Like, music and art will always go together. Proof of that is evident in the use cover arts for albums and singles. The relationship is such that the cover art has become as much as the record as the song itself. The cover arts of albums or singles can hold immense power and influence on consumers or listeners (new ones or old timers). Cover arts are usually the first experience we get of a song before diving into the music and you know what they say about first impressions.

The German record label, Odeon, are to be thanked for the creation of the “album” in the early 1900’s, but before then records were normally sold in cardboard sleeves and brown paper, and black vinyls in plain grey vinyls. There was no way one could visualize or have an image of the song without first listening to the song. It was not until the year 1939 that Columbia Records acquired the services of the then 23 genius art director and graphic designer, Alex Steinweiss. The cover art went from being bland and un-visual covers meant for protecting the record to being artworks in their own right, capable of immersing listeners into a different universe and being both the background and a companion for the listener’s journey. Steinweiss revolutionary ideas saw an incredible rate in the purchase of albums, people were not only just buying the record for the song but also because the album art were a magnificent to behold.

Fast forward to the streaming era where listeners have access to music at the very tip of their fingers, physical purchases of albums have seen a downward plummet, where music stores are not as filled as before and nobody is really buying CD’s and vinyls, the use and importance of album art are constantly being questioned. In fact, some have gone as far as to say that the streaming era killed the album art. But that is not the reality, even if record stores and vinyls are not as popular as they once were, album covers still remain ever so relevant, if not more in the streaming and downloading age. Throughout out the course of its history, almost 75 years in the making, album and cover arts have been continually developing, whether it is with new art styles, abstract art, photography or animation, they keep painting pictures of the greatest songs.