QotD: Art over Music

What are your three favorite album covers of all-time? Any honorable mentions?

Question submitted by Tamara.

Fun question!  Even though I'm a day late, I definitely wanted to play :)

The easiest one to think of is Mirrorball by Sarah McLachlan.  I think it is SUCH a pretty cover.  The colors, the mirrory ball in a cool shape and the swirlies behind that to give it texture are just amazing

When I made my first design for love-productions, I was very inspired by this feel, although the album is way  prettier.  I love the font too, i'm always drawn to the lettering on albums (note: i do love fonts ;) )

I'm also quite a fan of Vanessa Carlton's first album, Be Not Nobody.  The illustrations around her picture and again, the font choice really draw me in.  I loved the music before seeing the album, but it didn't hurt that I thought it was beautiful when i finally got it.  I love the colors too.

For a simple cover that's just beautiful in it's simplicity, I like the elements of BareNaked by Jennifer Love Hewitt. It's a really pretty picture of her.  The soft colors, and the sash on her back are very nice.  And a gorgeous flowy font (it may be her handwriting, I'm not sure.

Runners up?  I like the style of P!nk's I'm Not Dead.  It's probably not my normal style, but something about it just hits me as great.  And the Once more with Feeling album has a great old movie poster feel.  They did a cool treatment on the actors faces, along with fun stylized elements behind them that really were musical-feel. (Besides, I loved this episode of Buffy, that makes me love it even if the cover wasn't cool to look at).  And finally, d.c. talk's Jesus Freak has a nice weathered look like Mirrorball.  Classy logo in the middle that looked too pretty to be on a CD cover.

One fun tool I use to grab album covers on songs that don't have them when I'm playing in iTunes is the Amazon Album Art Widget from the Widget Foundry.  All I have to do is zoom over to my dashboard and click a button when a song shows up with out a cover.  It'll search for it and then add it to itunes.  That's pretty handy.  Another cool tool that is new to me is Cover Flow to browse through your album art.  (thanks to Mark for the link!)  Once I get a new remote for my mac mini (shh, don't laugh, i think it fell in the trash can the very first week I had it) then I'll use Front Row again and I will be able to see my albums all pretty from across the room too!