With another year in the can it's time to look back towards the best and worst covers of 2018. Purely subjective - with some favorited or disliked for purely personal reasons - this list acts as a fun round-up of the year. Take a look back in time for the best and worst covers of 2017 and 2016. As per usual, one rule of thumb applies: I must have listened to the album, otherwise intent could be lost.
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Worst | Milo - Budding Ornithologists Are Weary Of Tired Analogies | *rolls eyes.* At this point in Milo's career, I wouldn't have expected any less. In short order, Milo's gone from creating his own identity ripe with peculiarities to overburdening every cliche imaginable that resulted from his Art Rap brand. It's why Budding Ornithologists was his worst LP to date. Every facet, including the pretentious 'anti' cover of a non-event, feels like Milo recycling and reproducing Milo. For all the big words he uses he sure doesn't back them up with anything artistically meaningful.
Best | Janelle Monáe - Dirty Computer | Sometimes great artwork doesn't need to send a message or incite shock n' awe. Sometimes it's just gorgeous, and that's Janelle Monae's depiction of Dirty Computer. Draped in a cross-stitch of diamonds, set against the backdrop of antique, foreign sun artwork, Monae's contemplative look really resonates in a peaceful way. Not necessarily like the loud R&B Funk contained within, but rather the poignancy that strikes behind Monae's lyrics.
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Worst | Brockhampton - iridescence | Oof. Funny how inverted my appreciation for Brockhampton is. My least favorite album of theirs (Saturation II) has my favorite cover, while my favorite (iridescence) never falters in making me uncomfortable. From a reactionary standpoint - Brockhampton's goal - it works. However, apart from using infrared to associate with Brockhampton's saturated production style (get it?), the image of a pregnant woman in loungewear doesn't really feel relevant or pertinent to their image. An odd cover for sure.
Best | Big Blood - Operate Spaceship Earth Properly | This is more personal preference, as I'm aware most haven't heard of Big Blood, their most recent album Operate Spaceship Earth Properly, or Colleen Kinsella's artwork. See, Kinsella (my favorite vocalist ever) also creates every piece of imagery for Big Blood. Some remnants - both used and unused - appear on her Flickr account. One such unused piece was the bucky balls, which always stayed with me. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when Operate Spaceship paired one with her series of crudely pasted statuettes.
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Worst | Waxahatchee - Great Thunder | Bland, plain, tepid. Every description one can think of for something generic and uninspired would apply to Great Thunder. It's the kind of cover one sees in the store only to gloss over, ignore, and never remember again. I'd say the music's similar to that - it is rudimentary Singer/Songwriter after all - but Waxahatchee really does have a beautiful voice that can be appreciated in simpler terms.
Best | Pusha T - DAYTONA | Kanye West has always used art to make a statement that gets people talking. That's exactly what he did with Pusha T's cover for Daytona, a crude Polaroid of Whitney Houston's crack-riddled bathroom following her bathtub overdose. Not only that, the announcement that said photograph cost West $85,000 to license only added to the lore. Bobby Brown's response, saying it was in "really bad taste" further amplified the vast reaction to Daytona's cover. Which, in essence, is the point of art.
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Worst | Atmosphere - Mi Vida Local | Despite the saying, sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. Not necessarily in terms of sound or style, but effort. The lazy, one-and-done photoshoot of Slug draped in red in front of bushes (?) reflects Mi Vida Local's general languor. It makes zero artistic statement because Atmosphere had none to make. Not a recipe for success.
Best | Death Grips - Year Of The Snitch | Never doubt Death Grips' ability to incite a reaction. Every single one of their covers has done that. Year Of The Snitch's gross cover could've easily been listed in the top 10 worst, and therein lies the beauty. Those misshapen mouths waiting to be fed through holes in a filthy plastic table cause so many sensations at once to occur. Is it comical? Is it distressful? Is it sexual? It's that uncertainty that has defined Death Grips' career. Whether musically or visually, they cherish the idea of challenging their fans.
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Worst | Anderson .Paak - Oxnard | Why does Oxnard's cover falter? It holds the dubious honor of looking like above-average fan art. On top of that, the pieces don't really make logical sense. Why smoke? Why mid-performance? Why a car? It all feels haphazardly thrown together, which is unfortunate considering .Paak's previous track record with exceptional covers. Malibu's still gold.
Best | Denzel Curry - TA13OO | Whether it's Lil Yachty, Migos, or Travis Scott, Trap has been known for artistic cover art. One's that typically go far beyond the actual music's scope. Denzel Curry takes exception to that last part, actually attributing the demented facade of a braggadocios inmate to TA13OO's overhanging insanity. Much like how 13's cover forecasted the experimental pandemonium to come. TA13OO's cover is so eye-grabbing - with no choice but to make eye contact with Curry - that one would be remiss for ignoring the fact Curry's heavily smeared in controversial whiteface.
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Worst | SiR - November | In theory, there's nothing wrong with the cover to SiR's TDE debut November. Something's just off. The pieces don't work well together. A circular, zoomed-in eye (not great for the square cover format) with November scrawled across. Maybe there's some deeper meaning I'm missing - something that connects the word and imagery - but for now it rings like a pseudo-intellectual artist trying to be deep without actually thinking things through.
