When it got here time to resolve the quilt picture for Wet Leg’s sophomore album, the British indie rock band packed gadgets which may present inspiration — velvet worms sewn by guitarist Hester Chambers, an outsized head of hair from a music video shoot, lizard-like gloves — and headed to an Airbnb.
“I wanted it to be something that was both super girly and feminine, but then at the same time, just totally repulsive,” mentioned lead singer Rhian Teasdale, who art-directed the “Moisturizer” cowl with Iris Luz and Lava La Rue. “That juxtaposition, I don’t know, it just creates something that’s evocative.”
The remaining picture, impressed by a photograph from that weekend, earned Teasdale, Luz and La Rue a Grammy nomination for greatest album cowl — a class that might be awarded this yr for the primary time in over 50 years.
The different evocative covers nominated are Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,”Tyler, the Creator’s “Chromakopia,” Perfume Genius’ “Glory” and Djo’s “The Crux.” The award goes to the challenge’s artwork administrators: This yr, the recording artists are included as nominees in all instances aside from “Glory.”
In current years, covers had been assessed as a part of the very best recording package deal class, which considers all bodily supplies and pictures. The package deal for “Brat,” with its pop culture-infiltrating inexperienced, earned Charli XCX, Brent David Freaney and Imogene Strauss a Grammy final yr.
Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. instructed Grammy.com the cut up is an effort to acknowledge the influence of canopy artwork within the digital age. It additionally aligns with the academy’s aim to acknowledge extra of the artists that form music, Mason mentioned.
For the inventive groups, the revived award amplifies what goes into constructing the visible worlds of music. “When a cover in a campaign hits right,” mentioned photographer Neil Krug, nominated for “The Crux,” “it’s part of the language and the fabric of what makes a great record a great record.”
The defining portrait of “Chromakopia” — a monochrome close-up of Tyler, face hid by a masks — was the final shot captured. Luis “Panch” Perez, the director of pictures, mentioned the expression in Tyler’s eyes stood out.
Getting there, he mentioned, required tapping right into a shared “unspoken language,” constructed by pulling references for the challenge’s surrealist, previous Hollywood aesthetic — and by years of collaboration. “Tyler knows exactly how to move his body, he’s so well in control of that. I just have to be ready for whatever he’s going to do in front of the lens,” Perez mentioned.
Perfume Genius labored with artwork administrators Cody Critcheloe and Andrew J.S. on the quilt for “Glory.” He splays on a patchwork carpet inside a darkish, homey inside, his stiletto boots extending towards a vivid window. Colorful cords snake throughout the ground like microphone cords onstage.
He mentioned the picture displays the push and pull he discovered himself exploring whereas writing the album: the consolation and avoidance of an introverted, non-public life, versus the boldness required of his “maximal” public-facing persona: “How do I have each of those things season my life?”
The aim wasn’t to seize a selected scene, or choreography. “It was mostly about an energy,” mentioned Critcheloe, who photographed the quilt.
“People have said to both of us that they can’t figure out what the aesthetic of the album cover is,” he added. “That’s the best thing to hear.”
The creature-like model of Teasdale that seems on Wet Leg’s “Moisturizer” cowl — squatting, arms outstretched, eerie grin educated towards the digital camera — can be meant to evoke friction. “The album explores themes of love and longing. But also, there are a couple moments on the album that are so, you know, just feral,” she mentioned.
The pivotal setting of “The Crux” — the third album by Djo, the musical moniker for actor Joe Keery — was a fictional resort on the Brooklyn-inspired part of the Paramount Studios backlot.
Krug, Djo and collaborator Jake Hirshland checked out dense scenes, like Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 movie “Rear Window” (additionally shot on a Paramount Studios lot), for inspiration. They thought-about places in (the actual) New York and Atlanta, the place the artist was filming “Stranger Things,” earlier than locking the lot in.
Next got here casting the characters that make up the scene. “Anything that we could come up with, we were just like throwing it at the canvas,” Krug mentioned. A pair kiss in a window. A person fights a parking ticket within the foreground. Djo is seen solely from the again, dangling from a window in a white go well with.
Art director William Wesley II oversaw manufacturing particulars, together with designing the neon signal that bears the album’s title — an homage to iconic resorts just like the Chateau Marmont. “Everything is intentional,” he mentioned. “It’s really a sum of its parts and it’s the sum of many people’s contributions.”
A pair of white plastic chairs are the one props on the quilt of “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” which interprets to “I should have taken more photos.” Art directed by Bad Bunny himself, the picture by Puerto Rican photographer Eric Rojas additionally options plantain bushes — a logo of the island, but additionally of the Caribbean and Latin America total. There is a nostalgia to the easy mixture — conjuring a day on the seaside, or a yard gathering — that additionally mirrors the album’s diasporic, history-making, storytelling.
“Debí Tirar Más Fotos” and “Chromakopia” are additionally nominated for album of the yr.
Official Grammy guidelines say albums don’t must exist bodily to be thought-about on this class — a key level in differentiating the award from its package deal counterpart.
This yr’s nominees, nonetheless, are all accessible on vinyl or CD. Krug, who has labored on covers for Lana Del Rey and Tame Impala, mentioned the vinyl presentation is commonly the primary level mentioned.
“When you have the physical vinyls in your home or your apartment, that stuff lives with you. It’s out in your space, whether you’re having a good day or a bad day, you’re getting married or breaking up with whomever,” Krug mentioned. “There’s this rediscovery of the art form.”
Voters should contemplate the quilt’s creativity and design, alongside the illustration, pictures or graphic components. Trophies go to the successful artwork administrators, and certificates to designers, illustrators or photographers, if relevant.
In an indication of the rising pains of a brand new class, this yr’s listing of nominees noticed edits forward of the voting window’s opening — a course of not unusual in different classes with a number of nominees. Djo, Krug, Hirshland and Taylor Vandergrift have been added alongside Wesley for “The Crux”; Perez and photographer Shaun Llewellyn have been eliminated for “Chromakopia,” changed by simply Tyler. Luz and La Rue joined Teasdale for “Moisturizer,” whereas a number of others — together with the remainder of the band — have been eliminated.
“I was super surprised and really excited because I wasn’t aware that it was a category,” Critcheloe mentioned of his nomination. “I love the idea of making things that are strange and subversive and irreverent, and having an audience that is bigger than it’s supposed to be.”
The 68th Grammy Awards might be held Feb. 1, 2026, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. The present will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+.
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