Something Something Sleep Mask On

ENTRY 07: future’s egregiously expensive album cover

future is back !!! thanks for joining me this week for another discussion/review. future has been one of my favs lately, i dont think he gets enough appreciation for what hes done for modern rap/trap/pop music. so lets get into it—I NEVER LIKED YOU.

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I NEVER LIKED YOU

Future

this is future’s ninth studio album. i always knew he was prolific, with at least one album a year from 2014-2021, but i never really thought about how much music that was.

to place this photographic album cover into the context of future’s other releases, we can see pretty clearly that there isn’t any visual thread being sewed throughout his discography.

Pluto is the only cover that stands out as pretty bad? with its corny lens-flare and effect-heavy blockish type, it’s so unbelievably dated after just a decade. i’ve heard that people dislike the DS2 cover, being that its a stock image from a chemistry textbook? i dig it though, it feels nicely of the time, is visually iconic, and fits future’s ethos so perfectly with his constantly lean-laced lyrics. i love The Wizrd’s cover, done by Dewey Saunders, as it’s so textural, moody, and graphic. looks like a poster for some A24 horror film.

I NEVER LIKED YOU’s cover was shot by Gregory Harris, and is actually part of the GQ feature on future for the album. the photography here is stellar, depicting future in the back of a luxury vehicle, looking exquisitely unbothered under an outfit-matching $275 Derek Rose sleep mask.

so yeah he’s got on a $60k+ outfit on in the back of some kinda rolls royce or bentley or something, lookin peaceful as shit. the peanut butter & jelly color palette used here is super tight all around, with even the interior of the car matching. the composition is also A1, with future’s shape filling out the frame, everything here feels super balanced and in place.

future being in the back of a car continues the long-running and generation-spanning trope of hip-hop covers featuring cars.

conceptually, the cover reminds me of jack harlow’s 2020 release, That’s What They All Say, which has been featured in GLASSES before.

there are clear visual similarities with the setting of the covers being essentially the same, but the interesting bit is the disposition of each rapper. harlow, only having popped somewhat closely to that album’s release, is soaking in the newfound success. he’s chilling out, signing autographs for the kids, with a girl next to him in the backseat. future, on the other hand, looks jaded as shit. he’s knocked out, dressed to the nines, very nonchalant, like he’s used to this lifestyle. in the proprietary Apple Music animated cover, there are flashing cameras going off in the car door window behind future, making him appear that much more dulled to the stardom.

the weird shit you might not be able to unsee

ok so the cover is great and all, future looks cool as hell, but my god that PARENTAL ADVISORY STICKER !!!! it’s all stretched and shit, but like not purposefully it seems. if you’re gonna stretch something, i feel like go for it!! or don’t do it at all. it’s just so weird and ugly looking, like a total design botch for no reason on one of the biggest rappers on planet earth rn. look at it next to a normal advisory sticker!!!

ya so idk, not sure why this happened, it sucks that it did and got through. but whatever. we move. hopefully your eyes block it out after a while lol.

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overall, super cool and fitting cover for future in this stage of his career. i’d be super interested to see what you guys think of the cover, so i think i’m gonna start doing polls on instagram each week for the featured release, and share them the following entry!! excited to see what y’all think.