Neil Young: CD vs. LP

The seemed to be a common feature of popular Laurel Canyon artists at the time. I can't pinpoint it to one label, though many of them became WEA labels (Atlantic, Asylum, etc.)

Check out the faux-leather cardboard of CSN&Y's Déjà Vu or the Eagles' embossed Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) and I think some of Jackson Browne's albums. Even the ink colors can be impressive. All nice to look at even if I wasn't a fan of some of them.

Before the vinyl revival, DCC Compact Classics was especially good at re-creating the sleeve art, even for their gold CD releases, going out of their way to get good paper stock, the right inks, the original photo negatives where applicable, and even the embossing. I remember getting Court & Spark on their gold CD and thinking "whoah, is this how the sleeve is supposed to be?"

fear of music is another high profile one, on another WEA-related label.

its such a cool and and evocative thing that seems to be largely gone. in my head, tonights the night is totally inseparable from the feel of that jacket & paper.

That reminds me, Stevie Wonder used to have braille in his liner notes. (IIRC Rhino's beautifully designed Ray Charles box set Genius & Soul - The 50th Anniversary Collection also had braille in its liner notes.)

With a few exceptions I think the CD era killed so much of that with standardized packaging. Once in a while you got something like Prince's hologram cover or Pet Shop Boys' Very (or the patchouli in Madonna's Like a Prayer), but otherwise I get the impression that universal utilitarian features like a jewel case and a booklet that can easily fit into the tabs made it trickier to do anything with packaging materials.