In this increasingly digital scene, the album artwork is being shoved to the side. Bands no longer have to catch eye of wary consumers. iTunes has sterilized the music buying process. Now what you get is album artwork that resembles more like a press photo, than actual artwork.

This is Fall Out Boy's first commercial album and you will notice that they are brooding, misunderstood youths. But this album cover could have easily been sent to many recording companies as a press photo. This is what now defines the generation of mainstream album work. If you want something creative, you have to go with non-mainstream artists.


This is where the band Cattle Decapitation can succeed. While their music may suck, they have pretty decent album artwork.

But for a mainstream artist to pull off a cool album artwork like Cattle Decapitation would mean certain banning, either from record stores, iTunes, and maybe even the United States. Imagine if Panic! At the Disco had cool artwork like a cattle crapping out human remains. UNHEARD of!

Then there is my favorite band to come along in the last five years, besides the Union Dead (RIP), Velvet Revolver. They have combined the awesomeness of Appetite for Destruction, with Ancient Rome, and skeletons. This combines one of the most badass records ever made, with one of the most badass societies ever to rule the world, with one of the most badass symbols of death. How can you create an image to live up to all three things? Well they pull it off. It also is 15X more interesting than their previous album cover, a silhouetted, curvaceous woman with a gun pointed at you. Which in theory, is an awesome idea, but in practice it fails.