See also Minimalistic Cover Art, a style of artwork that often accompany albums without cover text.
Examples (may also count as Minimalistic Cover Art and/or Design Student's Orgasm):
open/close all folders
Alternative Metal
- Every single album to date by Demon Hunter.
- Almost every tool album, save for Opiate (which was an EP anyway) and Lateralus (the title is on the album jacket, but not on the actual booklet).
- The original release of Deftones' White Pony did have the album title and band name on the cover, but the reissue that added "Back to School (Mini-Maggit)" moved that text to the inside back cover, where it could be read through the clear inside tray when the case was closed.
- The cover of Ohms is simply a pair of eyes rendered in dots.
- System of a Down's self-title debut has no text, and instead features an anti-fascist poster by German artist John Heartfield for the Communist Party of Germany in 1928.
Alternative Rock
- The albums Screamadelica, Give Out but Don't Give Up and More Light and singles "Ivy Ivy Ivy / You're Just Too Dark to Care" and "The Big Man and the Scream Team Meet the Barmy Army Uptown" by Primal Scream.
- Nowhere by Ride.
- A Rush of Blood to the Head, (possibly) X&Ynote , and Music of the Spheres by Coldplay. Ghost Stories kinda counts (the artist and title are on the tray art
◊).
- from the choirgirl hotel by Tori Amos. Though there are some editions which have an "Explicit Content" warning stickered on.
- Lincoln, The Else, and Glean by They Might Be Giants.
- Absolution, Black Holes and Revelations and Will of the People by Muse. However, certain editions of the former two have the album and band name.
- They Want My Soul and Hot Thoughts by Spoon.
- The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me, an album by Brand New.
- Inverted with the Hipgnosis sleeve for the XTC album Go 2, in which the cover art is nothing but text, talking about how it's a RECORD (note the all caps) COVER, and how it functions in selling an album.
- Their last two albums, Apple Venus and Wasp Star have no text.
- Zeitgeist by Levellers.
- White Pepper by Ween.
- Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys by My Chemical Romance.
- Weezer's Hurley - The cover is a text-free picture of Jorge Garcia, aka Hurley from Lost. Once the cover was chosen, it nearly was going to be yet another Self-Titled Album, but then they decided to officially call the album what they predicted the fans would call it anyway.
- A Thousand Suns, The Hunting Party and One More Light by Linkin Park.
- Alice in Chains' self-titled album.
- Sky Blue Sky by Wilco.
- Jeff Tweedy's first two solo albums, WARM and WARMER, also qualify.
- The cover of Foo Fighters There Is Nothing Left To Lose is a textless picture of the back of Dave Grohl's head (however, his neck has a temporary tattoo reading "FF" on it), Sonic Highways just shows a composite skyline of the eight cities in which the album was recorded, and Concrete and Gold simply features an "FF" logo in gold on a concrete background.
- Arcade Fire loves doing this. Well, with the exception with The Suburbs which has the band name.
- Sea Change and Hell Yes/Gameboy Variations by Beck.
- An Awesome Wave by Alt-J.
- Strangers to Ourselves by Modest Mouse, which instead opts for a satellite photo of Venture Out RV Resort◊ in Mesa, Arizona.
- Deerhunter's Microcastle, Halcyon Digest, Cryptograms and Fading Frontier
- Depending on which printing you got, Everything to Everyone by Barenaked Ladies featured the band holding either a blank white flag, or one with the title and name of the band printed on it.
- Då som nu för alltid, Tigerdrottningen and Jag är inte rädd för mörkret by the Swedish band Kent.
- Scaled and Icy by Twenty One Pilots.
- Eat the Elephant by A Perfect Circle features the band's circular logo, but no text.
Avant-Garde Metal
- Nano-Nucleonic Cyborg Summoning and Skullgrid by Behold... the Arctopus.
Avant-Rock
- The Henry Cow Legend by Henry Cow.
Baroque Pop
- Safe As Houses, (((grrls))), and Entanglements by Parenthetical Girls.
