The 25 Best Album Covers of 2012

A look back at the greatest LP art of the past year.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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The advent of digital music has overshadowed physical album packaging in recent years, but with artists now releasing cover art and tracklists long before the album itself, we have something to look forward to, again.

This year we’ve seen some of the most stripped-down, emotional album covers and a lot of strange artwork that makes us appreciate the time and consideration that artists put into their covers. With that said, some are better than others, and we’ve picked our favorite covers of the year.

From Wiz Khalifa kicking back in a fur coat on the cover of O.N.I.F.C. to Action Bronson and Alchemist’s hilarious Rare Chandeliers, it’s been an amazing year for album art. Read on for our breakdown of The 25 Best Album Covers of 2012.

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25. El-P, Cancer 4 Cure

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Label: Fat Possum
Art Director: Ron Groudy
It's a bird? A plane? No, it's just pieces of broken glass on El-P's album cover. The image was in fact drawn by Alexander Calder, one of the most famous American sculptors. As it turns out, El-P's parents were heavily into the art scene when he was growing up (he claims they used to hang out with Robert Crumb).

El's mother got Calder to draw a few images for her then one-year-old son, which have since appeared on his various album covers, this year's C4C being no exception.

24. CFCF, Exercises

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Label: Paper Bag
Art Director: Josh Clancy, Travis Stearns

Thanks to social media, we live in a society drenched in both narcissism and voyeurism. We can (and will) e-stalk every person we've ever met. So don't be freaked out by the cover of Exercises, which in the end only offers a view of empty library shelves and nothing else. It's the kind of view that would make L.B. Jefferies grab his binoculars.

23. Prince Rama, Top 10 Hits of the End of the World

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Label: Paw Tracks
Art Director: Jo Cutri

The deliciously ridiculous cover of Prince Rama is the definition of "so bad it's good." What's not to love about the '80s-themed, over-the-top artwork which not only features the phrase "As Seen On TV," but typography fit for a Sega Genesis game, too.

22. Wild Nothing, Nocturne

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Label: Captured Tracks
Art Director: Jack Tatum

Wild Nothing's lead singer, Jack Tatum, came up with the album art for his second album. He wanted to have alternate covers with a classic and elegant look to them, but he felt like things were missing from album packaging. He created six distinct covers for the vinyl release of the album, all individually beautiful art that embody the dream-pop sounds that flow through Nocturne.

21. Swans, The Seer

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Label: Young God
Art Director: Michael Gira, Simon Henwood

We're not sure if that's a dog, a wolf, a wookiee, or an ewok. But whatever it is, it's ferocious and awesome.

20. Heems, Nehru Jackets

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19. Beach House, Bloom

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Label: Sub Pop
Art Director: Brian Roettinger, Beach House

This is some trippy shit. We could stare at this cover all day just to feel like we're sitting in a futuristic psych ward where they cure your schizophrenia with heavy doses of Beach House and the occasional Facebook login so you don't feel lonely.

18. Meek Mill, Dreams And Nightmares

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Label: Maybach Music Group, Warner Bros.
Art Director: Chaz Morgan

Meek Mill's album cover is one of the best covers of the year because it perfectly captures it's title. For Meek, success and failure are intertwined, a Rolex is a sign of ultimate victory and sitting in a jail cell is a complete loss. Moving forward in the rap game, signing with MMG, and scoring hits are Meek's dreams. Getting sucked back into the street life is a nightmare.

17. How To Dress Well, Total Loss

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Label: Acéphale, Weird World
Art Director: Mile Eror

Tom Krell, a philosophy student turned indie-electronica songwriter, has become a master of harmonic dichotomy. For his sophomore effort under the How To Dress Well moniker, Krell sets the stage for Total Loss by constructing a contrasting canvas of his own sculpted death mask against a soft pink background.

The juxtaposed image serves as a more than fitting snapshot of an otherwise serene project speckled with elements of darkness.

16. RATKING, WIKI93

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Label: XL Recordings
Art Director: Patrick "Wiki" Morales

What makes the cover of Wiki93 so great is also what makes the album so great. On one hand, it's admirably amateurish—Wiki and his crew are just young kids who love to rap and are damn good at it even if they aren't polished just yet. Meanwhile, the artwork was made by Wiki himself during his sophomore year art class.

"The cover was supposed to be some African mask type shit," explained Wiki. "But then it's got some like New York type tribal shit on it."

15. Game, Jesus Piece

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Label: Interscope, DGC
Art Director: Vlad Sepetov

The ever controversial Jayceon Taylor decided to go with an illustration of a thugged-out Jesus Christ for his album. Game's Jesus is black, has a perm, and is wearing a red rag over his face.

The cover garnered so much ire that, according to Game, the Roman Catholic Church called up Interscope to complain. "Interscope is mostly Jewish, you know," said Game, on the radio. "They called the wrong building."

14. Bobby Womack, The Bravest Man in the Universe

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Label: XL Recordings
Art Director: Jamie-James Medina (Photography)

Fact: 21% of people who see this album cover will try and fail to contort their thumb in the same way. 8% will break their thumb. Okay, fine, we just made those numbers up. But still, that shit looks hella painful. Please, don't try this at home.

13. Grimes, Visions

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Label: Arbutus
Art Director: Grimes

Grimes had a specific idea when creating her third album, Visions, and she wanted incorporate something beautiful, but equally violent. Her intricate skull sketch involves a lot of movement as well as emotion, leading the Canadian electro-pop singer to her own showing of visual art at Audio Visual Arts. She says that she's reflected comic books that are as dark as her music into her pieces.

