I was looking through a Prince discography and I must say for the iconic status many of his albums have reached, he has possibly one of the worst collections of album artwork.

• Some I just thought were unappealing (in my opinion of course): 1999, Graffitti Bridge
• Some looked like cheap photoshop projects: Musicology, Emanicipation, Crystal Ball
• Others fall into the WTF category: Rave Un2, Prince (moreso the back cover), 20TEN
• And then there's Lovesexy...

I did really like Come, Sign 'O' the Times and Diamonds & Pearls but as I recall he wasn't really involved in creating the concept. I'm sure this will inspire people to defend specific album covers, but am I the only one who thinks there isn't another artist of his stature with such a bad album cover catalog?

Disclaimer: Yes I enjoy, respect and appeciate Prince's output over the years and I know the quality of the records has nothing to do with the music inside... It's just a lightheated conversation for a slow Thursday afternoon

i Agree that some of the covers are awful, some are amazing

Best covers are Purple rain, controversy, sign, love symbol, 3121, gold experience

Worst are crystal ball, rave, and lovesexy. 20ten is a pretty bad cover too

Prince (back cover) Hell, the front cover is not much better!

They've basically been terrible for years. TRC was probably the last great one.

Parade is the only really good one. It's slick, stylish, just all around cool. Controversy's not bad either.

i kinda enjoy how ridiculous and silly soem of them are. lovesexy is just amazingly strange

uuhson said:

i kinda enjoy how ridiculous and silly soem of them are. lovesexy is just amazingly strange

Actually my favorites and least favorites are the same--Lovesexy & Dirty Mind

They are gross & laughable, but from an art & image perspective, they are the best ones.

Otherwise, I would probably pick Sign o the Times as my favorite. Not quite as perfect, but it is interesting and rich, and conveys the theme of the diversity of music inside and the mystery of the artist who created it. Plus, not gross or embarrassing

I also like TRC & Controversy

[Edited 6/16/11 13:58pm]

I was going to start a Prince album art thread but you beat me to it! He does have a ton of horrible album covers, I would say most of them. I do like Sign O the Times and Parade, for the same reasons mentioned above. I also think ATWIAD is attractive and fun. Gold Experience is also nice, so is GoldNigga. I may be forgetting some other nice ones, but I think the rest are pretty bad.

The recent ones look like bad black-light posters!

Purple Rain is horrible; slap the rectange movie poster on there and just fill the sides ugly wallpaper! Horrible composition!

The brotha shoulda' hooked up with a decent graphic designer cause most of the album artwork is bad (read as "could have been A LOT better").

I remember looking at a 100 worst album covers Prince was a repeated offender. Yeh i hate Emancipation and Crystal Ball with a passion, Controversy isnt that bad but he reminds me of a southern colonel.

I like the idea of ARTWIAD but the drawings sucked.

Best cover art is The Black Album.

Did you forget the For You album artwork love the album but that cover is cheaper than a fast food dollar menu, and my beloved Prince album 1979 pitty he looks creeped out on the cover. & plz dont get me started on Rave Un2

I think Controversy is his best artwork, to be honest. if not Controversy than The Gold Experience. and well the back art work for Dirty Mind was lovable, atleast the Dirty Mind album I have, Im guessing there all the same.

Shockedelicus said:

Parade is the only really good one. It's slick, stylish, just all around cool. Controversy's not bad either.

Although I'm not that big on the Controversy cover due to the Colonel Sanders tie. I prefer SOTT. GoldNigga's pretty good, too.

I like the Lovesexy and Dirty Mind covers for the wtf-ness they evoke in those seeing them for the first time, and if they pissed people off back when then that's a good thing too.

NewPowersoul's is the most awful I can think of.

[Edited 6/16/11 16:56pm]

Yeah, most of them are.... unappealing. That said, Sign o' the Times is one of my favourite album covers of any artist!

for such a visually interesting person, he has terrible album covers and videos!

Eye love the cover 2 LoveSexy......What a body.

Lovesexy is one of the best covers, most successul conceptually, and is included in a lot of album art books.

alphachannel said:

I was looking through a Prince discography and I must say for the iconic status many of his albums have reached, he has possibly one of the worst collections of album artwork.

