20 Best Album Covers Of 2021

Civilisation was the hardest cover to rank on this list. On the one hand, you have to admit it’s not particularly pleasing to the eye. On the other, French hip hop’s finest lyricist did invent a flag for it.

Red and blue stand for France (and SM Caen), green for the environment, the ninja shuriken for “fun and self-defence”, and the white squared part (on the bottom) is actually a reference to Photoshop’s blank space, which was included so that “everyone can appropriate this flag how they want to.” But if this cover had only been the plain flag, it wouldn’t have been as good. There’s something artsy about Alice Moitié’s photograph. The framing is weird, the camera angle is unusual, the whole thing looks like an amateur snapshot.

Added to the flag, this seemingly indolent and voluntarily unspectacular photograph makes the cover all the more intriguing. Given the album’s theme, you can either consider this cover as a modern and free-from-conventions piece which illustrates the innovative spirit needed to build a new society, or you can consider it as a sign that things are out of order, a metaphor for our decadent civilisation. You can maybe even consider it’s both.