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Robert Cameron Stevenson's avatar

Love the Flipper one which is also a game! A great map artwork example is a band called Is Tropical who released “Black Anything” in five parts over the course of one year. Each vinyl had a continent image on it (where the songs were recorded). When the vinyls are stacked they make a map of the World!

Rachel Cabitt's avatar

Wow, this is an amazing find. Such a cool vinyl idea. Thank you for sharing!

Tim Difford's avatar

Great - I nominate A Certain Ratio - Force

Alexander Prisyazhnyuk's avatar

Nice. Maps and aerial photographs are a huge visual fascination of mine. Not exactly a map, but one of my favourite album covers is Brian Eno and Jon Hassell's Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Musics, with the aerial photograph in a parallelogram on a pink background. The covers for Brian Eno's Ambient series are, of course, all fragments of maps, too. Also the album Danzindan-Pojidon by Inoyama Land, Musaics by Mappa Mundi, The Work's I Hate America single, and—not to forget—Wire's Map Ref. 41°N 93°W single. That is surprisingly all I turned up after scrolling through my library.

Rachel Cabitt's avatar

Yes to all of these! I came across Danzindan-Pojidon in the book and almost included it. It's a new favorite!

Sam Foster's avatar

Fascinating! It’s really interesting to use a map as an album cover because of the way it unifies science and art, two things people generally think of separately. This is despite the fact maps can so obviously be political statements or cultural references

John V Keogh's avatar

Also I checked if there is a list of such covers on Discogs and there is: https://www.discogs.com/lists/maps-charts-globes/200829

Rachel Cabitt's avatar

Wow, amazing! Over 4000 entries... incredible

John V Keogh's avatar

I can only think of Man's 'Be Good to Yourself at Least Once a Day'. The gatefold cover opens out to a big map of Wales.

Rachel Cabitt's avatar

Wow, incredible! Love the engineering of that gatefold.

John V Keogh's avatar

It's well-made. My copy is still sturdy!

Quiara Vasquez's avatar

Much more famous as "that indie record Pitchfork panned and destroyed the artist's career," but I really really like the cover art from Travis Morrison's "Travistan" !

Rachel Cabitt's avatar

Not a 0... so brutal! At least it can live among all the other map album covers in good company 🌎

Gettin' Some ~ Jim Golden's avatar

awesome article. Eno Ambient series has maps too!

John V Keogh's avatar

Have they got Martha and the Muffin's first LP 'Metro Music'?