• Some I just thought were unappealing (in my opinion of course): 1999, Graffitti Bridge
• Some looked like cheap photoshop projects: Musicology, Emanicipation, Crystal Ball
• Others fall into the WTF category: Rave Un2, Prince (moreso the back cover), 20TEN
• And then there's Lovesexy...

I did really like Come, Sign 'O' the Times and Diamonds & Pearls but as I recall he wasn't really involved in creating the concept. I'm sure this will inspire people to defend specific album covers, but am I the only one who thinks there isn't another artist of his stature with such a bad album cover catalog?

Disclaimer: Yes I enjoy, respect and appeciate Prince's output over the years and I know the quality of the records has nothing to do with the music inside... It's just a lightheated conversation for a slow Thursday afternoon

I've always loved the Graffit Bridge cover/artwork, it's probably my favorite.

Around the World in a Day is my second-favorite.

I like the actual pictures of Prince that were taken for 1999 (like him in the bed with the neon heart on the wall), but not the drawn artwork.

I used to have a weird fetish-thing for the flower print in the Purple Rain artwork, I was crazy about it although everything else from the Purple Rain artwork was a yawn to me.

alphachannel said:

I was looking through a Prince discography and I must say for the iconic status many of his albums have reached, he has possibly one of the worst collections of album artwork.

True. I don't know anyone else who has been so consistently bad at picking album covers.

The worst are: Prince, 1999, Lovesexy and Musicology.

But I do love: Sign O The Times, Lotusflow3r and MPLSound

My favorites R Controversy, Come, SOTT, and (surprisingly) Lovesexy.

best covers:

Around The World In A Day

Parade [No.1 Best Cover]

Sign "O" The Times

The Black Album

Batman

Diamonds And Pearls [European cover]

Come

worst cover: tie between Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic and LoveSexy.

[Edited 6/17/11 8:28am]

The best:

Lovesexy, SOTT, Around the World in a Day, Parade, Purple Rain, 1999, Dirty Mind, Rainbow Children, 3121

The worst or a bit bad (for many different reasons):

Graffiti Bridge, The Vault, Symbol album, Diamonds and Pearls, Gold Experience, Planet Earth, NEWS, Musicology, Chaos and Disorder.

Most of the ones on my good list were art directed by the same person.

The most boring:

Batman

TheDigitalGardener said:

Best cover art is The Black Album.

agree

I think The Parade, Diamonds n Pearls, The Gold Experience and of course Controversy are very good. Controversy is # 2nd best cover art. But Grafitti Bridge, The Rainbow Children, Newpower Soul (!!).....

Dirty Mind, 1999, Purple Rain, ATWIAD, Parade, SOTT, Lovesexy, the Hits/B-Sides are classic album covers, in my opinion...

then there are the just ok or adequate covers: For You, Batman, D&P, LoveSymbol, Black Album, Come, Gold Experience, Chaos, Emancipation, TRC, 3121, Planet Earth

then the cheap or weird: The Truth, NPS, The Vault, Rave, NEWS, Musicology, Lotus/MPLS, 20Ten

and then the awful: Prince, GB, Crystal Ball

and finally an album cover that could have been much better: Controversy

[Edited 6/17/11 8:32am]

One I liked but many hated: Chaos & Disorder... As for Purple Rain and 1999, I felt the picture sleeves for the singles were superior their respective album covers. BTW did Prince actually draw the 1999 artwork? I remember the tour T-Shirts were similar but had a naughty surprise in the opening of the "P".

Musicology REALLY looks like a bad Photoshop work, I mean, I could have done better, but, hey the songs are cool..

Emancipation is not fantastic one, but I like it anyway, but I'm biased because it's my fav album...

I do like 3121 one, I know it's not a complicated cover, but I like it, there's a warmth in it, similar to Gold Experience...

Lovesexy is....epic LOL

I also like the Vault cover.. well, actually I like when I see him on the cover!

goes to show you should never judge an artist by their covers

I've never thought anything bad about the various Crystal Ball sets artwork (or lack thereof). I think they're supposed to look/be simple. Its a mock bootleg, basically.

thisisit said:

goes to show you should never judge an artist by their covers

LOL you got it.