- Front Row Seat to Earth, Titanic Rising, and And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood.
- All Mirrors by Angel Olsen.
Blues-Rock
- Blind Faith by Blind Faith, but on only one version of the cover. That one.
- Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos.
- Santana III by Santana.
- White Blood Cells, Elephant, and Get Behind Me Satan by the White Stripes.
Christian Rock
- Jars of Clay: Furthermore.
Death Metal
Drone Music
- Fuck Buttons' debut album, Street Horrrsing.
- Anything by Sunn O))) EXCEPT Monoliths and Dimensions.
Electronic
- ...I Care Because You Do and Richard D. James Album by Aphex Twin only feature his signature creepy grinning face.
- Message to Bears' album Folding Leaves and the single Explode.
- Purity Ring's albums Shrines and Another Eternity.
- Tweekend by The Crystal Method.
- The cover art of Tri Repeatae by Autechre is just a brown square. That's it.
- Flying Lotus's albums Los Angeles, Cosmogramma You're Dead! and Flamagra feature no text.
- SOPHIE's album OIL OF EVERY PERSON'S UN-INSIDES consists of an artistic photoshoot of Sophie herself, with the title nowhere to be found. The only text present is the word "NOTHINGNESS" stuck onto her right arm, and it's only half-visible due to the angle.
- Almost all of Arca's albums have no text, with the only exception being the physical editions of her album KiCk i.
- Grimes: The streaming versions of Miss Anthropocene are this trope, though the standard vinyl version is subverts it, as it contains lots of text and details. Part of why Grimes changed the cover on streaming was because the details were so small that she felt the effect was lost on small screens.
- Many of FKA twigs' albums and EPs, like M3LL15X, LP1, and MAGDALENE.
Electropop
- Aurora's All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend and most of her singles.
- Future Nostalgia (standard, bonus, and French release covers) by Dua Lipa.
- Noosa's Wonderland and the single "Halo".
- Some of Perfume's singles.
- You Know You Like It EP and the singles "Your Drums, Your Love" and "Attracting Flies" by AlunaGeorge.
Electroswing
- Caravan Palace's album <I°_°I>◊, aka "Robot".
Experimental
- Most albums and singles by Björk. Vespertine takes it a little further by having no text on the sides of CD edition either, with only a removable white sticker on the back identifying the artist and album title, alongside a track-list and copyright information.
- Disco Volante by Mr. Bungle.
- Every major release from the experimental drone band Growing to date have been designed without text.
- Every album by Jandek has a textless photograph as the cover; generally it's either a picture of the artist himself or a bit of still-life photography.
- All Hour Cymbals, Odd Blood and Fragrant World by Yeasayer.
- Rabbit Habits, Life Fantastic, and On Oni Pond by Man Man.
- In vaporwave, this is the standard.
Folk Metal
- One◊ of the two different covers for Moonsorrow's Suden Uni.
Folk Rock
- Fairport Convention's Unhalfbricking.
- Gordon Lightfoot's Sit Down Young Stranger (a.k.a. "If You Could Read My Mind") have some very early copies without an artist and title on the cover and later copies do have the artist and title on the cover.
- Marika Hackman's That Iron Taste, We Slept At Last and I'm Not Your Man. Also applies for the "Sugar Blind EP", "Deaf Heat EP", and the singles "Boyfriend" and "My Lover Cindy".
Hardcore Punk
- The Dead Kennedys' Frankenchrist. The title was on the contemptible inner sleeve.
- The anthology album for The Germs MIA simply had the germs blue circle logo.
Hard Rock
- Led Zeppelin IV (which has no official title), Houses of the Holy, Presence and In Through the Out Door by Led Zeppelin.
- In Through the Out Door was originally issued in a paper sleeve with the title on it, beneath which was one (at random) of six textless photo covers. Some CD editions replicate this; conventional plastic CD cases have the textless photos on the booklet (any one can be displayed depending on how the booklet is folded).
