I downloaded the image above from Marshall Watson back in 2005. Marshall used to travel the dirtyforum back in the day and won the Underworld remix contest for his version of "Bird 1"). While in 2005 it was a challenge to identify the single he holds in the shot, times have certainly changed by 2016. Feeding the image into Google’s reverse image search now immediately produces the single’s credits.
The album is Einmusik -
"Kleine Nachtmusik" ("A Little Night Music") - minimal tech-house distributed by Germany's famous Kompakt label. I have to applaud this cover for it's ballsy simplicity, even though I know it's been done before. After sampling the single on YouTube eleven years after I'd first spotting the cover I decided it was just the sort of thing I should have in my collection. A few moments later I secured a clean copy from a collector in the US and this evening it arrived at my door. It's amazing how far music collectors have come with the empowerment of the digital age.
Here's XTC's second studio LP from 1978 -
Go 2. For those unfamiliar with this record, the text continues and fills the entire reverse side of the LP sleeve.
Most of the Remixes... by Soulwax is another typographical cover, this one from 2007. The cover clocks in 552 characters of text.
Dubstep artist, Skream opted for a humorously post-modern fourth-wall cover for
Skream presents The Freeizm Album in 2010.
And no feature on typographic covers is complete without mentioning Howlin' Wolf...
EDIT: A reader kindly informed me that I’d made at least one glaring omission – and I felt it was my duty to correct the error. Here is the fantastic The Faust Tapes from 1973!
And tonight I'm proud to add
"Kleine Nachtmusik" to my collection... eleven years in the making. Here's my newly-acquired copy, fittingly pictured beside an image of Karl Hyde.
If you know of any similar covers I'd love to see 'em!