Total Records: Photography and the Art of the Album Cover

The history of photography is teeming with portraits of musicians made iconic by their album covers: Thelonious Monk by W. Eugene Smith, Miles Davis by Irving Penn, Grace Jones by Jean-Paul Goude, Laurie Anderson by Robert Mapplethorpe.

The history of album cover art also includes collaborations between prominent figures, such as Mick Rock and David Bowie, Annie Leibovitz and John Lennon, Lee Friedlander and John Coltrane, Nobuyoshi Araki and Björk, Anton Corbijn and U2, and Robert Frank with the Rolling Stones ― not to mention Francis Wolff’s legendary work with Blue Note, the record label he cofounded.

Musicians and designers have also sifted through photography’s rich history for powerful photographs to match and keep company with the music enclosed within: Anders Petersen’s classic Café Lehmitz portrait of a man nestling into a woman’s bosom stands in for Tom Waits on the cover of Swordfishtrombones; Big Star and Alex Chilton push the listener into a corner with William Eggleston’s Red Ceiling on their album Radio City; Rage Against the Machine goes for the jugular on its self-titled album with the anonymous Vietnam War photo of the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk. Images like the Abbey Road crosswalk are deeply inscribed in our collective memory, yet few details are known about the photographer.

All of these ― and more ― are included in this compendium of electrifying images and the albums they grace. Includes albums featuring images by David Bailey, Guy Bourdin, Anton Corbijn, Roy DeCarava, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Luigi Ghirri, Jean-Paul Goude, Brian Griffin, William Klein, David LaChapelle, Danny Lyon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Ryan McGinley, Helmut Newton, Martin Parr, Anders Petersen, Pierre et Gilles, Hiro, Cindy Sherman, W. Eugene Smith, Pennie Smith, Juergen Teller, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol, Albert Watson, William Wegman, and more.