Be a Show Off: Display Tech that Makes Your Great Albums Look Great

Album cover display products, while very inexpensive, are vital to a task many vinyl aficionados feel strongly about: Displaying covers with which they have an emotional attachment.

Think about it for a moment: Today, a person’s entire music universe can fit in his or her pocket. The ability to squeeze transistors so closely together that functionality fits into devices that can fit in your ear. Delivery networks use the same advances to send music wirelessly in more or less real time. It’s almost as if Prokofiev, Getz and Zydeco (that would be Buckwheat) are materializing out of thin air.

That’s great, especially for folks who travel a lot or have small homes. Something is lost whenever technology explodes, however. Compare a beautiful early radio console to an AM/FM radio from Best Buy. We’ve gained functionality, lower prices (even when adjusted for the era) and portability. We’ve lost the romance. Moving from records to CDs and then to streaming eliminated the objects that connected us to who and where we were decades ago.

In my opinion, one of the reasons that vinyl has made a comeback is that people want to recapture these things. Of course, there also are younger people discovering the beauty of vinyl for the first time.

I bet anyone raised on rock (and other genres, but perhaps to a lesser extent) can name 20 album covers that impacted them without much trouble. Think about “Cheap Thrills,” “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “After the Gold Rush,” “Brothers and Sisters,” “Born to Run,” “In the Court of the Crimson King,” “Let it Bleed,” “Tapestry,” “Wednesday Morning, 3 AM,” “Music from Big Pink” and on and on. They stand on their own as art. For people who grew up at the time, the covers are as much markers of memory as the songs that were on them.

The other element of album covers is that they provide huge amounts of information. A source of continuing income for music writers during the heyday of LPs was liner notes. This was a genre, and much of the writing was great. (It’s funny to see those notes repurposed on CDs because of the size of the print. A person really must want to know what the writer had to say to read liner notes on a CD–especially considering the likely advancing age and fading eyesight of the consumer involved.)

Album art clearly came into its own during the rock era. The lack of truly iconic jazz album covers – ones that are instantly recognizable – probably says more about jazz and rock fans and the times in general than about the records. The importance of liner notes, however, is true across both genres. If anything, liner notes are of greater importance in the more intellectual world of jazz.

HiFi and Vinyl Now is based on the interrelated premises. One is that vinyl includes everything: Equipment, the furniture to put it on, records and artists and their music. It’s all part of the same world. The other is that people who love vinyl are not all audiophiles who obsess over impedance and total harmonic distortion like baseball fans obsess over slugging percentage and wins over replacement. This broad view includes album covers. They are art, after all.

Below are five options for album cover display. Prices are pretty negligible. The key is focusing on keeping these valued keepsakes safe and using a display that more broadly fits in with the room’s decor.

Album Cover Display Tools from Album Mount, Femeli, MCS, Smashed Banana and KAIU

Note: All images are courtesy of the manufacturer. Hover over images for a closer view (in most cases). Vendors have unique short hands for specifications. I’ve more or less left these unchanged, so the capsules are a bit inconsistent.  The paraphrased comments are subjective (and, indeed, sometimes contradictory). Folks sometimes use equipment incorrectly and then complain. Problems mentioned may have been addressed by the manufacturer. Amazon has a tremendous amount of information and feedback on the what it sells and is a recommended element of your shopping research. If you do shop and potentially buy from Amazon, please link to there from HiFi and Vinyl Now. If you are kind enough to do so we’ll get a small commission. The price you pay will remain the same. (Thanks!)

What People are Saying about Album Mount's Record Album Frame Display

Pros
+ Easy to install, lightweight
+ Simple construction, easily adjusted
+ Highlights records, unobtrusive

Cons
– Lips holding records in place too small
– Locking mechanism that holds albums doesn’t work
– Cheaply made

The Femeli Vinyl Record Shelf Wall Mount

What People are Saying about the Femeli Vinyl Record Shelf Wall Mount

Pros
+ Easy to assemble and hang
+ Sturdy
+ Good size, looks good

Cons
– Tightening screws too much can break plastic

MCS Record Album Display Frame

What People are Saying about MCS's Record Album Display Frame

Pros
+ Lightweight, yet sturdy
+ Solid aluminum construction
+ Assembly fast and easy

Cons
– Cheaply
– Acrylic scratches easily
– Clips badly manufactured and faulty

Smashed Banana’s Black Music Album Frame

What People are Saying about Smashed Banana's Black Music Album Frame

Pros
+ The frames look good
+ Easy to clean
+ Superior hardware

Cons
– Plastic difficult to remove from albums
– Plastic is cheap and hazy
– Poorly manufactured

KAIU Vinyl Record Frame

What People are Saying about KAIU's Vinyl Record Frame

Pros
+ Quick installation
+ Looks good
+ Strong magnetic closure

Cons
– Difficult to assemble
– Slot records slide into too narrow
– Poor quality