Album Artwork Resource

If you are anything like me, one of the biggest things you miss about the transition to electronic distribution and management of music is missing out on album artwork. I still have CD cases and covers that I like to take out and look at once in a while. There is something to be said about the artwork that a band or an artist chooses to accompany their music. It somehow spoke to them and they wanted to share it with their fans. In the past, you linked those images and how they made you feel to the music you were experiencing. Would Kid A have had the same otherworldly feel without the landscapes and illustrations of Stanley Donwood? The artwork and images are there to help the music wash over you and give you something to get lost in visually while you are assaulted musically.

While iTunes has done a good job including digital covers and even booklets with some recent albums like Beck’s Guerolito, most older albums miss out on this treatment. Mac users have the option of using Fetch Art or one of the many excellent applescripts available at Doug’s Applescripts to grab album art and assign it to their music. But PC users have thus far been left to fend for themselves if they want to seek out artwork for the albums that they have either ripped from CDs or compiled back in the early days of music downloading. While automation may still be out of reach, I have found a great resource for album covers. The aptly named Coverdude.com offers hi-res images of nearly every album that I have searched for thus far, even relatively obscure artists. The site is very basic and not much to look at but it makes up for it by offering three sizes of each album cover and quick searches. Get back the visual element you lost during music’s evolution. It’s time to see what they want you to hear.