Creepy-Crawly Stuff Always Works. And just what is that creature on Slayer's new Divine Intervention? A skeleton of some sort of half-man, half-demon mutant? Wes Benscoter's cover illustration not only keeps you guessing; it's also scarier than the band's state-of-the-art thrash. Bonus points for the Slayer-stenciled slipcover. Runner-up: Stephen Stickler's photo of a startled young girl being menaced by the shadow of a claw-handed freak on the cover of Korn, the metal band's debut.
Go Back to Basics. Teenage Symphonies to God, from the British power-pop band Velvet Crush, looks old-like one of those generic rock-party collections found in Woolworth's for $1.99, complete with a fake "file under " banner that nods to '50s and '60s LP jackets. That's the point, of course. With its simple line drawing (by Edwin Fotheringham), it self-consciously evokes the cheery days of mid- '60s rock, yet still looks contemporary.
Pick an Evocative Photo. The sepia-toned 1971 photo by Joanne Leonard of a distraught and naked boy (or girl?) on the cover of the London Suede's Dog Man Star is the perfect setting for this British band's tortured-soul glam rock. Most photographs on disc covers lose something in the shrinkage, but the details and texture of this one clearly don't. Same with the Gravediggaz's Diary of a Madman: If there is any doubt that these horror-core rappers are more in-your-face than usual, Christian Witkin's Avedon-reminiscent band cover photo makes its point-and we don't just mean that switchblade glistening in the foreground.
Brown-Bag It. For that extra touch of class, slip a sleeve over the jewelbox; the brown-paper cover of Tom Petty's Wildflowers is a particularly elegant example. Similarly, Silver Apples of the Moon, by the British headphone-rock band Laika, looks like it's ready for UPS-complete with different stamps on each cover.
Parody a Famous Cover of the Past. The panel art of women and advertising on the Rolling Stones' Some Girls is both mocked and saluted in high style by the Boston garage band the Lyres.
Don't Restrict Yourself to a Jewelbox... You can, for instance, make yours resemble a square orange manhole cover, as the Pet Shop Boys (and design firm Pentagram) did last year on Very. Or you could let fans design the jacket themselves, as seen on the limited-edition pressing of the Velvet Underground's Live MCMXCIII (by Sylvia Reed and Spencer Drate). Its black plastic cover, adorned with Colorform-like bananas, allows the owner to redesign it any way he or she wants. Who needs an art degree?
...Or Booklet. CDs are too small to carry posters, stickers, and other extras. Most of the time, that is: The booklet of Iggy Pop's Brick by Brick folds out into an eyeball-popping poster-of a Halloween-parade-in-hell 'toon by Charles Burns, to boot.
Go Techno. The bright, sardonic fliers used to announce illegal raves frequently parody advertising; it's not unusual to see what looks like, say, a Rice Krispies cereal box but really isn't. Rave art thus has it both ways — it parodies our culture but simultaneously uses it to sell its own proudly disposable music. This approach has found its way onto a few — but not enough — techno albums, like the compilations Cream of Tomato and Kickin Mental Detergent Vol. 2. Wait — is this a record store or a supermarket?
And If All Else Fails, Work With the Disc Itself. That's what [Prince] did with the disc of The Beautiful Experience. Small is beautiful — even on a CD.
