As a member of a pre-mp3 devices generation, I have fond memories of trips to the record store. Holding a great LP cover is like holding its music in your hand; the best are a visual expression or translation of the music they deliver.

Besides the gratifying feeling of finally seeing the new release of a favorite band, shuffling through bins searching for some as-yet-unknown treasure is a treat of its own. And I’m happy to report that the most recent additions to the MoMA’s LP-cover design collection held both experiences for me.

When photographers make images for record covers, they make portraits of the music not just the musicians. New to MoMA but an old favorite of well, millions, is (the 2x platinum) Simon & Garfunkel’s 1968 Bookends with cover photo by Richard Avedon. Writing about the album, New York City WNEW FM Rock Radio DJ Pete Fornatale called the music on the record “black and white and grey,” saying “the Richard Avedon photo that adorns the cover perfectly reflects what awaits you inside.” See what I’m saying here?

Nirvana’s 1991 release  Nevermind was also recently added to the LP-cover collection. For years I’ve known this cover and its music, yet the Robert Fisher design with Kirk Weddle’s photograph of a submerged naked baby boy and a dollar bill baited hook still shouts subversion. Seeing it for the first time could you ever think, for even one moment, that the music inside was not going to blow the doors off the joint? No!

The self-titled album by the Dutch arts collective, The Fool, is one of my new discoveries. Founded in the 1960s by Marijke Koger-Dunham and  Simon Posthuma,  The Fool is best known for their graphic art and fashion, film, theater, and interior design work—first on the London psychedelic scene and then later in L.A. The cover strongly suggests the music inside was made when the moon was in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligned with Mars. Dig!

Also new to the collection, and new to me, are several LP covers from Soviet-era Eastern European recording artists. Again, without knowing the music I’m confident that the pop-star imagery of the major Polish R&B rocker Czeslaw Niemen’s 1968 release Sukces serves as a fine introduction. His music was well known worldwide and he recorded here in the West; another late, but great discovery courtesy the cover. 

My introduction to A.E. Bizottag, aka “Albert Einstein Committee,” the Hungarian new wave artists group, comes through artist member Andras Wahorn’s LP cover designs for Kalandra Fel!, released in 1983, and Jegkrembalett</a> (Ice Cream Ballet), a soundtrack for the 1984 film. </span> This cover’s imagery is evocative of the dark, new wave underground arts movement in eastern Europe at that time.</p>

Come see these and a few other further additions to the LP cover collection that have arrived just in time to join the exhibition Making Music Modern: Design for the Ear and Eye,  and take a trip to #MakingMusicMusic to share your favorite LP covers and maybe make some exciting new discoveries for your own eyes and ears.