New Book Spotlights Photographers Behind Music's Most Iconic Album Covers
If your were anything like this writer as a child, what music actually sounded like had little do with what you were pulling off your parents shelves. Formative musical discovery was more characterized by what you saw on the album than what you heard. Yet the photographers and visual artists that shaped those iconic covers are often forgotten, overshadowed in the public domain by their musical counterparts
A new book, Total Records: Photography and the Art of the Album Cover, collects 400 of the most eye-grabbing pieces of album art in an effort to connect the legacies of photographers and the bodies of music they pointed your eyes towards. Featured works include Jean-Baptiste Mondino's cover for Prince's Lovesexy, Jean-Paul Goude's break-the-internet prototype for Grace Jone's Island Life, as well as pieces by Andy Warhol, Robert Frank, Nan Goldin and more, all brought together by the keen eyes of Antoine de Beaupré, Serge Vincendet and Sam Stourdzé; a trio of French experts that have devoted their careers to the celebration of era-defining photography and album artwork.
The book is due this October via Aperture with selections going on display this winter at C/O Berlin Foundation (December 3, 2016–February 5, 2017) and Kunsthal Rotterdam (February 24–June 4, 2017.)
