MP3 & Downloads
2000-2009. Album sales collapse; covers persist as ringtones, social-media avatars, and Spotify thumbnails. Stripes, Strokes, Arcade Fire, Kanye, Daft Punk's helmets.
Part of Album Cover
18 moments in this segment.
- - Radiohead - Kid A. 2000 · Designer: Stanley Donwood · Thom Yorke Painted snow-covered mountain landscape rendered in Donwood's "red" palette. Released without a single, in a year when the music industry assumed nobody bought albums anymore.
- - Kid A. 00:04:45
- - Daft Punk - Discovery. 2001 · Designer: Daft Punk Gold-plated robot heads, the moment Thomas and Guy-Manuel adopted the helmet-as-permanent-public-identity.
- - Daft Punk - Discovery (Full Album). ) · 01:00:29
- - The White Stripes - White Blood Cells. 2001 · Designer: Jack White · photo by Patrick Pantano Jack and Meg in white shirts on a red field with falling "cells". The Stripes' commitment to the red-white-black palette as a complete brand system.
- - The Strokes - Is This It. 2001 · Designer: Colin Lane Photograph of a woman's hip and gloved hand. The UK cover was censored to a particle-collider image, both covers are now collected.
- - The Strokes - Is This It (Lyrics) [HQ]. 00:02:31
- - Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights. 2002 · Designer: Slang · photo by Marina Chavez Red-on-black band-name typography against a black square. Definitive post-punk-revival design language.
- - Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. 2003 · Designer: James Goodman · Antwan A. Patton · André Benjamin Two-sleeves-in-one double-album with separate Big Boi and André 3000 covers. Designed so you could file it on either side of the alphabet.
- - She Lives in My Lap. 00:04:27
- - Kanye West - The College Dropout. 2004 · Designer: Kanye West · Morning Breath A bear in a varsity sweater alone on bleachers. West's "Dropout Bear" mascot debuts here and recurs through Late Registration and Graduation.
- - Never Let Me Down. Provided to YouTube by Universal Music Group Never Let Me Down · Kanye West · JAŸ-Z · J. Ivy
- - Kanye West - Graduation. 2007 · Designer: Takashi Murakami Takashi Murakami's Dropout Bear in graduation cap and gown against a CMYK-pixelated explosion. The first major collaboration of a contemporary artist with a hip-hop release.
- - Graduation Day. 00:01:22
- - Radiohead - In Rainbows. 2007 · Designer: Stanley Donwood · Thom Yorke Donwood used a graffiti-removal solvent on woodblock prints, mixed it with wax, scanned the result. The pay-what-you-want album with a cover made in the kitchen.
- - Radiohead - In Rainbows From the Basement (April 2008). ) · 01:03:10
- - Interpol - Lights. 00:05:16
- - The White Stripes' White Blood Cells (In 3 Minutes). ) · 00:03:14
