Rarely is an album cover’s quality defined solely by what is printed on that square of cardboard, 12 inches high by 12 wide. Often a listener’s feelings about the cover are shaped by the music that lies within: the better the record, the more likely they are to appreciate the art in which it is presented. Judgments about art are always coloured by factors beyond the work itself, but that is especially true in the case of album covers, which are always partly appraised in light of what lies within the inner sleeve.

That much is evident in an interesting exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery in London. “For the Record: Photography and the Art of the Album Cover” gathers together a collection of 200 striking covers—all based on photography, as you might expect—to illustrate different facets of cover design. Even though the exhibition takes care never to claim it is showing the best covers, the act of putting them in a gallery is a validation. Many of the usual suspects are there: “Physical Graffiti” by Led Zeppelin, “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd, the stunning run of covers Jean-Paul Goude put together for Grace Jones, and others that you have seen in coffee-table books.

You will not see anything in this exhibition from the worlds of metal or prog-rock, however. Those genres have often favoured detailed, fantastical artwork, sometimes explicit or gory in nature, which do not sit neatly alongside black-and-white photos of Miles Davis or an Andy Warhol design (see picture). But they serve their purpose perfectly: the cover of, say, “Reign in Blood” by Slayer more accurately captures the dark mood of the record than any tasteful portrait could have. So why isn’t that a great album cover?

Conversely, the design house Hipgnosis, co-founded by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell in 1967, is often hailed as the greatest of all cover designers; it did all those Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin albums. Yet its stock in trade was either people staring balefully at an inanimate object, or some piece of awful sexism, perhaps combined with a terrible visual pun. (An example appears in the exhibition: “Force It”, by UFO, in which a couple embrace in a bathroom full of taps.) But given the right record, Hipgnosis made the covers that built its reputation: the two businessmen shaking hands, one on fire, on “Wish You Were Here” evokes the mood of dislocation on the record.

Fascinating though they are, the covers at the Photographers’ Gallery necessarily ignore one great strand of album design, the graphic cover. A simple piece of design can turn that square into something for the ages: the white lines on blue of Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn”; “The Modern Lovers”, with its logo that looks like a diner sign flashing by at the side of a highway; Peter Saville’s floppy disk mock-up for New Order’s “Blue Monday” (a single rather than an album, but the same size).

There is also a different measure of what makes a good image. An album cover is an advertisement. Its purpose is to make you pick the record out of the racks. If it looks nice, too, great, but it doesn’t have to be visually pleasing. As any record label executive would probably tell you, the very best album cover is not one so aesthetically impressive that it ends up in a gallery. The best album cover is the one that sells copies—then it has done its job. ■

“For the Record: Photography and the Art of the Album Cover” continues at the Photographers’ Gallery, London, until June 12th

Picture credits: Vinyl: Diana Ross, Silk Electric, RCA - AFL1-4384, New York, USA, 1982. Photography & Design: Andy Warhol. Vinyl: Miles Davis, Tutu, Warner Bros. Records - 1-25490, United States, 1986. Photography: Irving Penn; Design: Eiko Ishioka