- The vinyl album covers for Presence initially had the band name and album title embossed, but the same colour as the rest of the album cover.
- Draw the Line by Aerosmith.
Heavy Metal
- Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled 2007 album has a black Deathbat with an all-white background, contrasting the very busy cover of their previous album City of Evil − just like the album itself contrasts it musically.
- The cover of Danzig's third album Danzig III: How the Gods Kill is a piece of artwork by H. R. Giger
- Both Blood of Gods and The New Dark Ages by GWAR are without names or titles. They are also the first two albums released after Dave Brockie's death, implying that Brockie himself may have had some level of creative input for their past album covers.
- Loudness by Loudness. This cover was painted by famed artist Tadanori Yokoo. Also Once and for All and Terror Hakuri by the same band.
- Balls to the Wall by Accept. (Some CD reissues added text to the cover.)
- Rude Awakening by Megadeth.
- St. Anger by Metallica.
- Metallica (a.k.a. The Black Album) almost qualifies, because the only text is hard to see due to being nearly the same color as the background.
- Seasons in the Abyss, Divine Intervention and Christ Illusion by Slayer.
- Slipknot:
- The original release of the band's self-titled debut album and All Hope Is Gone have no text with the album title or the band's name. In the former case, releases of the album since the reissue do feature the band's logo.
- Zig-zagged with both the standard and Special Edition covers of Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses). The former cover normally has text while the latter has none, but plenty of releases have them the other way around.
- In-universe, Smell the Glove by Spinal Tap, which is so featureless and black it could of course be none more black. The actual album released later by Spinal Tap, entitled This is Spinal Tap used this same blank black cover.
- Opeth's first 3 albums, Orchid, Morningrise, and My Arms, Your Hearse as well as Ghost Reveries.
- Iron Maiden released a Greatest Hits Album titled Edward the Great that only included a sticker outside the packaging on the LP to identify the album.
Hip Hop
- If we don't count the "Parental Advisory" stickers as text, then a majority of Insane Clown Posse's studio albums.
- Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
- Yeezus takes this to absurd levels. Not only is there no artwork on the album itself, there is no artwork for the CD or disc at all either—it's all blank, and the only things keeping it from being too blank are a square and the PA sticker on the packaging and a sticker displaying the writing credits of the album on the back.
- Donda takes this even further as it's just solid black album cover.
- All of Tyler, the Creator's albums (except for Call Me If You Get Lost) have some versions of cover without text, although only Flower Boy plays this trope straight (as in no text on the "main" version).
- Watch the Throne by Jay-Z and Kanye West.
- Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique, sort of: The cover depicts a few storefronts on a street corner, one of which has a sign reading "Paul's Boutique". The "Paul's Boutique" sign isn't really the most prominent part of the cover though, and the band name doesn't appear on the front at all.
- Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1.
- The censored version of No Love Deep Web as well as the covers of Bottomless Pit and Year of the Snitch by Death Grips.
- Taken even further with their EPs Death Grips, Fashion Week, Interview 2016, Steroids (Crouching Tiger Hidden Gabber Megamix) & Gmail and the Restraining Orders.
- All of TD Cruze's projects except TDTV.
- Because the Internet and some versions of Camp by Childish Gambino.
- To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar.
- Some Rap Songs by Earl Sweatshirt.
- Logic's first mixtape Young, Broke, and Infamous, as well as The Incredible True Story, Everybody, and No Pressure.
- Every mixtape by Jack Harlow (Sweet Action, Confetti, Loose, Gazebo, and 18) as well as That's What They All Say.
- Every album by Run the Jewels, the covers for which are all variations on the band's iconic Arc Symbol.
Indie Folk
- In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel.
- Strange Cacti by Angel Olsen.
- Though some versions of it have text written on the left side. Ys by Joanna Newsom has no text on both the vinyl cover and the version on her Bandcamp.
Indie Rock
- It's Blitz by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
- xx and Coexist by the xx
- One could argue that the entire album art is just one big letter.
