Bob Dylan Cover Project
Being a Bob Dylan fan and an artist is a complicated mix. His music is so expressive, his language so visual. I love that he has reinvented himself numerous times throughout a long and unexpected career. Yet, I cannot understand how an artist as musically talented as Bob can allow some truly bad art to be slapped on his album covers. Maybe there is something I’ve been missing all this time. In an effort to understand and maybe even appreciate the work that went into Bob’s album covers, I decided to take a deep dive into Bob’s entire catalogue and draw my own version of every album cover the man has made.
Here are the first ten albums, Bob’s entire output from the 1960s. As a group I tend to like these covers the best. They are all photographs, some more visually complex than others. But each one does an excellent job of introducing the listener to the range of music within. For these albums, I generally drew my version of the photographs. It was a fun challenge: retain the feel of the photo while still making my own commentary on the album.
For fun I included his Greatest Hits compilation album. It’s a cool photo and I have always found it funny that the text was placed over Bob’s head, as if to say “these songs originated from his man’s BRAIN.”
