Just recently our design editor wrote about how the alternate album cover art trend was going too far. From Sabrina Carpenter to Charli XCX, it's like artists can't choose any more.
The cynical among us might say that it's ploy to milk the most diehard fans. Either way, artists are weakening the identities of their own releases in the process. The best album covers are are iconic because there was a single memorable design, not a different version for every day of the week.
The latest variant on T-Swizzle's still-to-be-released twelfth studio outing is exclusive to Target. With the subtitle of The Crowd Is Your King, the cover shows Swift dressed in gold-coloured lingerie and feathers, looking down at the camera.
The album comes on a “summertime spritz pink shimmer” vinyl, and the package also includes a double-sided poster and a copy of a handwritten poem. The limited edition release is priced at $34.99.
This Target-exclusive release follows other limited-edition The Life of a Showgirl vinyls, each made available for just 48 hours on Taylor's website.
According to the singer, the reason for so many album covers is that the photoshoot was just too good for her to deprive fans of multiple shots from the session.
“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.”
So absolutely not just a ploy to maximise sales. Fans do seem to love them, but in ten years time, will anyone be able to tell us what the definitive The Life of a Showgirl album cover looks like?
The many album covers aren't the only design controversy to have emerged amid the build up to the year's most-hyper album release. There was also that shocking website design.
The Life of a Showgirl will be released on 3 October. There will be a photo of Taylor Swift on the cover. I'm off to listen to The Darkside of the Moon while I lament the contemporary cultural obsession with endless, meaningless new content.
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