Album covers

I was raised on vinyl LPs and album covers were part of the magic.  In fact I’m sure I bought at least a couple of albums because I liked the cover art.

After a couple of decades of buying CDs, these days I mostly buy albums as downloads.  With 1,000 or so CDs round the house, I mostly don’t want any more to stash away. The cover shows up on iTunes anyway.

Still, there is an exception.  Every time I buy an album on the ECM label, I go through the same debate with myself: CD or download?  And most of the time I end up buying the CD because ECM art work is something special.  Like the music itself the ECM visual aesthetic is not to everyone’s taste but it is to mine.  It’s one of the most recognisable visual styles around.