Buried among the splashier (and glassier) announcements from Apple's WWDC conference this month were a bunch of modest improvements to Apple Music, including an AutoMix feature and lyrics translation. There's also another feature that didn't even make the Apple Newsroom press release: full screen animated album art on the iPhone lock screen.
As the name suggests, the new feature replaces the standard cover art with a fancy animated version when the phone is locked, and reports suggest it could come to third party apps like Spotify too. But for me, this tiny feature announcement marks a new step in the troubling march away from what makes the best album art, well, the best album art.
Ever since Spotify launched Canvas, which displays a looping video instead of album art in the Now Playing screen, album art has felt more and more sidelined. Gone are the days when opening a record or CD involved engaging with multiple designs – now it's all about that short form video content. But I can't hang a looping video on my wall.
Streaming services have long been accused of eroding the traditional album format, pushing listeners towards playlists and algorithmically programmed stations. But as a design fan, I'd go so far as to say I'm more disheartened by the fact that listeners can now discover music without seeing the artwork as anything more than a tiny thumbnail on a menu screen.
As for the Apple version, those animated covers are at least based on the original artwork. But seeing a moving body or glittering sky isn't the same as taking in a static, square piece of art. These things are still essentially videos, or at least GIFs, and that's just not the same. The best print ads succeed because they lean into the restrictions and opportunities of the static form. It's hard to imagine animated covers ever achieving the same revered status as classics such as the covers for Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Unknown Pleasures. For one thing, a moving image is simply harder to conjure to mind from memory.
Of course, times change, and perhaps it's unrealistic to imagine that we have decades of new classic album covers ahead of us when the very format itself is being replaced by the fruits of streaming. But if my iPhone lock screen is becoming one of the last places to enjoy the bold and singular piece of artwork designed to accompany the album I've chosen, I'd rather it didn't feature distracting animations.
