The History Behind Pink and Black Album Covers
How the color combination became a visual go-to for alternative music
This week’s piece is brought to you by Tuneshine, a lo-fi digital display for your album art. Tuneshine connects to Spotify, Apple Music, Sonos, and last.fm, freeing your album artwork from your phone and tastefully elevating it to a prominent place in your living room, office, or wherever you listen to music.
I happened upon Japanese rock band Carol on a late-night Discogs dive. Their punchy black-and-white album art jumped out among the work of photographer Kishin Shinoyama. The band, formed in 1972, consisted of vocalist and bassist Eikichi Yazawa, guitarist Toshikatsu Uchiumi, guitarist Yoichi (Johnny) Okura, and drummer Yu Okazaki. In 1973, they released their debut album, Louisiana. The cover sports spiky hot pink letters over a monochrome photo of the band, recalling Elvis Presley’s 1956 eponymous record with pink and green lettering. While Carol disbanded in 1975, this pink and black color palette would go on to become a visual template seen throughout music history.
1973 also saw the introduction of glam-rock group New York Dolls. Loud personalities, both sonically and visually, David Johansen and Johnny Thunders strutted around New York City in big boots with equally big hair. As Robert Christgau wrote for Rolling Stone, “the Dolls’ playful pansexual affect did no less and quite possibly more than David Bowie’s calculated gender-fuck or Elton John’s belated coming-out party to challenge rock’s all too heterosexual male chauvinism.” The album cover for their self-titled debut perfectly fits this reputation: the band coolly posed on a chaise, name written in pink lipstick, the tube casually left on the photo as if about to roll off.
Four years later, 1977 ushered in punk, the rise of the 7” single, and music’s most recognizable pink and black album cover: Ramones’ Rocket To Russia. “As punk exploded in the mass media… the format of choice and the graphic style was becoming set; the 45rpm single, accompanied by grainy black and white imagery. Punk presented itself as a stark choice. It was flagrantly divisive and dismissive of the uncommitted… It was an aesthetic that stripped everything back to the basics; minimal choice of colours- binary black and white - and elemental, accelerated music,” Jon Savage & Stuart Baker write in Punk 45.
Tracing the history of the pink accent lies in the color trends of the time. According to Kassia St. Clair in The Secret Lives of Color, “Fluorescent colors were a hot new thing in the 1970s, amped-up versions of the bright colors beloved by advertisers and pop artists in the 1960s. In 1972 Crayola introduced a special-edition box of eight fluorescent crayons, including the ultra pink and hot magenta colors, all of which glowed brightly under a black light. The strident brashness of the super-bright colors perfectly suited the aesthetic of the emerging punk movement too. Highly saturated fluorescent-style pinks were used to paint Mohawks and the lettering of many classic punk albums of the era.”
It’s interesting that these two design elements would come together as the signifier of alternative records. When it comes to punk morals, they are clashing forces. The black-and-white image is stark and minimal, in contrast to the trendy and flashy pink lettering. Yet as the saying goes, opposites attract!
The pink and black trend would continue through the 80s before eventually running its course. Now, when it comes to modern reissues or unreleased tracks, the color combination is the default template for that vintage punk feel. See The Replacements’ For Sale: Live At Maxwell’s 1986 (2017) and Unsuitable For Airplay - The Lost KFAI Concert (2022). These days, it’s rare to see a current artist sporting this visual language at the risk of the aforementioned. While Miley Cyrus paid homage to the trope on her 2020 album, Plastic Hearts, the record directly referenced the sounds of Blondie and Joan Jett. She even commissioned Mick Rock, the go-to photographer of the 70s, to shoot the cover, deliberately transporting herself back to the era.
Find more pink and black covers below:
Thank you again to this week’s sponsor, Tuneshine, a lo-fi digital display for your album art that works great for streaming music, Sonos speakers, and physical media via the Shazam feature in the Tuneshine app, with support coming soon for popular media server setups. Tuneshine is designed in Oakland, CA, assembled by hand in Chicago, IL, and starts at $199.99.
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Check out this pink black album. Big 80s dance.https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ouquYfFn90c/XGBleDDe6kI/AAAAAAABXgU/vkCv3kcErK8lS6L07oVL9DPRyLrE4NaYwCLcBGAs/s1600/fetish12a.jpg
Such a common pairing and yet I've never noticed it before! Would Tyler the Creator's Igor qualify as "alternative" I wonder?