20 Best Album Covers of the 1980s

Album covers, the dying art-form students used to roll their “herbal” cigarettes on, enjoyed a short but joyful window of relevance — and the 80s was its peak.

The 1970s was a renaissance era for album cover art history, an expansive time for music and the way it was marketed. From prog to punk, it all looked fantastic and sounded like the future. But that was just the beginning.

It may be difficult for younger folk to understand that, for the longest time, we collectively disowned the 80s. Its neon embrace of peacocking and polish was embarrassing to us as we transitioned into the dressed-down 90s. Now it seems every bit as exciting as the 60s — but in colour.

There was such range in mainstream music. We were on the cusp of an electronic revolution as the last days of disco jostled with three chords and the truth — from Billy Bragg to Prince and every step between.

And, it turns out, not every cover of the period was a collage of mismatched primary colour, with pouting bandmates drowning in Revlon. There was an undercurrent of graphic exploration and recurring nods to the Situationist rhetoric of punk. There was minimalism among the maximalism; the last, true gasp of distinct cultures that were about to be simultaneously homogenised and then fragmented by digital transition.

In no particular order, let’s celebrate the twenty most artistic, most influential and most incredible album covers to come out of this chaotic period of creation. The bonfire of modernity; the swaggering ‘80s.

01. Billy Bragg: Life’s a Riot with Spy vs Spy (1983)

Billy Bragg’s early “one man and a guitar” period was beautifully styled and, for a Marxist, brilliantly marketed. You knew who the Bard of Barking was even if you didn’t like him very much. His music sounded like you were playing The Clash and Bob Dylan at the same time.

Playing at 45 RPM and with just seven short, sharp tracks, Life’s a Riot with Spy vs Spy is what we used to call a mini-album. The cover stood out in your local HMV from the shoulder-pad clad pop moppets, posing moodily with pastel jacket sleeves rolled up. The exhortation to “Pay No More Than £2.99” was a calculated swipe at the grubby practice of marking…