When I get to muttering in my beard about kids today, the subject oft turns to digital music and how everything sounds the same and looks the same and “what ever happened to album covers, man….” I mean I know they still exist, but they’re terrible, right? Shiny thumbnail-sized afterthoughts with no more purpose than candy in a shop window display? I will admit it, and not without some chagrin, I’ve always thought that whoever designed Taylor Swift’s 1989 had a canny sense of the derivative as a quality one should wear proudly on one’s sleeve—it’s evocative!, in a fun way, not in the way of her most recent, severely Teutonic cover incarnation.
So, it’s not all bad, because there’s one good Taylor Swift album cover. But then album art has never been all good. Far from it. I remember album covers like this and this and these being the norm. And then there’s … well you’ve probably seen these jaw-dropping monstrosities from the distant past….
