Album cover history resource

A cross posting from my World of Music blog (a post a day during 2026 and much more).

Russel Tarr has shared an excellent new resource for free on his Active History website.

An album cover can tell a story before you have even heard a single note. 

For this project, each member of the class will be given a different album to investigate. Your challenge is to look closely at its cover, discover the history behind the image, and then explore the connection between that history and the music.

Once you've uncovered its story, you'll decide which track from the album you would recommend to your classmates, and why.

The finished investigations will then come together as a classroom display, creating a collection of album covers that brings together music, art and history from different times and places.

So, what can an album cover teach us about history?

Here's some of the covers that Russel has curated for this activity.