Best | Kids See Ghosts - Kids See Ghosts | Presenting one of the most overrated albums in recent memory. The reasons are vast, but Kids See Ghosts can't - by its very submission - be anything greater than average. Which it is. Excluding the excellent sample flip on '4th Dimension' and the glorious, El-P-like beat on the title track, the best Kids See Ghosts offered was its sensational cover. The painted colors are lush and varied, the imagery both curious and evocative, and the merging of vintage Japanese artisanship with modern anime stylings (similar to Hayao Miyazaki's work) leaves every viewer quenched.
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Worst | Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs | Everything about Some Rap Songs is difficult. As far as artistically-challenging music goes, Earl Sweatshirt's return pulled out all the stops. On the surface it feels amateur, rushed, and careless. But the precision and commitment contradicts that. Much of this applies to the cover, a blurry image of smiling Earl implying that things aren't okay. It's extremely disorienting, with head strain being caused the longer you look at it. However, much like Some Rap Songs itself, I can understand why people appreciate it. I just can't look past the sloppy disregard for treating one's work as their passion, scoffing it off as something cheap.
Best | Against All Logic - 2012-2017 | Nicolas Jaar's fantastic ode to Deep House is rife with vibrant percussion and rich Soul samples. So how does the almost entirely black and white cover work? Aesthetic. Despite being cluttered with track titles - marked new by bold black - 2012-2017's cover feels oddly compartmentalized. It's ordered but unusual. That's helped by the crude screenshot of a gymnast thrown in the corner, bearing similarities to Kanye West's Life Of Pablo, but also providing a niche setting of late 80's and early 90's workout videos where Deep House flourished amidst the sweat.
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Worst | Post Malone - beerbongs & bentleys | You know, I fought the urge to zoom beerbongs & bentleys' cover above just a smidge to remove the white excess. But you know, if Post Malone doesn't care to make his own cover appealing why should I? The crude display of a bygone media format being a metaphor for nothing in particular doesn't bode well for artistic integrity, which is what Post Malone strives for in his futile efforts. For what it's worth, the non-cover cover would've been more memorable had Kanye West not done it five years prior with Yeezus, an equally bad cover but one that at least had originality to its name.
Best | The Caretaker - Everywhere At The End Of Time - Stage Four | Leyland Kirby's artwork is always outstanding. Much of that should go to Ivan Seal for producing such striking images through a dull approach, but the appeal wouldn't be half as awe-inducing if not for The Caretaker's music which matches the stoicism sublimely. Stage 4's side portrait of, seemingly, a statue rotting away through decades of decay and mistreatment acts as the perfect visualization to Stage 4's stark transformation into a dark, decomposing mind.
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Worst | Chvrches - Love Is Dead | What's to like? It seems that as Chvrches grow older they become more immature, callow, and seeped in adolescent romance. Love Is Dead's cover screams faux-Emo, as the stereotypical pretty girl sports an indomitable look masked to manufacture mystery. All the while an X strikes through the heart and generic ladylike colors douse themselves in the foreground. To think this came from a once-preeminent Indie-bearing Synthpop outfit is immeasurably disappointing.
Best | Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want | Good art typically boosts an album's ambience above its actual baseline. Take for instance any Trap record made in the past few years. Cover art is imperative to the brand, whereas the music's unoriginal formula falls by the wayside. Not on Daughters' sensational You Won't Get What You Want, my personal album of the year. Of course, outside of the album's context, the image of a ghostly face painted with an anxious hand in pure white is frightful. Whilst listening to the album however, it's harrowing. The black eyes of nothingness, the deteriorating face, the mouth slightly agape. All of it amounts to an uneasy feeling, which was exactly Daughters' goal.
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Worst | Kanye West - ye | Much of my disdain towards ye's cover (and causatively, the album itself) was attributed previously to Earl Sweatshirt's Some Rap Songs. However, it's on an unimaginable scale with an artist who once had a track record for perfection. ye's spur of the moment approach - that trickled through the music, features, promotional cycle, and more - is reflected accurately in the abysmal cover, an iPhone photograph taken on the way to the listening party. In terms of representation, it can be commended for veracity, but I still despise the overall apathetic mistreatment of art. Especially disappointing coming from one of the best artists of this generation. The crude text of faux bipolar disorder (no one actually diagnosed would use such a trivial cliche) doesn't help matters at all.
Best | Young Fathers - Cocoa Sugar | Young Fathers have always had provocative covers. Many artists do. But where the Scottish trio separate themselves lies in the simplicity. Much like the disruptive and oddly contentious cover for White Men Are Black Men Too, Cocoa Sugar takes an equally confrontational look at race and gender transparency. Using Grace Jones' iconic look to startle and intrigue, Young Fathers set out to further blend their gender-bending sentimentality. The stark black skin recessed in the shadows, lighting up only dead eyes and a piercing red slack jaw mouth, resonates through sheer candor. The cowboy hat? Who knows, but it gets the people going.
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