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life, luxury & the pursuit of happiness
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RECORD HIGH
The Art’s on the Outside, Too The most iconic album covers help listeners connect with the music inside
By Kendall Polidori
tanley Mouse was in his 20s when he started creating psychedelic posters for the likes of the Grateful Dead and Journey. Later, he designed album covers for Styx and the Steve Miller Band. George Hardie was 25 when he gave birth to his first album cover for an up-and-coming Led Zeppelin. Stanley Donwood was 26 when he began producing album covers for Radiohead and the band’s lead singer Thom Yorke’s solo work. Andy Warhol was in his 30s when Columbia and RCA Records hired him to design album covers. He came up with some of the greatest ever, including the one for The Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground & Nico. Some of the greatest rock and punk album covers were young artists’ first stabs at creating art to accompany music—and it seemed to work in their favor. Well-known pleasures Take the case of 22-year-old Peter Saville, who designed the cover for Joy Division’s album Unknown Pleasures in 1979. The cover would become one of the most recognizable designs in pop culture. It’s on band T-shirts in nearly every clothing store, hanging next to the ones for Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC and The Beatles. But the phenomenon doesn’t end there. The design graces coffee mugs. People have it etched into their skin
March 2022 | Luckbox
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