Album covers: Do they require the artist upon them?

The long play record, or album to you and I, has been in existence for nearly 70 years. The albums themselves have artwork on the cases that hold the albums, to save them from looking boring to the average consumer and die hard fan. The idea of having iconic album artwork can be just an illustrious honour as having an iconic album itself, and most commonly they go hand in hand.

A quick search of 'cool album covers' on the internet produces list upon list of thousands of people's opinions. And as a result of this, begs the question 'does the artist need to be on the album cover?'

Here are some albums from the aforementioned 'cool covers' list, and a link to the whole list.

http://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/music/50-coolest-album-covers#gallery-15

The Beatles - Abbey Road

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

The Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks

Now, for those who are eagle eyed, out of those 3 covers, only one had the artists on them, suggesting that having the artist on the cover isn't important to how well the album sells.

The Plot Thickens!!

Now, those covers spanned all genre's. My group's practical coursework is focused on the rap and Hip Hop genre, so it makes obvious sense to focus on that.

Now using 3 lists, we can really get a big grasp of famous album covers from the Rap and Hip Hop genre.

Links below
http://uk.complex.com/music/2011/10/hip-hops-50-greatest-album-covers/
http://www.capitalxtra.com/xplore/lists/best-hip-hop-rap-album-covers/
http://genius.com/discussions/51734-Best-hip-hop-album-covers

And upon looking at them, here are some things I have noticed.

• Album covers vary from person to person. Seems kinda obvious but a point to highlight nevertheless. One artist may have an album cover that is more artistic and will not feature the artist at all, whereas other artists will have themselves on the cover.
• The further back the years you look, the more likely you'll find the artist on the artwork

Here are examples of album covers with and without the artist on the album artwork.

These are some of many examples, showing the point that the decision to have an artist on the album artwork is neither here nor there. There are famous albums which incorporate both ideas, and it's not necessary to use one or the other to achieve success.

When looking to make our digipaks, we shall look to what modern album covers look like and will probably incorporate ideas used by rappers and artists that the group enjoy, as to ensure we stick to modern conventions and ensure we have our own input on the product.