The Death of the Album Cover: From Art to Triviality

There is a near-25% likelihood of users skipping a song within five seconds of listening to it. If our Instagram Reels-riddled attention spans can’t even last through a standard three-minute song, why would we even care about its album cover?

In a world where we now view album covers — once loved in the mainstream as 12-inch vinyls — through our tiny devices as even tinier boxes within them, it seems logical and even mandatory that artists create these covers to appeal to consumers. And just like that, these covers have transformed from meaningful expressions of an artist’s inner feelings to a sign that might as well say, “BUY ME!”

By not putting the meaning of an album first when it comes to visually representing them, album covers have recently been seen less as a creative avenue for artists and more as a shock factor to bring listeners in. It’s a given that the competition for the listener’s attention is cutthroat due to the calculated algorithm of how listeners stumble upon music. Therefore, given that the purpose of the album cover has significantly changed since vinyl-collecting times due to the digitization of media, the art of the album cover and its role of conveying meaning are slowly being eradicated in favor of attention-seeking semblances of art.

It is unfair to claim that the album cover is becoming a dying art — the format has simply transformed, though into a lesser version of its past self. Artists are having to compete for the clicks of people: The album cover has transformed from actual art to yet another victim of consumerism. It begs the question: Why do so many mainstream artists, especially mainstream female artists, release versions upon versions of their albums, featuring nothing significantly different from the original album but instead a different washed-up version of the cover?

Due to the scarce availability of these cover variants, which oftentimes read “Limited Edition,” consumers are left with no choice but to give in to their hyperventilating dopamine receptors that gamify everything they are presented with, and collect every single version of the album. How, one may ask, does this benefit the artist? It’s quite simple, really — the more that people give in to buying things advertised as precious and rare, the more money artists are making. It’s so simple that it seems almost illegal, and yet no one stops to conduct a retrospect of their own habits.

In a system where we are supplying and demanding at rates unheard of before, overconsumption continues to reign. A term that may fly out of many of your ears as soon as you hear it, overconsumption defines a point where young people are shopping at the same stores, buying the same clothes, wearing the same makeup, talking the same, and even curating their personalities the same. And the kicker? They’re influencing you to do it too, recycling this endless loop of copy-and-paste identities. Everyone is desperate to be the “most devoted” to trends, and if they’re not at the top, they lose value from a self-made brownie point tracker that earns them nothing but shallow validation from strangers online who, let’s not lie, don’t actually care about you.

In a world overrun with overconsumption, another form of content that artists have begun to cater to is hypersexualization and the rise of the confident, sexy femme fatale. And we know it sells — take a look at Beyoncé and Madonna, and more recently, Billie Eilish: These women chose to embrace their sexualities on their own terms and made bank with it, too.

A recent controversy that has made the internet ablaze with opinions is Sabrina Carpenter’s new album cover for “Man’s Best Friend,” depicting Carpenter on all fours and with her hair fisted by a man, who is mostly out of the frame. The question is, does this cover and, more broadly, the album, depict well-represented feminist irony, or is it merely just well-packaged thirst?

Carpenter’s supporters argue that her music and style has always catered to the male gaze — why differentiate this particular album cover and delineate it as problematic? Similarly, Taylor Swift fans defend Swift’s new album cover for “The Life of a Showgirl” — which has been criticized for being “too sexual” — reinstating that Swift, as a 35-year-old independent woman, has established her career to a point where she has no need to cater to a 12-year-old audience, and therefore can make her music and style as provocative as she wants to.

Of course, when it comes to these women making decisions that defy limits and boundaries opposed to our gender for hundreds and hundreds of years, I am in full support. Complication enters the picture when, knowing full well that Hollywood and mainstream media sell sexualization, these album covers have taken something that was cherished as a limitless form of self-expression and meaning to a choice made to sell the most because we know that the male gaze will devour it whole.

There are countless contemporary examples of timeless albums that have defied stereotypes and challenged the notion of what it means to be a woman. These include “SOS” by SZA, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” by Lauryn Hill, “Lemonade” by Beyoncé, and “Melodrama” by Lorde, ranging from conversations about self-discovery on a lonely path to reflections on the role that one’s ancestry plays on their identity. By breaking norms and breaking the bank, these women and their albums are prime examples of iconic imagery that resonates with that specific era of their music in an empowering and accepting way.

At the end of the day, musicians can choose how they depict themselves and what their purpose is as an artist. Once an important part of music discovery for enthusiasts, album covers are now used as a hook to bring and keep listeners in. When artists cater to views that may not fully represent or resonate with the demographic they want to portray, especially with their album covers, the art of this cover slowly dies, little by little. Though all listeners may care about is the music, and the album cover is an added bonus if they enjoy it, the artistic element and purpose of the cover is one that has transformed over the past decade and will continue to do so for years to come.

—Staff writer Anmol Grewal can be reached at anmol.grewal@thecrimson.com.