Hip Hop has basically gone digital, just like everything else. I saw a commercial about how Chase has an iPhone application that allows you to deposit a check into your bank account from the comfort of wherever the hell you happen to be at that moment. Anywhere. Think of the strip club possibilities & how many paychecks will never make it home because of alcohol & drug addiction. But that’s neither here nor there. With Hip Hop also falling victim to such a paper-less society, it’s understandable that there will be casualties & collateral damages. In fact, we’ve discussed such outcomes previously.

.mp3′s & files of various sorts have taken the place of the CD, which took the place of the cassettes, which came around as a result of records & cartridges, but you smell my cologne. Gone are the brick & mortar experiences of shopping for an album, picking it up, & checking it out. Nowadays you can sit on your ass & stream/rip/download rap songs as effortlessly as you can naked women.

& it’s not that there’s nothing to buy per se, but rather there’s nothing to look at. The art of album covering, while still appreciated for the most part, is relegated to computer screen renderings that the average listener couldn’t care less about. Not to sound anymore crotchety than usual, but it didn’t used to be like that. Album covers weren’t just an opportunity to show the world your gold teeth, your horribly under-thought tattoo catalog, & your best prison poses but art; something for the enjoyment of the beholder, for lack of a better term. If nothing else, it was the advertisement to whatever madness you were attempting to sell them.

& who knows? Maybe one day it’ll make a comeback, like everything else eventually does. Until then, though, I put together an impromptu Art Exhibit for you to enjoy. So, um, enjoy.

There’s no particular list or specific order for the album covers. It was an extremely willy-nilly process, if you smell my cologne.