Cover Art Appreciation Thread

[SatanicSmile]

Here's a much needed, always relevant and now more relevant than ever stocking sucking thread. Appreciate only real art and artists here, keep AI trash out!

For this first post I only mention some of my favorites, in no particular order (although the first mentioned might very well be my #1...). Also. Didn't take long with taking pics online, so can't promise the best possible quality available.






Stratovarius - Visions by Andreas Marschall, who did lots of artworks especially in 90's for metal bands such as Blind Guardian, Running Wild, Sodom, Kreator, Grave Digger, HammerFall... Blind Guardian not only having one of the strongest line of power metal albums in 90´s, but also they are all with Marchhall's great art.





Heavenly - Dust to Dust by Jan Meininghaus, who has worked on many artworks and designs. Did a lot of cover arts for the band Falconer. Dust to Dust artwork is perfect fit for the story of this concept album.





Sonata Arctica - Silence by Eric Philippe, who is also known for early Rhapsody cover arts. Also made Twilight Time for Strato. I've seen Silence cover getting very mixed opinions, maybe because people don't quite get it. For me it's by far the best there is for SA. I remember there being a poll on long gone Sonata forums where it took the win for the best album cover the band had (Unia being the most recent album/option on the poll at the time)





Stratovarius - Survive by Gyula Havancsak, who also made everything for Stratovarius ever since Polaris. I've liked each and every one of them but still something in Survive managed to surprise me.





Helloween – Keeper Of The Seven Keys - Part II by Uwe Karczewski. Known for first three Helloween albums and two first EPs, all excellent inside out. He passed away in 2021.





Helloween - Helloween by Eliran Kantor, very active artist in recent years. My expections were high for the songs of this album at the time, but one of the biggest positive surprises came in this artwork. Glad he was chosen for "Giants & Monsters" as well.

[robocop]

jester race, my introduction to euro high quality music along with clayman in 2002. (in flames)

lighting a fire in my ass to search for more, soon after i saw them live with slayer at the electric factory in philly. when reroute to remain came out, kinda different stuff.

[SatanicSmile]

In Flames - The Jester Race

Same artist as for Visions btw, same with two other In Flames albums that came after. Marschall got very recognizable style, but it actually took me a while to realize Strato's Visions was also by him. First times I connected similarities were like Nocturnal Rites - Afterlife and Blind Guardian - Nightfall in Middle-Earth, and artworks that had some sort of hall/castle indoor area.

[ZenithMC]

These 5 cover arts from Axel Rudi Pell are interesting. The 1st four were illustrated by Marc Klinnert, who later worked on some of the 2000's era Rhapsody cover arts. I tried to find the nicest-looking uploads but I also touched them up a bit (adjusted the white balance).

I refer to these four as the purple/violet tetralogy, 'cause of the prominent hue. If I had to pick a favorite artwork among them... either Black Moon Pyramid or Oceans of Time.

Axel Rudi Pell - Black Moon Pyramid by Marc Klinnert, 1996


Axel Rudi Pell - Magic by Marc Klinnert, 1997


Axel Rudi Pell - Oceans of Time by Marc Klinnert, 1998


Axel Rudi Pell - The Masquerade Ball by Marc Klinnert, 2000


Circle of the Oath has my favorite of Axel Rudi Pell's cover arts. I like the composition and the clarity of the edges, as well as the subject matter. It was illustrated by a different artist named Martin McKenna.

Axel Rudi Pell - Circle of the Oath by Martin McKenna, 2012


This last one isn't for a music album, but rather, for a video game. Could you imagine walking into a store and seeing a video game box that looked like that, these days? Well, actually, not many go to a store to buy physical games at all, anymore. But the point is, seeing a game with such an immaculate cover art just feels really special. I wouldn't be surprised if people bought it for that aspect, alone. You can just tell that a lot of heart and soul was poured into it.

Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished - Omen by Falcom, for NEC PC-88, 1987


I wish a could find a large render of the central artwork. There were releases for other platforms only featuring that part, but all of them were cropped in some way.

Central art, left:


Central art, right:

[SatanicSmile]

Those are all really beautiful, especially the ones by Marc Klinnert. I like the color scheme a lot.

But the point is, seeing a game with such an immaculate cover art just feels really special. I wouldn't be surprised if people bought it for that aspect, alone.

I don't remember right now if I ever bought a game that way 'cause most of the time I knew what I was looking for thanks to playing at friends or thanks to a demo disc (PS2 Dark Cloud is a great example). But. I did spent lots of time at those sections at shops, so anything that looked good in a way or another I would look closer.

However I've done that with music albums to some degree. Notably going for better looking Helloween albums first, before I knew any songs besides a few from Keepers (or knew that some song is from that band). This made me pick The Time of The Oath and Walls of Jericho over other albums that this shop in Helsinki had back then. And I didn't know the other singers besides Kiske before that lol And both of these albums I rank very very high on my favorite albums...

