Some album art favorites circa mid 2020's, before the metaphorical generative AI nuclear bomb pulse.

Pleasures - ADOY (2023)

Dreamily soft gradients and characters with a selectively vibrant palette.

Remember That You Will Die - Polyphia (2022)

High complexity emerging from the form brings this over the edge.

FRUTO - OWALLOIL (2025)

OWALLOIL has many beautiful album art in this theme, but FRUTO stands apart because of how the mobile shapes match the vernacular of the box markings (present across multiple albums). This composition also benefits from the negative space given by the sparse lines in constrast to busy reflections in other album art.

The surface lines on the glass economically communicate depth. The warm wooden tone is a delightful departure from other more stark styles for its time.

smells like earth - aruka (2023)

Cleverly guides you in with the foliage starting on the CD case spine leading towards the greenery and offset typography. The canvas texture is seems less overdone at this point in time.

The distorted disc logo and ultra compact textural type is also of note.

WonderStruck - Shiroi-Ice & Ceru_Lean (2025)

A fusion of Metalheart revival and Botanica (just enough, through powerline/sky references) WonderStruck pulls together some of the most interesting aspects from each, motion and texture respectively.

gutter angel - sunnbrella (2025)

Flattened compositional and illustrative chrome leads to striking piece.

Misery - jeebanoff (2025)

With just enough to not feel like a default Spotify generated album of its time. The tracked out characters provide crucial texture.

Les Chants de l'Aurore - Alcest (2024)

An evocative illustration by Yoann Lossel holds rich color and movement running between the sky, cranes, and grass.

未確認・惑星・幻天國 - 失業魔法少女 (2023)

Discerning use of color and texture tie the collage style into something emergent.

andromeda (Single) - nuphory (2024)

Does just enough through line work to let the powerful gradient shine.

86400+ - KBSNK, ISLTR (2025)

Released in September 2025, channels both pixel sorted characteristics and airbrushed 1960's sci-fi illustrations showing up (similarities to work 30 years before) through its dome shape and typesetting.

Project Caelus - Ochre (2018)

While technically in the 2010’s, Project Caelus by Nathaniel Reeves is worth a callout - I haven’t seen anything quite like it before. Especially intriguing is Nathaniel’s use of the Bleeding Cowboy-style (CheapProFonts) display font within various album art, something used in 2000’s rock bands. Surprisingly it doesn’t completely clash with the vibrational yellow shockwaves in this art.