Best Album Covers Of 2014

In many ways, it's surprising that we're still doing a list like this in 2014, as we've reached a point where music has, almost, gone entirely digital. No one's actually buying physical albums, but we still see album artwork with each release, and we certainly had some compelling examples in 2014. Artists and labels continue to invest a lot of effort, and money, into the artwork they adjoin their releases with. As we mostly hear our favorite music through computers or various handheld devices, it's nice to have something that gives a visual aesthetic-- something a bit more tangible, to go along with what we're hearing. And if you've got the time and money to go out and purchase albums in their various physical formats, you can really appreciate the music as a product and a more fully formed artistic statement. The best album covers we saw this year were fascinating pieces of art in themselves, but they also perfectly matched the tone and message of the music they accompanied. So, here, in no particular order, are our favorites of the year. 

GoldLink is an up-and-coming DMV area rapper who, to this point, has revealed very little about his personal identity, thus allowing his music to speak for itself (get familiar with him in our October edition of On the Come Up). The cover for his mixtape The God Complex is a collaboration between illustrator Christina Mudarri and graphic designer Nick Fulcher. They depict a sea of identical white masks immediately reminiscent of some sort of tribal religion. In the top right hand corner there floats a sole red and green colored mask, encompassed by a barely visible grey aura of its own. A telling quote is printed on the back side of the cover: "The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God." Thus it seems GoldLink will continue his career as a figure shrouded in mystery-- in a game where most rappers, many of whom practice a type of self-worship, construct highly superficial identities that they can sell to the public.

To adorn Logic's debut album, Def Jam hired the acclaimed painter and illustrator Sam Spratt, whose prior clients include Childish Gambino and Janelle Monáe. Compared to other rap record covers this year, Logic's is very understated; just a few teenage friends hanging out in a dimly lit basement. Logic sits in the middle of the portrait, and he looks to be scanning lyrics on his phone, while his buddy to the left is busy on Pro Tools, or, more likely, an even more amateur program. The depicted basement is the childhood home of one of Logic's close friends and come-up partners. It was the place Logic fled to from his own abode, a place ridden with drugs and violence. The basement stands as one of the few safe places of Logic's adolescence; a quiet, underground room where there was little do but zone in on the music. Now Logic's rap career is in full bloom, and Spratt perfectly captures the place, now just a memory, where it all started.

The original cover for Mastermind is a faded pink shot of a close-up of Rick Ross' face. Nothing soft about it, showing toughness and fashion-savvy coolness are on in the same for Ricky. He really took it to the next level, though, with the deluxe edition-- designed by legendary street artist and Banksy associate Mr. Brainwash. Done in typical graffiti style, Mr. Brainwash shows the Bawse firing a golden gun into his head, thus unloading all the brilliant contents of his Mastermind-- a beautiful, Pollock-esque splatter of every color imaginable set against a black backdrop. 

One rapper often unfairly pigeonholed as art-rap is DOOM. But if the category says anything, it's that the visuals surrounding his work are always compelling, and it's no different with NehruvianDOOM, his latest collaboration with 18-year-old Bishop Nehru. The project is out on London-based Lex Records, who have released the last few DOOM projects. Lex is a still record label in the traditional sense, and the artistic side of their output is always a major focus. For NehruvianDOOM, they've hired the cartoonists Ghostshrimp, who are responsible for creating the mind-melting worlds of animated shows like Adventure Time, and the picture they have given us for DOOM and Nehru is just as trippy. DOOM and Nehru stand on a wooden platform up in the trees looking down on some post-apocalyptic world of green mushrooms and red, boneless figures contemplating suicide. 

By now Killer Mike and El-P are synonymous with these dismembered zombie hands. The hand to the left (from our perspective) is in trigger formation, pointed towards a closed fist (on the right) clenching a gold chain. The artwork is much the same as the first RTJ album, except then the frail green hands were fully exposed. This time the hands are tightly wrapped in blood-soaked plaster with only the razor-sharp fingernails showing. Also, the background is now bright red as opposed to black. We hope Mike and El stick to the same logo for their next release as it's just as indelible as the music itself. The artwork has been an essential component to the rest of RTJ's perfectly gruesome formula, and that's why it's back on our list. RTJ fans everywhere are now throwing up the zombie stickup hands, and they've inspired the "Tag the Jewels" movement, in which artists have posted incredible graffitied variations of the artwork on walls and buildings across the world.