- Starflyer 59: In addition to their four monochromatic albums, there's Old.
- Bon Voyage: The Right Amount.
- Mammút: Strondin and Salt.
- The Brothers Martin's self-titled album.
- My Brightest Diamond: Bring Me the Workhorse.
- Merriweather Post Pavilion and Strawberry Jam by Animal Collective.
- The Beta Band's Self-Titled Album, along with the compilation album "The Three E.P's".
- Blinking Lights And Other Revelations by Eels.
- Vehicles And Animals and Beyond the Neighbourhood (although the lines and squares form an abstract "A") by Athlete.
- Wavves' first two albums, Wavves and Wavvves. Both covers also use different pictures of the same kid doing skateboard tricks in a backyard.
- Ocean Beach and Old Ramon by Red House Painters.
- Teen Dream and Bloom by Beach House.
- Phoenix's Bankrupt!.
- Night Time, My Time by Sky Ferreira.
- I Love You. by The Neighbourhood.
- Some versions of Bummed by Happy Mondays.
- Every album by post-rock group Do Make Say Think.
- Breakup Song and Offend Maggie by Deerhoof.
- MY WOMAN by Angel Olsen.
- Tidal by Fiona Apple.
Industrial Rock
- Year Zero, The Slip, and The Fragile (and like several times before some editions carry the band logo and album name) by Nine Inch Nails.
- Psalm 69 and Filth Pig by Ministry.
- Mechanical Animals (although most versions have the artist and album name either on the slipcover or as a clear label), The Pale Emperor, Heaven Upside Down and We Are Chaos by Marilyn Manson.
Jazz
- The Japanese cover of Agharta by Miles Davis, also by Tadanori Yokoo.
J Pop
- "LOVE PiECE" by Ai Otsuka.
- Namie Amuro has "Ballada", "FEEL", "LOVE ENHANCED♥ single collection", "Concentration 20", and "SWEET 19 BLUES".
- Ayumi Hamasaki has "A Song for xx", "LOVEppears", and "(miss)understood".
- hitomi gives us "Spirit" and "TRAVELER".
- The CD-only cover for Perfume's third album, "Triangle". Unless the giant, 3D triangle they have tilted around them counts.
- The covers of Ami Suzuki's "DOLCE" and "CONNETTA".
- Utada Hikaru seems to love this trope, with the majority of her album covers applying - "First Love", "Distance", "DEEP RIVER", "ULTRA BLUE", and "Utada Hikaru SINGLE COLLECTION VOL.2" all apply, with only her English albums, first Japanese single collection, and "HEART STATION" averting it.
Neo-Psychedelia
- Spanish Dance Troupe by Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. (Also, Barafundle almost qualifies; the cover is a photo of a pin board with various pictures and objects on it, but some of those have writing on them.)
Noise Pop
- Treats by Sleigh Bells. There is a sticker with the band name and album name on the plastic wrap, though.
- The follow-up Reign of Terror also has no text. The artwork is, if anything, even more minimal - it's a pair of white sneakers (one of which is mysteriously stained red) over a beige background. Some editions of the album have the band and album name though.
- Bitter Rivals also opts out of having text.
- PREY//IV by Alice Glass. Her self-titled album also comes off as this initially, but the cover does have her name written on it, it's just small and hard to see.
Pop
- Prince's Batman (1989) soundtrack album only features the movie's logo (taken directly from the poster; fittingly, the original VHS release of the film itself features no text on its cover).
- Also, the U.S. 7" singles for "Purple Rain" and "When Doves Cry", as well as The Hits/The B-Sides, and certain prints of The Hits 1 and The Hits 2.
- The Black Album is a pretty extreme example, as the outside packaging is completely black with no text beyond a catalog number and copyright information from Warner (Bros.) Records — there are also no inside liner notes aside from a track-list printed on the CD itself, and the name of the artist or album isn't printed anywhere.
- Horizon by the Carpenters.
