#music-marketing

#music-marketing

"The photoshoot we did with Mert and Marcus was so extraordinary, and I was so happy with it, that I just wanted fans to have as many images from this world, this album era, as possible," she says in the video on Instagram above "I really spent a lot of time figuring out how I could make the best vinyl product, the best packaging, the best CD experience that they could have ... I hope the fans are happy."

After last summer's BRAT attack, it felt like minimalist album art was back with a bang (for better or for worse). While I'm all for the rise of anti-design, there's a stark difference between counter-cultural creations and plain underwhelming art, and sadly, pop star Justin Bieber's latest album fits into the latter category. Swag II, the successor of Bieber's recent album, Swag, features a painfully innocuous album cover that's undoubtedly functional but disappointingly flat.

But the sheer volume of variants we're seeing right now feels not only calculated to maximise sales (imagine that), but it's also diluting the aesthetic identity of individual album eras. Whereas the best album art of all time is immediately recognisable, I couldn't tell you what the cover for Life of a Showgirl actually looks like. Same goes for Sabrina Carpenter's new album - just days after the provocative original variant prompted outcry, came the bait-and-switch, as Carpenter revealed a several safer versions.