Album Covers and Colors
Many people have called this year a revival of pop music given the rise of popstars Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter. This past summer, following Charli XCX’s release of Brat, the idea of having a “Brat Summer” became popular over the internet. Brat’s popularity reached the extent that even Kamala Harris’s campaign team thought to run on the whole “Kamala is Brat” thing after Charli XCX tweeted the phrase. Being one of the most impactful albums from the past year, the marketing of Brat’s iconic lime green cover, specifically being, #8ACE00, has no doubt contributed to its success. The iconography of album covers is a really fascinating rabbithole to go down, especially focusing on how many successful albums are defined by a recognizable color palette.
#FFFFFF: The Beatles (The White Album)
Released in 1968, The White Album was The Beatles’ ninth album. Interestingly The White Album isn’t even its actual name. It’s actually a self-titled album, it was the fans who, over the years, decided to call it that. While it was mainly done to avoid confusing it with the previous self-titled albums, the idea of “renaming” an album to a color has happened to another influential album (that will be discussed later). The album itself contains many fan favorite songs, some highlights include “Back in the USSR,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Dear Prudence,” and, most famously, “Blackbird.”
#e92e02, #00a8ed, #2f9e44, #ffed0f: Hot Space, Queen
Having one iconic color is one thing, but being able to successfully use four colors is a particular feat. Hot Space, released in 1982, was one of Queen’s less popular albums, its pop sound being a long call from their previous album The Game which still had a classic rock sound. So why use this example? It’s because of one song off the album that solidified it’s pop culture relevance. “Under Pressure,” the album’s second to last song, is the band’s 4th most streamed song on Spotify at 1.7 billion streams. With a feature from David Bowie and an iconic bassline played by John Deacon, the album cover has matched the song's timelessness.
#189BCC: Weezer (The Blue Album)
With their debut album, Weezer’s Blue Album was met with resounding success. Rolling Stone has placed it in the top 500 albums of all time! Similar to The White Album by The Beatles, its official name is a self-title, but it has been dubbed as The Blue Album by fans over the years. But this album was released all the way back in 1994, so why has it regained relevance today? Around 2021, a trend of altering the band members or putting four people or characters in front of the iconic Weezer blue became a popular meme format. The recognizable blue is one part of what skyrocketed Weezer’s success into a new generation. From personal experience, I had no clue who or what Weezer was, it was these memes, the blue, that made me even aware of the band. So to say, a lot of Weezer’s self-title’s modern success can be attributed to its recognizable color.
#7b4c6: Igor, Tyler the Creator
In 2018, Tyler the Creator released his fifth studio album, Igor. Being one of my favorite album covers of all time, it is simply a black and white picture of what is assumed to be the character Igor on a plain pink background. It is a brilliant concept album about pining and jealousy and the stark contrast between the face on the cover and the pink background speaks to the flip-flopping of emotions the character feels. Speaking on a personal level, out of all the albums discussed so far, Igor has had the biggest impact on my life. Listening to it on a whim in 8th grade, when my music taste was almost entirely classic rock, completely changed my life. It made me realize how important it was to have an expanded music taste.
With album covers sometimes becoming more recognizable than the songs that they contain, to the extent that even a single color can define an album’s popularity, I hope other artists will realize the potential for having a color be the focus of the cover art.