There are times when you really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. The covers for the Neapolitan Novels by Italian writer Elena Ferrante look like straight-up stock imagery, but Ferrante’s prose and narrative prowess are unmatched. They don’t exactly speak to the quality of writing within them. With records, you can make a similar argument. I can think of several incredible records with horrendous, even off-putting artwork, like the clumps of hair on Dry Cleaning’s Stumpwork to the horrifying alien mask on M83’s Fantasy. But when an album does have a great cover, it stands out. When that cover’s visually representative of the music itself, it stands out even more.

Below is a list of some of the most notable album covers of 2024. Some caused controversy; some are laughably simple; some were outright painful to create; some are incredibly intricate. Each of the covers below is iconic in its own way.

For Act II of Beyoncé’s trilogy, which started with 2022’s house and ballroom-indebted Renaissance, the pop powerhouse becomes a rodeo queen bee. The album cover of , Bey’s foray into country, makes this plainly apparent. It portrays Beyoncé riding atop a white horse, saddle in one hand, oversized American flag in the other, covered from head to toe in red, white, and blue regalia. A sash, reading “COWBOY CARTER,” cuts across her torso. Blair Caldwell’s photograph makes Beyoncé’s homage clear. She pays tribute to a historically Black genre that’s seldom been recognized by white Nashville institutions. With its cover, Bey intends to reclaim its lineage and contribute to its present form.