Gallery: 20 All-Time Great iTunes Album Covers

Lonnie Lazar ()

6. Thom Yorke – The Eraser

600px-thom_yorke_the_eraser.jpg

The 2006 solo debut by Radiohead’s frontman makes good use of the classic red/black dichotomy paired with a visually arresting line drawing that demands attention.

5. The Shins – Wincing the Night Away

theshins.jpg

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It can’t just be all major label, mass-market power pop and rock, can it? No doubt there are thousands of “alternative” and “indie” bands with interesting, even arresting covers to go with their, uh, niche musical efforts. But this 2007 release by The Shins seems to score high on many people’s lists for both music and artwork, so, here it is.

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About the author

Lonnie Lazar

Lonnie Lazar is a writer-musician-web designer-attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.

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Posted in Favorites, iTunes, Music |

  • Marky Mark

    I don’t have a better answer, but I’m pretty uninspired by this lot. Need….more….time….!

  • icecastles

    Horrible, horrible list. This has almost nothing to do with album “art”, it’s just a list of the author’s favourite albums, split across ten screens to garner as many advertising hits as possible for the site.

    CoM has been going downhill, but this is just a ridiculous slap-together article designed to get eyeballs to pages.

  • http://twitter.com/chas_martin Charles Martin

    So really, you could have just called this “20 Great ALBUM Covers” yeah? Apart from the fact that they happen to be on iTunes, I don’t think Apple (fabulous as they are) had anything to do with these covers.

    Again, I love iTunes, but this seems like pandering and filler to me. Sorry.

  • http://twitter.com/chas_martin Charles Martin

    PS. Putting just two covers per page with minimal writing is rather douchy. You can’t need the hits THAT badly, and I would not have thought you were quite so lazy either.

  • http://twitter.com/chas_martin Charles Martin

    PPS. “London Calling” came out in 1979, not 1976. Nice research.

  • http://cultofmac.com Lonnie Lazar

    @Charles Martin: like Jimi said, “Now if uh, six uh, huh, turned out to be nine …”

    Hope you have a better day tomorrow.

  • James

    These arn’t about art at all, they’re all quite old and apple would probably never do anything with these. Normally apple likes to use album covers with big bright colors or simple design that would highlight their design. If you havnt noticed, Apple used Datarock’ Datarock Datarock album art in the iPod touch, iPod nano, and iPod classic to showcase their coverflow feature. While these albums have some great music, it’s just not on par with apple’s design.

  • fool

    You do realize that your #1 album art doesn’t appear on iTunes, right? Also, that the Sticky Fingers album cover is one of the best arguments against both CDs and digital downloads? Also, that Nickelback is a soul-crushingly terrible band? I have trouble believing you weren’t aware of at least two out of the three.

  • Frank N’ Dank

    This list is completely bogus. Totally cheeseball.

    FnD

  • http://cultofmac.com Lonnie Lazar

    @James: if you mean by “they’re all quite old” that half of them come from within the past 15 years and a third of them are less than five years old, then — guilty as charged. Also, if you’ve been paying attention, two of the feature albums Apple has promoted for the LP line are albums from the Grateful Dead (not by a longshot their most ‘colorful’) and The Doors, and that another featured album in the line is Peter Gabriel’s “So”, a nearly all black and white design — well, that kind of shoots your theory all to hell.

    @fool: I’m pretty sure I mentioned that the sagarmatha cover i featured was not the one ‘approved’ for iTunes distribution.

  • Bodesnki

    last time I got to anything over 10 pages

  • Gazzer

    The first half was so much better than the second half – Clash, Who, Stevie Wonder, Rolling Stones: seminal albums and covers, then you lost the courage of convictions. Green Day over The Clash – wtf?

    The greatest cover of all time (or close) is Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures, and certainly in this day and age to miss out (Peter Saville again) Power, Corruption, and Lies is a big oversight.

  • altopod

    Looks like you got it half right. Everything up to Split Enz can be justified but after that . . . ? Some of the second half could be justified musically but as far as album art goes – not really that great. Something happened in that wasteland of the 80s (the CD?) and album just never recovered. I would like to nominate the Beastie Boys ‘Paul’s Boutique’ for that era. The music is great and the 390 degree fold out cover is phenomenal. In a way this is a cover that mirrored the feel and experience of the music contained on the disc.

  • http://dougitdesign.com Doug Aghassi

    no OK Computer……………no Pixies……not one Sphongle Album?…………..fail

  • Darcy McGee

    Any article that has the word “great” in the title and “Nickelback” in the body is an epic fail.

    (By the way, the best Wilco cover by far is A Ghost is Born.)

  • Andy L

    You’ve got some tough critics. In my view, this was really fun to read and to look at. Nice going.

  • Dean

    If you’re talking strictly about the artwork, no Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band? Tales of Topographic Oceans?

  • barbarella

    No David Bowie? No Sparks? C’mon…

  • http://www.samanjj.com saman Jebeli-Javan

    enjoyed the read thank you. i would also recommend

    gorillaz – demon days
    prodigy – jilted generation
    mars volta – octahedron
    nightmares on wax – smokers delight
    public enemy – muse sick-n-hour mess age

    Dean: no beatles because they are not on itunes mate