Helloween - The Time Of The Oath (Martin Zeissler)


Helloween - Walls of Jericho (Uwe Karczewski)


I also remember looking for new power metal bands to listen by looking at some online shop selection, checking out songs, starting out from cheap albums that had nice cover art. The plan was to also just order them after very little listening from youtube. One such very memorable find was the band Silent Force and their album Infatuator. I don't remember if two other albums from them ended up in same purchase at the time or if I just got them very soon after.

Silent Force - Infatuator (Axel Hermann)



Now that Axel Hermann has been mentioned, got to also mention some other works from him that I really love. First up is Angel Dust - Border of Reality, the only album I've posted here that I don't happen to have yet. For everything else I have at least CD, for most I got vinyl LP as well if it was made. (I wish especially Visions and Heavenly's Dust to Dust would one day, absolute top ones)

Something very colorful manages to be so good here. The only weak side for me here is that part of the logo gets a bit buried in its spot.



Nocturnal Rites albums Grand Illusion from 2006 and The 8th Sin from 2007. Both I find very stylistic and fitting for the band during their 2006-2007 era, meanwhile some other bands had started to show up with weaker cover arts.

[robocop]

>go to dunkin
>some miserable pile of man is wearing merch with this album cover
"dead eyes, like a dolls eyes" lol

[SatanicSmile]

>some miserable pile of man is wearing merch with this album cover

Over half of Finnish politicians would gladly pour 200K of taxpayer € coins for and no-one would care tier cover art


E: just my way of saying it sucks - don't want to bring up politics here

[SatanicSmile]

Came to think every pic I've posted here has been from a power metal band (Walls of Jericho era Helloween being speed), although I do listen to quite a variety of music and own CDs from most of those genres too. Just happens these are not only suitable for these bands, but I also like to look at them.

That in mind did very quick scroll through my discogs to pick up something from there for this topic, and found Visions of Atlantis - Eternal Endless Infinity (Christian Riese Lassen). What's funny, last year I was at local shop and came across this album and the artwork definitely caught my eyes, and I looked, "ah yes Vision Divine, want some of those". Yeah, one of my tired full retard moments for sure, but at least it was like 3€.

At home I was like hell no, wrong band, also female fronted symphonic metal - something I usually find boring I'm gonna give it a try tho for sure

The album exists with different band logo, probably for most of the re-issues, this pic is stolen from discogs but I guess it's at least decent scan. While I like the art on this one a lot, it's still far behind from other ones I posted. Yeah it has sea and all, suitable for their thing, but it lacks something to make it feel like an album cover for me. But maybe that's just me favoring the bands I actually like?




I'll look up something made for those other genres some day

[robocop]

Over half of Finnish politicians would gladly pour 200K of taxpayer € coins for and no-one would care tier cover art

"brat"

Next one call it:

Noodle. Or, "Bitch." Sure, the kids will eat it up with a dance beat. (no flavio es god style, capisce??)

finnish politics should give trump a yelling at, with his fake plastic gold bullshit stuff LOL

[ZenithMC]

While I like the art on this one a lot, it's still far behind from other ones I posted. Yeah it has sea and all, suitable for their thing, but it lacks something to make it feel like an album cover for me. But maybe that's just me favoring the bands I actually like?

Is it 'cause it lacks certain surreal/fantasy elements? Most of the cover arts posted here so far have those. My favorite cover arts have vistas in them, either architectural or natural, so this one I think is quite nice.

Ah, I just remembered Crimson Glory had a cool cover art for their 2nd album. Pairs well with the neon women in this post, capisce?

Crimson Glory - Transcendence by Takashi Terada, 1988


This was originally created for the Japanese version of an ancient 1985 movie called Lifeforce.

And also...

Labyrinth - Timeless Crime by Simone Bianchi, 1999


Hard to find a good quality image of this cover art 'cause Discogs has a bitch-fit over a woman's bare ass on the cover and hides them from non-logged-in users.

Labyrinth - Sons of Thunder by Simone Bianchi, 2000

[SatanicSmile]

While I like the art on this one a lot, it's still far behind from other ones I posted. Yeah it has sea and all, suitable for their thing, but it lacks something to make it feel like an album cover for me. But maybe that's just me favoring the bands I actually like?

Is it 'cause it lacks certain surreal/fantasy elements? Most of the cover arts posted here so far have those. My favorite cover arts have vistas in them, either architectural or natural, so this one I think is quite nice.

Must be that really. For example surreal stuff helps me kinda like some of the Strato cover arts some would not understand at all. I also definitely like scenery like pretty looking sky, something nicely achieved with airbrush methods which is common in some of my 80's/90's favorites.

I was meant to mention Hervé Monjeaud in the first post but didn't want to start with too long. Another Silent Force album to this topic, Worlds Apart One of my long time favorites, it has it all, the style, scenery, colors, a winged woman (!!) (honestly there's a lot of covers with them that I like, usually they have angels) . The only drawback is it being a bit too crowded with the face right next to "the smoke face" in the middle. Long time ago it actually took me a while to even notice it and the artwork looked better before that



He also worked on a lot of Gamma Ray albums and in fact that way I first heard about airbrush long time ago.




Majority of Labyrinth cover arts look pretty fine

[robocop]

2 days ago I wanted to post BREAST METAL when seeing these tits