12. Rick Ross, The Black Bar Mitzvah

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11. Crystal Castles, (III)

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Label: Fiction, Polydor
Art Director: Samuel Aranda

Making the artwork of your third album a picture of a mother holding down her son while he's suffering from tear gas seems extra bleak, but when your music sounds like Crystal Castles', it only makes sense.

10. ScHoolboy Q, Habits & Contradictions

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Label: Top Dawg
Art Director:

Arguably the most menacing lyricist of the Top Dawg brigade, ScHoolboy Q's cover for Habits & Contradictions is a compelling snapshot of the Los Angeles native's psyche. The tatted-up MC is juxtaposed against a woman sporting a ski mask and brandishing a four-finger ring...while licking his face.

It's stylish yet provocative. Chilling yet captivating. Prior to this album, Schoolboy was on the come up, but still in rap's peripherals. After witnessing this cover and its content, that's a thing of the past now.

9. Action Bronson & Alchemist, Rare Chandeliers

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8. Best Coast, The Only Place

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Label: Mexican Summer
Art Director: Dan Schechter, David Black, Jess Rotter

The California duo, Best Coast pays great homage to their home state on their second studio album with a cover displaying a brown bear physically embracing the Golden State. It was originally derived from the original sheet music for "I Love You, California" (the official state song).

For eleven tracks on The Only Place, Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno do much of the same, presenting sunny California hooks and a more polished sound, aided by producer Jon Brion.

7. Tame Impala, Lonerism

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Label: Modular
Art Director: Leif Podhajsky

Tame Impala's connection with acclaimed artist Leif Podhajsky runs deep. He did the psychedelic cover for their previous album, Innerspeaker, along with all of its singles. But for Lonerism, he decided to step away from the trippier elements for something more interpretive.

The photo, which was taken by the band's producer Kevin Parker, embraces the album's feelings of isolation. At first glance, however, you might just notice the folks on the other side of the fence at Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris, France and think, "Hey, these people are having a great time." It's when you realize that you are only looking in, and therefore not interacting, that it hits you.

6. Bat For Lashes, The Haunted Man

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Label: Parlophone
Art Director: Ryan McGinley

The intimacy of the cover for Bat for Lashes' The Haunted Man foreshadows an entire album of hauntingly beautiful melodies and a glimpse into the mind of Natasha Khan. It's raw and honest, and Khan has said its her and her "haunted man."

Yet, the cover photo is so stripped down—Khan is wearing no clothes or makeup—that it superbly symbolizes the emotional lyrics flowing through her third album.

5. Wiz Khalifa, O.N.I.F.C.

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Label: Rostrum, Atlantic
Art Director: Greg Gigendad Burke, Fatima Bah

The '60s-inspired cover of O.N.I.F.C. was Wiz Khalifa attempting to move into the future, he says. And while people either loved it or hated it, we’ve got to give him props for truly embodying the rock-star lifestyle he’s talked about so much as of late.

Wiz sits in a leopard fur coat, shirtless, with his tattoos exposed, and somehow just represented him to the fullest. “I’m helping everyone get in touch with their inner sleaze,” he said in response to the hate on Twitter, and that he did.

4. Nas, Life Is Good

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Label: Def Jam
Art Director: Alex Haldi

Heartbreak breeds many emotions. On Life Is Good, Nas confronts his own feelings over the last few years, with the cover depicting the dapper Queens MC in thought while he holds his ex-wife's (Kelis) green wedding dress.

In that respect, the image serves a dual purpose. Whereas it's evident that Nas has moved on in his life, he is also reminded of an influential and tumultuous past, which, in the end, made for some of the best music he's created in years.

3. Sleigh Bells, Reign of Terror

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Label: Mom+Pop
Art Director: Steve Attardo

Alexis Kraus wears white Keds on stage every night. So, when Sleigh Bells was deciding on their cover for Reign of Terror, it only made sense to doctor up the pre-existing blood on this pair of white Keds, actually worn by Kraus.

Guitarist Derek Miller said in an interview with Pitchfork that they symbolize a loss of innocence, and that the blood is in fact from him whacking Kraus over the head with his guitar at a show. Either way, the bloodied Keds are representative of their entire catalog and are, overall, a badass image.

2. 2 Chainz, Based on a T.R.U. Story

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Label: Def Jam
Art Director: Fabien Montique

You know you've done an amazing marketing campaign when your product becomes synonymous with a single image. That's the case for Atlanta rapper 2 Chainz, who took a minimalistic approach to the cover of his album Based on a T.R.U. Story. Right on form, two golden chains glisten off a black backdrop, and nothing else.

With the music that's provided on his solo debut, a collage of scantily-clad women or a stack of dollar bills could have easily been the portrait here without any complaint to its relevance. However, Tity Two Necklace clearly knows where his bread is buttered, which is why we all love saying (read: yelling) his name. And that's tru.

1. Kendrick Lamar, good kid, m.A.A.d. city

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Label: Top Dawg, Aftermath, Interscope
Art Director: Kendrick Lamar

Using a photo from your childhood on your major label debut album in hip-hop is always a bold move. After all, it was a tradition started by Nas, emulated by Biggie, and carried on by Lil Wayne. So for Kendrick to use a photo of him as a baby sitting on his uncle's lap as his album cover was a statement.

At the same time, having a 40 and a baby bottle chilling on a table tells you everything else you need to know about Kendrick's upbringing. For any other outliers, just press play.

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