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Charlie Brand, frontman of the indie rock band Miniature Tigers just sent out the following tweet. It is a clever joke about the news that Vampire Weekend is being sued by the woman whose photograph was used on the cover of their most recent album, Contra.

I have been putting off writing about the Vampire Weekend album cover suit. One of the reasons is that I really don't like the trend of using old snapshots as album cover art. Several bands have already copied the Vampire Weekend cover (right), digging through old family albums to find a faded Polaroid to scan and label with a title that is supposed to be ironic.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Vampire Weekend cover is going end up being rather expensive. Two million dollars will buy one heck of a masterpiece. The band would have been better off hiring a model and doing a professional photo shoot.

You can bet that the cover for Miniature Tigers' forthcoming album, Fortress, cost quite a bit less than two million. Yet, it is obvious that their album cover is real art and not just something that was kept in a shoe box for 25 years. Fortress is scheduled to be released on July 27, 2010.

Obviously, Brand was making a joke about his band being sued by the girl on their album cover. However, the painting used for the cover of Fortress has to be taken seriously. It caught my eye immediately when I was browsing through upcoming releases a couple weeks ago. I just hope that the parrot signed a release!

Country singer Kenny Chesney revealed the cover for his forthcoming album Hemingway's Whiskey via his Twitter account this evening. The album is scheduled to be released on September 28, 2010.

The cover features a black and white photograph of Chesney, with his face almost entirely obscured by a cowboy hat. This is yet another one of those puzzling instances of a recording artist wasting decades of work making his or her face highly recognizable to the public. The photograph on Chesney's album cover could just as well be of any unknown person.

Jay-Z just posted a link to a public invitation to the release party for the original Broadway cast recording of Fela! to Twitter. The album is scheduled to be released on June 8, 2010.

Rock musician Dave Stewart just posted this photo of a woman holding a worn copy of Abbey Road on Twitpic with the caption CINDY LOVES ABBEY ROAD. I bet Abbey Road loves Cindy.

I know that in a world in which a celebrity like Ashton Kutcher has over four million Twitter followers, 400 people following the AlbumArtExchange blog doesn’t sound like a big deal. Unlike Ashton, Perez, and Lindsay, the AlbumArtExchange has a very specific audience — those interested in album art.

Many of our Twitter followers are recording artists. Some are graphic designers and art directors. Quite a few work as publicists for recording artists and record labels. Then, there are folks who simply have an interest in album art and pop culture. 

Over the past few months, we’ve seen an increase in the number of artists revealing their album art via Twitter. It has become a great way to generate publicity for a forthcoming album or single.

http://twitter.com/AlbumArtExchang

Twitter user RichardBiedul sent out a tweet tonight with an amazing photograph of a light show recreation of the album cover for Pink Floyd’s classic The Dark Side of the Moon. Sky Arts created the display on London’s Primrose Hill to promote a screening of Pulse: Dark Side Of The Moon Live.

I think they did a great job of matching the album cover. I wonder how they did it. There are several news stories about this, but none give technical details.

For some reason, KKK isa trending topic on Twitter. In addition to being disturbing, it reminded me of the 1981 single by Ramones The KKK Took My Baby Away. I was not able to locate the cover art for the single. However, the AAX gallery does have the cover of the album on which the song appeared. Pleasant Dreams was the sixth studio album by the pioneering American punk band. It is also one of my favorites by Ramones.

The cover features a creepy silhouette of a man in a trench coat. I remember how cool this graphic looked on the LP.

I just noticed a trending topic on Twitter called #chartjackers and did a quick Google search to find out what it is. I discovered that ChartJackers is some kind of YouTube project involving a BBC documentary and four young guys making a pop music single.

Frankly, I found it all a bit confusing. It all seems like cheap publicity stunt. A video posted on October 15 shows one of the guys asking people to submit artwork for the cover of the single.

Unfortunately, he did not mention the name of the single and refused to play it. So, these people are asking for artwork based on absolutely nothing. The designer does not know the name of song, what it is about, or anything. Not only that, there is no mention of how much they are willing to pay — which makes me believe that they are asking a graphic designer to work for free.

Good luck with that. Watch the video and I’m sure that unless you are a teenage girl (or otherwise inclined to appreciate a cute boy) you will find this young man’s coyness to be quite annoying. Does anyone really have time for this kind of tease? Either play the song or shut up!

Britney Spears revealed the design of her new box set The Singles Collection via her Twitter account yesterday evening. The box set will be released on November 24 and is currently available for presale for $99.98 on Amazon.com.

Rapper 50 Cent revealed the cover for his forthcoming album Before I Self Destruct on Twitter earlier today. The cover which features the head of the artist exploding into flames from within was well received by fans. It has been reported that Madonna tweeted 50 Cent with a comment calling the cover scary.

The tweet also announced that the release date for the album has been set for November 17.

What may be the cover for Joss Stone’s forthcoming album Colour Me Free appeared as the background of the artist’s Twitter page yesterday. There’s no word whether or not this is the official cover. Frankly, it doesn’t look polished enough to me. I am willing to bet that it changes before the album is released next month.

Rob Zombie revealed the cover of his forthcoming album Hellbilly Deluxe 2 via Twitter today. The cover was posted on the artist’s MySpace page.

The cover is typical of a Rob Zombie album. It features a rather gruesome image of the artist with numerous bloody injuries and stitches in his face, in the tradition of the horror movie genre for which he has become known. Hellbilly Deluxe 2 is scheduled for U.S. release on November 17.

It appears that Twitter and Twitpic is quickly becoming the cool way for recording artists to reveal their album covers. Today, American boy band Honor Society revealed the cover for their upcoming album Fashionably Late — the title of the album is “Fashionably Late” not that they were late in revealing the cover — via Twitter.

For recording artists and PR folks who may be reading this, Honor Society did everything right. The tweet included the terms “album” and “cover”, the title of the album and the release date. The art that was uploaded to Twitpic is print resolution 1500 x 1500 pixels (800 x 800 is suitable for digital distribution). This allows blogs, fans, and online journalists to spread the word about the upcoming release.

I just discovered a service called POLLpigeon that allows users to conduct polls via Twitter. The poll stumbled on this afternoon asks people to choose the best album cover from a selection of five.

Unfortunately, none of the album covers were not what I would consider to be particularly notable. However, this has unspired me to do an AAX poll every Wednesday (new music is released on Tuesdays) to allow people to vote on the best cover of the week.

http://pollpigeon.com/who-has-the-best-album-cover/t/1432/

R&B singer Marques Houston revealed his new album cover via Twitter this afternoon. The cover was uploaded to Twitpic. This is becoming a welcome trend in the way album covers are revealed by artists to their fans. It certainly is a better approach than scavenger hunts and other games that make fans jump through hoops to get a preview of an upcoming album. 

Now, we just have to get Houston to stop writing in all caps.