- Face Value by Phil Collins. On some editions, at least.
- Teenage Dream by Katy Perry. A special edition has Katy Perry's logo and a logo for the album name.
- Also, the promotional artwork for "Circle the Drain" and "Not Like the Movies".
- Skylar Grey's Don't Look Down.
- The Love Club EP and Melodrama by Lorde.
- The official cover of Trouble by Bonnie McKee.
- The cover of Mandy Moore's self-titled album.
- "Impossible Princess" by Kylie Minogue.
- "A Little More Personal (RAW)" by Lindsay Lohan.
- All of the singles from Older by George Michael.
- Madonna's True Blue album originally just had the cover be a picture of Madonna's head from the side.
- Não Para Não by Pabllo Vittar.
- Billie Eilish's EP Dont Smile At Me and her album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?.
- Chromatica and its remix album by Lady Gaga.
- Taylor Swift's folklore (2020) and evermore (2020), as well as the re-recording versions of Fearless and Speak Now. Narrowly averted for Red (2012) (Taylor's version) as Taylor is wearing a ring that spells "Red".
Post-Punk
- Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division and Power, Corruption & Lies by New Order.
- Several singles by New Order also had textless covers, in particular "Procession", "Temptation", "Blue Monday", "State of the Nation", "Bizarre Love Triangle", "True Faith", "Touched by the Hand of God", "Fine Time", "Round and Round", "Crystal", "60 Miles an Hour", and "Here to Stay".
- "Temptation" does have the title on the front, not printed, but embossed. Camouflaged by the multi-coloured background, it's almost invisible unless you tilt it at exactly the correct angle to the light.
- Most of New Order's record covers, actually. Power, Corruption and Lies has the distinction of having no band name or album title information anywhere on either front or back covers or the record spine.
- The cover of Wire's album, Red Barked Tree.
- More Songs About Buildings and Food by Talking Heads.
Post-Rock
- Slint's Spiderland
- F# A# ∞, Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, Yanqui U.X.O., 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!, Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress and G_d's Pee at State's End! by Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
- Sigur Rós' albums Von, Ágætis byrjun and Kveikur.
- Cult of Luna has Vertikal, which is dreary grey dripping paint. The Vertikal II EP does the same thing, but has it through a small semicircular window.
Progressive Rock
- In the Court of the Crimson King, In the Wake of Poseidon, Islands, and Larks' Tongues in Aspic by King Crimson. (Some reissues of Islands added text to the cover.)
- Traffic by Traffic.
- Porcupine Tree seems to enjoy doing this with eerily disturbing images. Metanoia, Stupid Dream, Lightbulb Sun, In Absentia, Deadwing, Fear of a Blank Planet, and the Moonloop EP all feature textless covers, though each would usually feature a sticker on the shrink wrap with the band and album name. Some reissues of these have added text to the covers.
- Also Unreleased Electronic Music Vol 1, Insurgentes, and The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) by Steven Wilson.
- Nearly all of Pink Floyd's studio albums lack any sort of text on their covers, the exceptions being The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, A Saucerful of Secrets, More, Ummagumma, and A Momentary Lapse of Reason. The Wall is unique in that the text appeared on a removable sticker (as was standard for the band), only for the text to be officially incorporated as part of the "canon" cover art. Then there's the Discovery reissues, which remove text from the album covers that feature them.
- Technically, Anoraknophobia by Marillion qualifies; the title is not on the actual cover, but is printed vertically on the inside of the back cover, and visible next to the cover through the transparent CD case when it's closed.
- Peter Gabriel's So featured text on a removable shrinkwrap sticker on LP copies, though features the text on all other formats. Meanwhile, Passion, Us, Secret World Live, OVO, Long Walk Home, Up, and Scratch My Back all officially go textless regardless of format (though feature text on shrinkwrap stickers and/or CD tray inlays).
- Thus far, almost every full length album by The Mars Volta. The exception is the Live Album Scab Dates, and they're also more likely to include a band name or album title on the front of singles or EPs.
