Back in the day, every book and album came with a nice bit of cover art. Albums, especially, could get very fancy, including fold-out covers, various fancy things (like the zipper on that one Rolling Stone album) and other shinies to catch your eye.
Nowadays, with mp3s and Kindle/Nook/iPad books, cover art has become almost an afterthought. Sure, it’s cool to see the picture of the album on the iPod as you browse through your music, but it doesn’t stick in your head the way it did when you had to pull out the album or even CD case.
In the case of books - sheesh, most electronic books don’t even TRY to preserve the covers.
I find that I don’t miss the cover art on music at all. The music is the thing. But books? I wish my Kindle would flash the cover of the current book for a second or two whenever I turned on the device, or, if not the full cover, the title and author of the book. I find that I remember books for their covers a lot of the time, and I have a hard time remembering the title if I don’t associate it with a picture. For example, I recently read Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy. I got the first book - The Blade Itself - from the library. I remember the title and can picture the cover.
The second two books, I got on the Kindle. Hell if I can remember their names. I just refer to them as “the second two books.” And I never saw the covers at all.
I’ve got four iPods. A third generation (back when it was black and white). A fourth generation that had cover art but if it wasn’t loaded it would have the text span across the screen. A sixth gen iPod that always has the box for the cover art, right or wrong (and in quite a many case it’s wrong). And a former iPhone that’s now just an iPod.
By and large I preferred the 4th gen iPod because it wouldn’t show the cover art and gave me more space for text. (I hate it when the cover art is incorrect. Big Daddy/= Big Daddy Kane tyvm).
But the one thing about cover art with music was that it seemed to adjust my mood towards the album. That Petrol Emotions “End of the Millenium Psychosis Blues” cover was not really close to what was going on in the album and I always felt disjointed listening to it and looking at the j-paper folded in the cassette case.
As for the Kindle, I agree. I’d actually prefer the screensavers to be book cover art instead of the creepy authors of the ages. Those make the Kindle feel more generic and less personal. Although, with cover art on books, I’d get more spoiled for info about the book based on the blurbs and I’m appreciating the anonymous books more.
I miss album art a lot. I spent a good part of my life as a graphic designer so I’ve always tended to appreciate the creativity that went in to the fancier covers. I also miss being able to just hold the album in my hands, read the liner notes, etc. It made me feel closer to the music somehow.
There are some bands that managed to keep that at least somewhat alive even through the heyday of the CD (Pink Floyd comes to mind - I have their ‘Pulse’ CD set slipcase with the flashing red light in it), and I was thrilled with the Scissor Sisters’ ‘Ta Dah’ CD case - I thought I’d never see anything like that again. There’s just no way to create that experience with downloads.
It seems even the area of the album is just about over now too, what with being able to download singles. It feels like a loss and does make me sad when I think about it.
Oddly enough, though, I don’t care much about book covers. The only thing I don’t like about e-books is not being able to share them.
I miss albums, album cover art, liner notes, detailed information on who played what on which track, a libretto large enough to read and make notes on and many other aspects of recorded music that have gone downhill in the last 40 years. Taking the album cover art and reducing it to something the size of an unreadable postage stamp on the iPod just rubs salt in the wound.
I’m not going to e-books until I’m forced to, so I can’t comment on book cover art, other than to voice my suspicion that they’ll have screwed that up, too.
I’ll miss it when it actually disappears - if you want to hold the album in your hands and look at the cover art and read the liner notes, do what I do and buy the CD. I still listen to music mostly through my computer and iPhone, but always ripped from the CD. They aren’t as huge and pretty as vinyl of course but they’re not so small that the artwork can’t be appreciated. And there are still artists doing interesting things with packaging, the last Iron Maiden album came in a tin that resembled a porthole, first editions of Katy Perry’s most recent album were in a cotton-candy scented digipak and the latest Kanye West came with a function to use different cards to choose your own cover art.
I don’t think album art has really had that much of a dip in quality over the past few years, I still see a lot of current album covers I think are very striking and creative. I do, however, think that single artwork has gone downhill due to lack of physical singles and would bring back that if I could.
This. I don’t miss album art because I still buy physical copies of a lot of albums, and they still tend to come with cool stuff. Hell, I have vinyl records released in the past few years that have great art and packaging.
