Total Records: Photography and the Art of the Album Cover

Musicians and designers have also sifted through photography’s rich history for powerful photographs to match and keep company with the music enclosed within: Anders Peterson’s classic Café Leibnitz portrait of a man nestled into a partner, stands in for Tom Waits on the cover of Swordfishtrombones; Big Star and Alex Chilton push the listener into a corner with William Eggleston’s Red Ceiling on their album Radio City; Rage Against the Machine goes for the jugular with the anonymous Vietnam War photo of the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk. Iconic images like the Abbey Road crosswalk are deeply inscribed in our collective memory, but we know few details about the photographer of the image. All of these—and more—are included in this compendium of electrifying images and the albums they grace. Total Records reveals the artists behind some of the most striking images on vinyl sleeves and takes us on a journey through the cultural history of the twentieth century.

Format: Paperback / softback
Number of pages: 448
Number of images: 444
Publication date: 2016-10-31
Measurements: 8.25 x 8.25 x 1.4 inches
ISBN: 9781597113847

Antoine de Beaupré is the founder and director of Librarie 213, a Parisian bookstore that specializes in photography and rare books, and Edition 213, a publishing company for limited-edition artist books.

Jacques Denis is a music journalist for publications such as Libération, Le Monde diplomatique, and the blog Superfly Records, and the coauthor of the book Intifada Rap (2014).

Jean-Baptiste Mondino is a photographer, music video director, and cofounder of Bandits Production, based in Suresnes, France.