Psychedelic Pop
- Congratulations◊ by MGMT.
Pub Rock
- King of America by Elvis Costello.
Punk Rock
- Revolution Radio by Green Day.
- The Empire Strikes First by Bad Religion.
- The Protopunk band Richard Hell and the Voidoids re-recorded lead guitar and vocals, and re-released their album Destiny Street as Destiny Street Repaired with an all new textless cover, unlike the original.
R&B
- My Love Is Your Love by Whitney Houston.
- Butterfly by Mariah Carey.
- Survivor by Destiny's Child.
- "This Moment Is Mine" by Chanté Moore.
Rock
- Abbey Road by The Beatles.
- Some pressings of The Beatles (a.k.a. The White Album) almost qualify, because the only text is embossed and is coloured the same as the rest of the cover. (Some more recent copies have the name in grey letters rather than embossed letters, and the earliest copies had serial numbers on the cover.)
- Played with in regards to ★, the final album from David Bowie; while the album cover lacks any sort of text on it, the five stars on the bottom are missing points in just the right places to read "BOWIE".
- The initial US release of Hunky Dory also doesn't have text on the cover.
- Blonde on Blonde, Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait, and New Morning by Bob Dylan.
- Elephant by The White Stripes.
- And White Blood Cells and Get Behind Me Satan.
- Jack White's solo albums Blunderbuss, Lazarettto, and Boarding House Reach don't have any text on the covers either.
- And White Blood Cells and Get Behind Me Satan.
- John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band by who it says.
- Propaganda and Kimono My House by Sparks.
- Pieces of Eight by Styx.
- It's Only Rock 'n Roll and A Bigger Bang by The Rolling Stones.
- Also the covers for their first◊ and second◊ albums in the UK, if you don't count the record company logo. These may be the Ur-Example of this trope, at least for pop music.
- Their Satanic Majesties Request had one of these originally, although some later reissues add a title.
- Also the covers for their first
- Thank You by Duran Duran.
- Achtung Baby, Boy and No Line on the Horizon by U2 (though the former has a picture of a ring written "U2" to at evoke the band).
- The Black Album by Kino, released after the death of frontman Viktor Tsoi.
- Electric Ladyland by The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
- His Band and the Street Choir by Van Morrison had one originally, although later reissues add a title.
- Morrison's former band, Them, also had a textless cover with The Angry Young Them, excluding the logo from their label, Decca Records.
- The single cover of John Mayer's "Paper Doll".
- Straight Up by Badfinger.
- Wild Life and Back to the Egg by Wings.
- Sade's "The Best of Sade".
- The Pretenders' Pretenders II.
Roots Rock
- Music from Big Pink by The Band.
- Bayou Country by Creedence Clearwater Revival. (In its original LP release, anyway.)
Ska-Punk
- Played with on Sublime's self-titled album, it's just a picture of lead singer Bradley Nowell's back... which happened to have the word Sublime written on it.
Space Rock
- Lazer Guided Melodies, Let It Come Down and Amazing Grace by Spiritualized.
Synthpop
- Joy Electric: The Ministry of Archers.
- HANA's Hanadriel and the Moonstoned EP.
- Every Crystal Castles album is this trope, though some versions of Crystal Castles I have text on the front.
Techno
- Orbital: In Sides, The Middle of Nowhere and The Altogether (the title and band name are on a sticker on the case, but not the actual booklet).
None of the above
- 65daysofstatic's One Time for All Time is black with two sketchy white lines (and occasionally a compass north/true north diagram).
- All of Swans' post-reformation studio and live albums have had textless covers in their regular editions.
- All but one of Tendon Levey's albums have had textless covers. note
- The Alternative Country album I Feel Alright by Steve Earle.
- Kashmir: Symphonic Led Zeppelin by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
- The cover for the soundtrack album for the film, This is Spın̈al Tap is completely black.
How much more black could this be? And the answer is none, none more black.