Travis $cott puts a lot of effort into the visual aesthetic surrounding his music, and though we haven't quite fully grasped it yet, we know it's unlike anyone else out there. Whether he's dressed in snowboard gear, riding horseback across an empty plain ("Don't Play"), or taking us through a forest guarded by scythe-wielding midgets reminiscent of something out of True Detective ("Upper Echelon"), he seems to hint at an atmosphere far outside the urban locales typically associated with hip-hop. And the cover art for Days Before Rodeo works perfectly for $cott's still-mysterious world. The red font and the open, jaded blue sky-- the tiny, just-emerged full moon in the upper right hand corner, looks like the poster to a classic western. We only see $cott's back, and he's positioned in the photo as if he's just been bucked off his horse; now a lone ranger in any empty landscape. Word has it (from Reddit) that a fan, and coincidental Dutch design student, tweeted very similar fan-made artwork, which Scott quickly put his own spin on without acknowledging the original. It's unclear where credit is due here, but the cover ended up working perfectly for the project.

This is the only black and white cover on the list, but the colors are the only ones suitable for the dualistic thematic content found on Q's latest release. Here we're going to feature both the standard and deluxe editions, as both pictures are necessary to understand what's happening on Oxymoron. The title refers to the way Q sees his past life, and constant mix of good and evil. When he's selling drugs and banging in the streets, the end incentive is always to provide for his daughter. On the flip side, as he's trying to do good by his little girl, he's simultaneously putting himself, and thus her, in more danger. It's like his life is one unescapable oxymoron. The standard edition shows an actual picture of his daughter, while the deluxe shows Q's face covered in an all-white ski mask, looking scary as hell. The ski-mask's whiteness alludes to the, also white, drug that made him his money (while also putting him in harm's way): Oxycontin (another reason for the album title). Q's daughter is a vital part of his identity, and so is his gangbanging past, each representing an opposite side of his feuding soul. Whichever Q we're dealing with, though, there's always a bucket hat on top.

Joe Perez is the Art Director at DONDA, the creative agency founded by Kanye West (named after his mother), that has, for the past few years, been producing the best cover art in hip-hop. Perez also has his own studio where he does the artwork for artists who, presumably, aren't affiliated with G.O.O.D. or Kanye. In addition to The Pinkprint, just this year he's personally done the art for Big K.R.I.T.'s Cadillactica as well as Ludacris' Burning Bridges-- though his work on Nicki's debut is his best. The cover shows a dark pink, glossy, chunky substance with a fingerprint chalk in the middle, which, presumably, belongs to Nicki. The substance is, literally, what it looks like: makeup. Perez combined all different types and shades of makeup (of course all of them pink) before letting Nicki plunge her finger into the center of it all. Nicki is obviously no stranger to makeup, adorning herself in it in the most creative of ways. But it's something that some might think limits Nicki to a constricting box of femininity. On The Pinkprint, though, Nicki shows her girliness is just what makes her one of the toughest characters in hip-hop. She's already left an indelible impression on the game-- and that mark comes in pink. 

Though Rome Fortune's music is quickly gaining traction, he's perhaps most known for his absolutely brilliant mixtape artwork. He released two tapes this year, Beautiful Pimp II and Small VVorld, and both covers deserve to be here. Like its predecessor, Pimp II shows Rome holding a baby next to a scantily clad woman. Here, though, he goes from ratchet to luxury-- from the strip club locker room to a glamorous hotel lobby. Rome, like the room, is in all white, and he's looking far more clean-cut than usual. His female counterpart is a little fancier as well, wearing a black-thonged leotard and high-platform heels with attached fur that extends up to her knees. As always, though, the booty's facing the camera. Like the two aforementioned tapes, Small VVorld shows Rome with a woman, this time completely naked, and, thankfully, no baby this time. They're both in the tub, Rome's woman lying on top of him. First you'll see the woman, then you'll notice Rome and his green beard, index finger to his temple, with a tough, indomitable look on his face. Then you'll see the gun in the foreground-- pointed right at the bathing couple. After seeing artwork like this, you can't help but give his tapes a listen. His videos, by the way, are just as wild.

As one is one of hip-hop's greatest record collectors, Madlib has undoubtedly learned an immense appreciation for album artwork. Piñata, his collaboration with Freddie Gibbs, is the first non-solo record he's released on his label. Madlib Invazion is a vinyl label first and foremost, and it should be no surprise they took the utmost care in curating their most high profile release to date. The cover shot shows an ultra-stoic Gibbs sitting on a concrete park bench, blunt pursed between his teeth. The background is blurred like a polaroid photo that's just starting to develop. But Gibbs' figure is perfectly clear in the foreground. He's rocking an old-school, clean-fitted, all-black Adidas tracksuit with a gold Rolex tight around his wrist; tough yet understated. The photographer here is Peter Beste, who has photographed in detail localized music scenes around the globe, including Houston Rap, his latest book of nearly 300 pages, which he completed after spending a total of nine years documenting in the Houston rap scene (preview some of the remarkable photographs here). Gibbs' has said he thinks of Piñata is "blaxploitation on wax," and the packaging here totally sticks to that sentiment. The portrait is framed with a retro-pimped zebra print that echoes Madlib's always funky production and Gibbs' timeless gangster raps. Grab this one on vinyl to appreciate it in full effect.