Ifmusic didn’t shrink with the advent of the CD, perhaps the experience oflistening has diminished? Did music looklarger in a wider format? And to drop the tone arm on the proper groovedemanded a modicum of effort repaid in pleasure; if nothing else, the packagingfor the music became smaller. Sure, some graphic artists rose to the challengeof the jewel box, yet in many cases, the reduced size of the canvas led to areduction in visual creativity. And even the greatest LP covers lookindeed,areshrunken when transposed to the format of CD reissues.
Thecoffee table book Prestige Records: TheAlbumCover Collection (publishedby Concord Editions) is a reminder of where and when the album jacketdeveloped. One of the most significant postwar indie jazz labels, Prestigestruggled to win a hearing for its artists. Catchy wrappings were just theticket. According to the Collection’s editorGeoff Gans and label executive Ira Gitler in their introductory text, the earliestPrestige LPs were packaged in blank cardboard on the backside with the names ofthe artists on the front. Soon enough, the covers resembled simple promotionalflyers. A few of those early efforts occupy the book’s early pagesusually ablack and white photo of a horn player cropped and pasted onto a blank backdropwith names in basic black type. But like the music itself, the covers soonaspired to be more than functional. They wanted to be art.
The Album Cover Collection is designedto replicate the original format of the long-playing record, 10-inchs indiameter before 12-inch became standard. The pages are filled with images offront covers, presumably in chronological order to show the evolution of albumart. The one glaring omission is the release dates of the recordings, but thephotographers and designers who worked on the covers are credited.
Somepages bring discoveries. Over a decade before Andy Warhol designed his famousbanana peel for the Velvet Underground’s debut, he penned in the wording for aThelonious Monk cover in the curlicues familiar to students of his earlycommercial graphics. Mad magazine’sDon Martin executed some outstanding covers for Prestige, involving oddlymisshapen humanoids and superb use of horizontal and vertical lines and colorblocks.
Notevery cover chosen for the Collection isgood, which is probably just as well. Juxtaposing the mediocre with the superbreveals the full spectrum of design at Prestige in the 1950s and ‘60s. Whetheror not you agree that vinyl had a warmer sound, The Album Cover Collection is convincing evidence that it waseasier to produce visually compelling covers for the larger, vinyl formats ofold.
