Album Covers

Album covers have been a prominent part of music releases for over 5 decades. The definition is:

"An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially released audio recording product, or album."

They were first used by Columbia Records in 1938, with the credit going to Alex Steinweiss for coming up with the concept. They then became the norm during the late 40s and since then some sort of design has been used on every album, from the LPs of back then all the way to being included on digital releases (the preferred music distribution of 2013). 

CDs had a period of being very popular during the 90s and 2000s , with the album cover being a prominent part of the marketing and even having a say in the sales. The two main formats were the standard jewel case and the more expensive cardboard Digipak, used mainly for special editions. Even with digital distribution, were a physical copy of the cover isn't provided, they are still a big talking point of major releases and as standard are included with every music purchase on digital marketplaces such as iTunes and Amazon.

The features of an album cover, are usually the album name, the artist, some sort of design either original or took from somewhere (like a photograph, as pictured in 1969's 'Led Zeppelin').

What I also might expect to see are some sort of link to the genre or the concept behind the album, such as Kanye West's 'Yeezus' cover featuring nothing but red tape on a transparent case which reflects the minimal style of the music on the album. I would also expect a familiar symbol of the artist or continuing a style that runs through the discography of the musician.