What is the history of the album cover?

I don't know the exact date that they started making them, but the album art work really picked up in the 60s when the LP became more fashionable than the little 7" 45s. Those were released mainly in the pop markets in the 40s and 50s and early sixties. Then the long player really picked up momentum with Bob Dylan's second album. When Bob Dylan was exposed to more people than just the inner circle, the underground focused on the music and that in turn led to the pop markets. I think Dylan and song writing really made that explode more and more and when the Beatles came over here in 1964, they were initially a singles band, but by 1965 at least they were really an album oriented band. The people that would buy mainly singles started buying albums and the art work on the covers of these was as intricate as the music sometimes. For example, when we sold the Beatles 1965 album it does not have a name on it; it doesn't have a title or anything. It's just has picture of the four Beatles and they have slightly longer hair and these brown suede jackets and that kind of signaled the kind of culture blooming at that time. People started moving forward with the album art and the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper and the Lonely Hearts Club Band" was a statement at the time. The kind of photo montage of pictures that they had going there started somewhat of a trend. People really started embracing the album art and making that package simply more than just a picture; it really became a presentation to go along with the sound that you were hearing. And many bands all over the world, in the US and in Europe especially, would really take great care with their album art.For the Beatles specifically it was Peter Blake who did the photo and staged it. With a couple of associates like photographer Michael Cooper, he actually took the picture and then [included] some wax figures by Madame Tussauds of the Beatles themselves. They would kind of play with that and kind of suggest things and that cover came about that way. Peter Blake was an English artist. Then they would get friends, San Francisco artists, to do their album art and their first few records were entirely psychedelic with all sorts of figures and swirling colors and all that.