As the music industry catapults into the digital age, album art was at risk of becoming a relic of our more physical past. But today's hip-hop industry proves that won't be the case.

On June 3, for one day only, Swift sold four digitally autographed versions with her signature scrawled across new album cover artwork from her direct-to-consumer webstore for $4.99 apiece.

The album cover — once a crucial part of any band's identity — has been dying a slow death for decades. For the most part, music fans put up with the shrinkage of album art from expansive ...

So for the cover of their 1975 album, the band sought a literal depiction of that with a stuntman who — in an era before digital effects — actually had to be set on fire for multiple takes.

Sometimes the cover photograph is more famous than the album. One of Eggleston’s signature images, “The Red Ceiling,” is on the cover of Big Star’s 1974 album, “Radio City.” That’s ...