{"id":19729,"date":"2017-07-15T11:00:28","date_gmt":"2017-07-15T11:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artzealous.com\/?p=19729"},"modified":"2017-07-15T13:30:56","modified_gmt":"2017-07-15T13:30:56","slug":"the-top-5-album-covers-of-2017-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/the-top-5-album-covers-of-2017-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"The Top 5 Album Covers of 2017 (So Far)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t know about you, but we miss going to Tower Records and flipping through row after row of CDs, perusing the labyrinth of genres the iconic store had to offer. While the new online-based music streaming industry is obviously more convenient for those who simply want to pick a song and pop in their headphones, the experience lacks the visual artistry our CD cases used to provide us. Today we celebrate the forgotten art of the album cover by giving you the Top 5 of this year\u2019s releases. Here\u2019s the list:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. Everybody\u00a0<\/em>by Logic<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo \/\/ courtesy of @samspratt<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Recognize the painting? Visual artist Sam Spratt<\/a>\u00a0parodies 16th-century painter Paolo Veronese’s\u00a0The Wedding at Cana<\/em> for American rapper Logic’s third studio album.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2.\u00a0ISON\u00a0<\/em>by Sevdaliza<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo \/\/ courtesy of @sarahsitkin<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sculptor Sarah Sitkin<\/a>\u00a0masterfully crafts a surrealism that is at times beautiful in its blending of textures and colors, and at other times positively grotesque. On her work for the Iranian-Dutch artist Sevdaliza, Sitkin writes<\/a>:\u00a0“The idea is based around Sevdaliza being the mother to herself and her past lives. It\u00a0carries her vulnerability stoically. Her features distorted, some omitted, some emphasized. A new form is repeated through her 16 children [the album’s songs] surrounding her.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3.\u00a0Heartworms\u00a0<\/em>by The Shins<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo \/\/ courtesy of @thesaladmag<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The artwork for The Shins’ fifth studio album comes to us from designer Jacob Escobedo<\/a>, VP of creative design at Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. Photos of algae formations on glass served as the creative impetus for the work, which evolved into a concept inspired by 19th-century Japanese art depicting\u00a0yokai<\/em>, the spirits, monsters, and demons of Japanese folklore.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4.\u00a0Tears in the Club\u00a0<\/em>by Kingdom<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo \/\/ courtesy of @kkingdomm<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In an interview with Artslant<\/a>,\u00a0Sam Rolfes<\/a> (whose instagram is a must-see) describes the\u00a0unabashedly raw and transfixing, 3D textural style we see in his cover art for Kingdom’s album: “if you\u2019ve ever been to an intense music show and had the shit beaten out of you and felt like your insides were torn to shreds (figuratively), and come out the other end born again, it\u2019s a deeply affecting thing that I\u2019m trying to approximate. The obsession with skin and organic forms partially stemmed from my background as a portrait painter that used a wide range of oil media, solvents, and other liquids to approximate the depth and ruddy complex beauty of the substance wrapped around us.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

5.\u00a0Messes\u00a0<\/em>by Stef Chura<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo \/\/ courtesy of @__.stef<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you’ve spent enough time scrolling through artsy instagram accounts, you’ve probably stumbled across the name Molly Soda<\/a> before. The\u00a0famed internet personality and webcam performance artist (whose website<\/a> is more of a labyrinth than her cover art above) combines a vibrant, yet crude array of paint smears and images that exude feminism and internet culture. A fitting creation for an album entitled\u00a0Messes<\/em>, don’t you think?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bonus:\u00a0It’s Good to Be Differ-ent\u00a0<\/em>by Differ-Ent<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo \/\/ courtesy of @djbone313<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s always hard to choose our\u00a0favorites for a “Top __” article, and this album art\u00a0was too intriguing to not include on our list. This hypnotizing work comes from the hand of Optigram<\/a>, the London-based design studio of Manuel Sepulveda<\/a>. From his website<\/a>: “His work explores an \u2018optical grammar\u2019 of abstraction, camouflage, geometry and science fiction.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t know about you, but we miss going to Tower Records <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":19820,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artzealous.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}