The Golden Era of cover art likely ended with the rise of CDs. But even with the Golden Age of CDs behind us, cover art still plays a vital role in the listener's consumption of music. Along with the album title, it serves as a sort of opening salvo or prelude that sets the tone for the music itself, and it is often the last image that remains in the listener's mind. It is the face of the music. With that in mind, here our picks for the best cover art of 2015.
Gucci Mane - Trapology
Gucci Mane’s cover art continually blows all other cover art of the water. His best cover of 2015 was that of his 4th mixtape of 2015, Trapology. It features a black-and-white image of Albert Einstein, Gucci’s famous ice cream tattoo emblazoned his cheek, chains around his neck and jewel-encrusted watch on his wrist, his hands clasped and eyes gazing contemplatively into the middle distance. Gucci is beyond the status of trap lord. He is a trapologist, a scholar, an expert in his field. Beyond that, he is a trap genius.
Meanwhile, his upcoming project The Machine is a mortal lock to make Hottest Album Covers of 2016.
A$AP Rocky - At Long Last A$AP
A$AP’s covers have always been black-and-white, and he’s always appeared cool, cold, distant. But he switched it up on the At Long Last A$AP cover to mourn and celebrate Yams, founder of A$AP Mob who passed away in January 2015 at age 26. With Yams’ purple birthmark on his right cheek and the small cross Yams kept tatted under his left eye, the face on the album’s cover is a composite of Yams and Rocky, and it lunges forward towards the camera. A face emerges from a horrible jumble of fingers and rings, perhaps meant to signify A$AP’s grief, and the fact that Yams spirit lives thru him and spills out of him. The best tribute cover art of the year, hands down.
Erykah Badu - But You Cain’t Use My Phone
We are drowning in information overload. This is not the world Erykah Badu wants to live in. Her late-2015 mixtape But You Cain’t Use My Phone combined tuning forks, Tibetan singing bowls, and an anti-smartphone message to create something she refers to as “sympathetic vibration." The cover art depicts Badu as a sort of rainbow goddess shunning an oppressive newspaper-like black-and-white spread of information and stimulation.
Young Thug - Barter 6
This cover reminds me vaguely of the hip hop version of “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Like “2001,” Young Thug can be oblique, frustrating, difficult to understand in more ways than one, but these traits are also the source of his brilliance. Here he stands in front of a red halo of light, which might also be viewed as a giant planet, a Jupiter floating in space by its lonesome. A fitting image for the self-proclaimed alien.
Future - Beast Mode
When Future speaks on matters of the heart, it is no shimmering *heart emoji* but rather the pulsating blob of protein ripped out of his chest with his own bare hands. He holds up his heart triumphantly, unashamed of his codeine addiction or depression, baring all to see. The composition of his hand, his heart, the mic, and the blood red background makes the Beast Mode cover possibly the most memorable of 2015.
Bricc Baby - Nasty Dealer
One day, the Grim Reaper showed up at Bricc Baby’s door. Bricc shoots him. Smokes death himself. He is stoic in the immediate aftermath. His lady friends celebrated for him, shaking their asses amid a rain of dollar bills. They look to him for validation, but he does not look back; he stares into the distance, reflecting on the murder he has just committed.
Drake - If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late
If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late materialized in February with minimal fanfare, little more than writing scrawled haphazardly on the (internet) wall. The childlike script, perhaps written by The Boy himself, has horror film connotations and portends Drake’s monster 2015 that began at that very moment.
Curren$y - Pilot Talk 3
The Pilot Talk 3 cover is an accurate portrayal of Curren$y’s career/approach to life. He will likely never achieve the popular success he deserves. And yet he still lives the Jet Life, taking flight while the city sleeps, a nocturnal indica-toking existence. And he does not fly solo -- he rides at the helm of his esteemed convoy of Jet Life artists.
Action Bronson - Mr. Wonderful
Bronson is no ordinary fat man. His bodacious personality defies convention at every turn, cooking up dishes worthy of a 3-star Michelin restaurant, rapping “this tool I got will loosen up your stool a lot/ pee-pee will make you poo-poo a lot” and wielding his body with the dexterity of a gymnast. The Mr. Wonderful cover depicts Bronson doing the splits with ease, as he does in the “Actin Crazy” video.
Impossible is nothing.
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp A Butterfly
It is fitting that President Obama picked TPAB’s “How Much a Dollar Cost” as his favorite song of the year. The album’s cover depicts a crowd of black folk on the White House lawn, hamming it up for the camera, explicitly dismissing and/or dethroning society’s judges. Like the album itself, its cover is an affirmation of blackness.