# Favorite Album Covers



## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Here are some of mine


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

Here are 3 I like...


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Cosmos said:


> Here are some of mine
> 
> View attachment 20773
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> ...


maybe you know it already, anyway the first one is the masterpiece of Stefano Maderno, while the painting is a landscape of Arkhip Kuindzhi. I'm saying that because it's so annoying when I have no clue about the beautiful paintings and art in general used on the covers, and it happens a lot of times.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Always catches my eye


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> View attachment 20784
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> Always catches my eye


and this looks like Oskar Schlemmer (but I'm not sure about it)

edit:yes, it's Schlemmer


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Classical music has some of the most uninspired album covers I've ever seen. I'm not sure why that is, but it seems to me rock often has it beat by light years when it comes to graphic design. There are exceptions. I like this one, though I don't have the album:










Looks like it might be Gustav Klimt? I enjoy paintings and artistic photography rather than the performer's mug shot, or even that of the composer.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

The CD cover just puts me in the mood.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

But Weston seriously yeah I have seen some tremendously horrible album covers that make me cringe.


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## TrevBus (Jun 6, 2013)

Well, IMO, I buy the albums/cds for the music. If I want art, I buy paintings. Sorry but I do get your point.


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

Some of the ones I like:









If you are a _'Zen-er'_ maybe you will like it.









Sadly the loaded image is of poor quality but the picture in the cover is beautiful, really.









I don't know why this cover is so attractive to me... I can contemplate it for hours.

Maybe is the wish to be sited in one of the steps, in peaceful contemplation.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

TrevBus said:


> Well, IMO, I buy the albums/cds for the music. If I want art, I buy paintings. Sorry but I do get your point.


I agree, it's all about the music. I'm just talking about album artwork that I like


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## jtbell (Oct 4, 2012)

My all-time favorite is actually an LP from 1968. Psychedelic Sibelius!









It was one of the first LPs that I bought, as an impressionable teenager. Unfortunately, I must have gotten rid of it at some point, because it's not in the small box that contains my remaining few LPs. I had to scarf this picture off the net with a Google search.


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## MJongo (Aug 6, 2011)

Here's an iconic one:


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## Geo Dude (May 22, 2013)

Great thread idea.

Here's one off the top of my head:


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)




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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Mahlerian I too love the cover for Boulez's Das Lied


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Cosmos said:


> Mahlerian I too love the cover for Boulez's Das Lied


His Mahler series for DG had great covers...until someone decided that they wanted to stick his face on them (from the 3rd on, I think?).


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

An opinion of Brahms...


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## chrisco97 (May 22, 2013)

*My personal favourite album cover in my collection:*










I also really like the covers of the Big Box albums.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

KenOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOC said:


> An opinion of Brahms...


That is very wierd.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

The first two that come to mind:


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

It's appropriate that Cosmos started this thread - I'm really taken with the 'cosmic' sleeves that Hyperion used for many of Robert Simpson's recordings. Cosmos's own avatar would have been perfect.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Hardly suprising....


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

norman bates said:


> maybe you know it already, anyway the first one is the masterpiece of Stefano Maderno, while the painting is a landscape of Arkhip Kuindzhi. I'm saying that because it's so annoying when I have no clue about the beautiful paintings and art in general used on the covers, and it happens a lot of times.


The Kuindzhi is a fine thing.

I share your annoyance when the cover art grabs me, and it isn't identified/documented _anywhere_ in the release. Just the artist's name would give me a starting place on the Internet... . Rats, now I am irritated on Sunday.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Burroughs said:


> That is very wierd.


The documentation explains the picture... you see, it can be done.


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## Kleinzeit (May 15, 2013)

jtbell said:


> My all-time favorite is actually an LP from 1968. Psychedelic Sibelius!
> 
> View attachment 20800
> 
> ...


Wow! Me too! 15 yrs. old, I was buying all of those Nonesuch albums because they were off the shoplifting price point (I'm looking at you, Beatles, jacking up albums a whole dollar for Abbey Road, then _everybody_ must follow suit). Rite of Spring, Morton Subotnick electronics, Telemann, Rossini, early musick, a great one called Masque Music by Concentus Musicus of Denmark, all Nonesuch.

I didn't _get_ the Sibelius at all, with me ears of cloth, that came later. But it's conducted by Lucas Foss!


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## MJongo (Aug 6, 2011)

I can't believe I almost forgot my favorite:


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

My two favorites at the moment:


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

MJongo said:


> I can't believe I almost forgot my favorite:
> View attachment 20827


I like it, Mjongo!


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

An album I just purchased:









Even before hearing it this struck me as an excellent match for Norgard's music.


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## TrevBus (Jun 6, 2013)

Cosmos said:


> I agree, it's all about the music. I'm just talking about album artwork that I like


I know. That's why I said I get your point.


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## jtbell (Oct 4, 2012)

Kleinzeit said:


> I was buying all of those Nonesuch albums because they were off the shoplifting price point


Nonesuch, Turnabout, RCA Victrola, Pickwick, Seraphim, London Stereo Treasury...

The National Record Mart in the new shopping mall in my midwestern steel-mill town didn't have much of a classical section, but it did have a few bins of those budget labels all mixed together. I still have the Turnabout LPs of Nielsen's string quartets by the Copenhagen String Quartet, which I've never seen on CD. Haven't been able to play them for about 15 years. I need to get a new turntable someday so I can digitize them and the other LPs in that box in my closet.


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## Geo Dude (May 22, 2013)

I love it when a cover is used to help remind one of the music, or a quality it's known for. This is also a good marketing tool.

Case in point, this set of Brahms' symphonies:










I can't help but think that the choice to photograph Rattle in front of the changing leaves was done to evoke the autumnal or nostalgic quality commonly associated with Brahms.

The covers on two recent Gardiner recordings pull off the same stunt, I think, which is impressive given that I'm normally immune to the charms of abstract art.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

One of my personal faves.


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## Kleinzeit (May 15, 2013)

Geo Dude-- you wanna do a GIS on Howard Hodgkin see some of those details whole & in scale.


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## Geo Dude (May 22, 2013)

Kleinzeit said:


> Geo Dude-- you wanna do a GIS on Howard Hodgkin see some of those details whole & in scale.


I've done just that and they're impressive works.


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## schuberkovich (Apr 7, 2013)

MagneticGhost said:


> One of my personal faves.


Me too!

15letters


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## Sudonim (Feb 28, 2013)

An ECM-like cover from DG:









Plus ...

























(I admit to being a sucker for cover art: when I saw this one posted here - I think StLuke's posted it - I knew I had to get it, even though I'm not a big opera lover ...)









(Posting ECM covers could go on for days, of course - it's one of the things they're known for.)


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## Sudonim (Feb 28, 2013)

More:


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

MagneticGhost said:


> One of my personal faves.


do you know who is the painter?


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## schuberkovich (Apr 7, 2013)

norman bates said:


> do you know who is the painter?


Jean Delville it says


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

I like this one:


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

​One of my very favourites .


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

[Image won't work for some reason]

Google Tchaikovsky's Symph.no.4 with Ozawa and the Paris Orchestra on Classics for Pleasure. That one's so bad, it's brilliant.


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