20 modern album covers that are already iconic

Charli XCX repopularized an entire color when she released Brat. Not everyone understood the album cover at first, with some calling it lazy, but it was evocative and perfectly captured the spirit of the album. 

Kendrick Lamar deserves his own ranking for album cover art, because each one is just that good. DAMN will definitely go down as one of his best simply because the album itself will go down as one of his best. 

Beyoncé is another artist who’s released great album cover after great album cover, especially in her run since her self-titled album. But the 2020s brought about a new era of music for her, including Renaissance, which kicked off a trilogy of album covers featuring a horse theme (assuming the yet-to-be-released third cover follows suit). 

Lorde’s highly anticipated second full-length album did not disappoint, and neither did its album cover. The critically acclaimed album featured a stunning painting of the artist that could be hung in the museum she referenced on the album - the Louvre. 

SZA’s first album cover was iconic, but her second might be even more so. The artwork for SOS featured the artist suspended over water on a diving board, a recreation of one of the most famous photos ever taken of Princess Diana. 

It’s hard for fans of rap to remember what the genre was like before Lil Yachty made his debut because his impact has been so great. And it was apparent that he’d be a force from the start thanks to his iconic cover for his debut mixtape, Lil Boat. 

Billie Eilish captured the attention of the entire world with the cover for her debut studio album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?. The cover is downright terrifying, and it’s scary how good the album is. 

The cover for Phoebe Bridgers’ album Punisher is a lot to take in, and the more you learn about Bridgers and the record, the more poignant the cover becomes. It’s dark and lonely, and it urges you to listen to the album to learn more.  

Some might describe the cover of Offset’s album Set It Off as fire. And they would be right, both literally and figuratively. The album features the rapper falling from a burning city, signifying how he sees himself in the modern rap landscape. 

In some ways, modern impact can be measured by memes. And if that’s the standard for album covers, Blonde by Frank Ocean is one of the best of all time. It’ll never stop being used on the internet as a reaction meme. 

When it’s all said and done, there will be many people, diehard Swifties and otherwise, who argue that Folklore is Taylor Swift’s best album cover, and they’ll have a legitimate argument. The cover doesn’t just tell about the album - it tells about who Swift was as an artist at the time of its release. 

As his stage name suggests, Tyler the Creator knows how to create. The man has a singular artistic vision, and it’s apparent in everything he does, including the artwork for his album Igor. Its simplicity and contrast have already gone down in history. 

After Rosalia has a few more albums under her belt, the artwork from El Mal Querer might become one of her worst covers. But for now, it’s not just her best, it’s one of the best in modern music. The heavenly imagery was inspired by contemporary artwork, and it’s already inspired the artwork of other modern albums. 

The album cover for Norman Rockwell almost does exactly what it needed to do by mimicking a Norman Rockwell painting and speaking to the modern Americana heard in the album. To make the cover even more iconic, the man in the artwork is Duke Nicholson, the grandson of Jack Nicholson. 

Whether you were criticizing him for wearing it or you were wishing it was on a hanger in your own closet, the dress that Young Thug wore for his mixtape Jeffery’s album cover made you think. The artist’s choice to wear the dress reflected his gender expression and identity, and it made for a major moment in music history in the process. 

Upon first look at the artwork for Bad Bunny’s YHLQMDLG, you might just assume he’s a huge Stranger Things fan. But the cover’s meaning is much deeper than that, hitting home for many of his fellow Puerto Ricans due to the struggles they have faced on the island. 

Iconography comes in many forms, and that includes controversy. The cover for  Sabrina Carpenter’s album Man’s Best Friend might not be the best album cover of all time, or even of 2025, but it’s evocative, and it’ll be talked about for years to come. 

Like everything Childish Gambino does, the cover art for Awaken, My Love! is rife with backstory. For starters, the cover is a tribute to the cover of the Funkadelic album Maggot Brain. The cover can also be seen in an episode of Atlanta that came out prior to the album’s release. 

Tame Impala has released multiple albums since Currents, but that artwork still stands out amongst them. It stands out amongst every group of album covers. It’s a rare example of looking at what you’re listening to.

The Weeknd, a known horror fan, loves dark imagery, and his album cover for After Hours reflects that. The photo of the artist that served as the cover symbolized all the darkness that comes with being a celebrity.