Those of you feeling nostalgic for album cover art might be interested to know that it’s still very much a done thing in the traditional Metal realm. I just finished contributing to the cover, liner pages and rear panel art for my husband’s band’s next album, which is coming out on an indie label in March. They have always insisted on having elaborate paintings for their covers (which get released on vinyl and CD) and highly detailed booklet pages. The new one will be no exception. Most old-school Metal artists are either too lacking in irony (or overly steeped in it, depending on your viewpoint) to go the minimal route. It will always ever be 1980 in our world and I for one love that.
Yes, I miss the old album art especially presented on the huge vinyl album jackets.
Everyone and their brother has listened to Pink Floyd’s The Wall but how many have ever held the massive double album jacket, looked at all the artwork, pulled out the album sleeves and read the scribble lyrics on the brick background along with the songs. It was all part of the experience IMHO.
Other album jackets I’d look at for hours were ones like Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. It blew away my 5 year-old mind.
That’s a shame you can’t have it in the house. That’s one of the best covers they ever had. Derek Riggs did one of the covers for my husband’s band but it was CGI and his stuff just hasn’t been the same since he switched to that method.
I’m also a big fan of Jim Fitzpatrick, who did many of the Thin Lizzy album covers. Talk about detailed.
I don’t miss book covers, because most of them are so awful. Mystery novel covers from the 1970s tend to be horrible and hilarious at the same time. If I went through my shelves I could show you hundreds of horrible covers, and maybe a dozen good ones.
I always liked album covers. When CDs took over, I always saved the long box. I had a friend who framed some of his, and they looked wonderful. But for some reason I don’t miss album covers anymore.
It may be because I got one of those 300 carousel CD players years ago. I only see an album cover once, before I store the case away. It’s strange to think, when I finally get an MP3 player, I’ll end up seeing the album covers more than I’m used to.
I love album cover art. This is a big part of why I buy CDs. And why I hate it when the occasional local band that I like puts out something only on mp3. It means more to me when I can get a tangible object with artwork and liner notes. That’s worth paying for. Just the ones and zeros, although that’s really the most important part, is not really something I’m willing to shell out money for. So no, I don’t miss it, because I don’t do without it.
With books, I don’t really buy many of them. I’ll buy the ones I really love and want to read over and over again, but the rest I just check out from the library. I can’t imagine reading something on a screen though. But I don’t think I would “miss” the cover art if I had to do without it. It’s a very minor part of a book.
Yes, as a sometimes graphic artist, I mourn the hardcover… I say hardcover or hardcopy in the archaic and only way until about twenty years ago… Analog the touchable has given up much to digital reitiration and copy. I prefer tactile art… although the non-tactile digital art I have taken advantage of gives me every opportunity of the Physical.
book covers change each time they are published. Nothing to miss there.
Album covers are a different story for me. I miss them a great deal. CD covers can be nice, but you have to slip them out from under the tabs without ripping them, and get them back under all of the tabs when you’re done. The print is small and if the cases are too small to have many pages in the booklet unless it’s a multi-disc set.
There are some modern CD covers that are nice but LPs had more features, even on the front cover. Company logos, catalog numbers, stereo banners, “file under:”, etc. CDs are almost dead now as well, so I don’t know what is next. I can’t believe that artwork will go away altogether.
Funny. I started this thread because I really actually DO miss cover art on books. Album art? Don’t miss it at all. Apparently I’m in the minority since this thread has more or less turned into a discussion about music cover art.
I miss some cover art. I have Sergeant Pepper both as an album and on a CD. The art is the same, but having that art on a 12"x12" square means that much more detail is available, and of course there were the cutouts. On the White Album, there were individual photos of each Beatle, which I enjoyed very much at the time.
I like SOME book covers. I despise dust jackets because they’re a pain in the ass. I have to take them off and hide them from my husband, who has a distressing tendency to throw them away. They are far too fragile for their purpose on a book that is actually read or at least referred to frequently. Some of the paperback cover art is quite nice. I don’t like the sort of art that has a cut out on the front cover to show a scene on the second front cover, though, especially if the first front cover is a bit narrower than the second front cover. Those cut outs tend to fray easily. I am ambivalent on raised portions of the front cover. However, if the cover is flat, without anything that can fray or flake, and the artist has actually depicted the story well, it can be a joy to behold.