?

The Very Best Of Prince - To call this lazy, would be an understatement, cheap looking and horrible.

The Rainbow Children - Great image, though should have just filled the cover with it rather than having the pic skewed with the frame showing. A bit lazy using the same image on the back though.

.

odd thing: i first heard the dirty mind album without seein the cover, and it got my attention anyhoo...in fact, i didn't even see the cover till a year after i first heard the album.

c & d's album cover didn't beat around the bush...shitty cover, shitty album.



controversy is pretty self-explanatory (i agree with boris: the airbrush job wuz so unnecessary )...

i have yet 2 figure out exactly why ol' boy wuz doin a "lord godiva" on the back of the prince album...still looks cool, tho'.

pimpytheclown said:

Exactly.. We had waited so long for this album and by the
time it was released, after all the disputes and silly
games between Prince and Warners, I expected all parties
to put some serious promotional muscle into this release
and push it up to #1 and keep it there for months.

However, as soon as I walked into the record store and saw
that "fugly" [as you put it] cover, I knew that this was
not gonna be something everyone was pushing their hardest
for anymore.

It looks as if it was thrown together in 3 minutes. Kind
of like "I can't be bothered to come up with a concept, I
was told the gold metalic was too expensive, so what the
fuck do I care". "Ok, let's do diamonds and pearls pt II
then, only let's make it terribly ugly and camp".

And how great it worked out. Especially the way the album
titel is scribbled on there. THAT is the most embarassing
bit of the whole package. fugly doesn't even describe that.
A bit of poop would have been less ugly on the cover than
that title. YackballmilkYUCK.

Indeed, it does infest the way you experience the album
and the individual songs. All association is foggy messy
orange/yellow with dogpoop fonts. nasty.



Some of the best covers are "Parade", "Sign O The Times",
"The Rainbow Children", "Hits/B-Sides 3cd" [ironically,
Prince mentioned that it was the only cover he had NOTHING
to do with, quelle surprise it's the most classy].

livewire said:

I'm one third of the Defenders of All Things 1999 squad, but that cover isn't special really. What's special is the music, and that's what it's really all about. You can find some subversive things in that 1999 cover, but the design isn't ideal. I don't know how the rest of my 1999 squad feels about it, so I'm only speaking for myself.

Over his entire career Prince's album cover designs go through the same extremes as the music contained in them.

I personally hate the cover for Lovesexy, and I think the album is overrated among his fans anyway. The Purple Rain cover was just OK, but I love the album. The Dirty Mind cover was perfect for its content, and I love that album. Likewise for TRC. The SOTT cover is one of his best, and although I wouldn't be without the album, I don't think it's his best work. Chaos & Disorder was an I don't give a rat's ass, let's get this over with album in content (but not everything was a throwaway), as was the cover.

Best covers:

ONA Studio
The beautiful experience (with all the TMBGITW remixes)

sign o' the times
grafitti bridge

i would say the same about TRC...but I was one of the fortunate ones who got to attend the listening sessions at the celly 2001 and heard it before seeing the album cover.

I am trying to think of a reason for which Prince's album covers were not that great. As suggested by Prince himself in words and pictures (the inner sleeve of 1999) he paints himself so one can suspect he is interested in how things look. Maybe it's an example that a person so sensitive about one type of art (music) does not have the same perception for others (graphic forms).

As for me, I believe his album covers are rather there to represent the attitude he has had towards particular album:

- Dirty Mind - I don't give a fuck, it's what I am.

- Purple Rain - the iconography is pretty obvious here

- Around the World in a Day - the hippy trip

- Parade - minimalism rules

- SOTT - I will blow your mind

- Lovesexy - rebirth

- Graffiti Bridge - this is a collection of songs, choose what you want

- Diamonds & Pearls - I want a hit and I want it now

- Come - dark, moody, sexy, enigmatic

- Emancipation - exactly like the promotion slogan went - 3 hours of sex, love and liberty [I must add that this cover is truly awful]

- Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic - I want a hit and I want it now plus I want to be on top again because I haven't been there for some time

- The Rainbow Children - things have changed - it's music first, not me