Are Apple and Spotify Destroying Album Covers on Purpose?

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Synopsis

Apple’s new animated album art and Spotify’s Canvas may look sleek, but they’re quietly erasing album covers as we know them.

Key takeaways

• Streaming platforms are replacing static album art with animations, shrinking their cultural presence.
• The role of visual art in music discovery is being reduced to thumbnails or short-form videos.
• Animated covers can’t match the iconic, memorable status of classic album art.
• If album art’s last refuge is your iPhone lock screen, it shouldn’t be turned into a GIF playground.

Apple’s hidden WWDC update: Animated album art takes over

Buried among splashier (and glassier) WWDC announcements this month were a bunch of modest Apple Music updates: AutoMix, lyrics translation, and a quietly dropped feature that didn’t even make the Apple Newsroom press release—full-screen animated album art on the iPhone lock screen.

As the name suggests, the feature replaces standard album covers with fancy animated versions when your phone is locked. Reports suggest it could also arrive on third-party apps, such as Spotify.

But this “tiny” feature marks a troubling step away from what makes the best album art, well, art.

Spotify’s Canvas was just the beginning

Ever since Spotify launched Canvas, looping videos have started to replace album art on the Now Playing screen.

The days of opening a CD or vinyl and engaging with layered design are vanishing in favor of short-form video content designed for algorithmic dopamine hits.

Streaming services have already pushed listeners towards playlists and AI-programmed stations. Now, even the artwork risks becoming a mere thumbnail on a cluttered screen, stripping away music’s visual identity.

Moving images aren’t the same as static art

Yes, Apple’s animated covers are based on the original artwork, but seeing a moving body or glittering sky isn’t the same as taking in a bold, square piece of art.

“These things are still essentially videos, or at least GIFs, and that’s just not the same.”

Just like print ads succeed by leaning into static form, album art’s cultural resonance comes from its stillness.

It’s hard to imagine an animated cover ever achieving the revered status of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or Unknown Pleasures. A moving image is simply harder to conjure from memory.

The format is dying, but let’s not bury album art

Of course, times change, and with streaming, perhaps it’s unrealistic to expect decades of new classic covers. But if your iPhone lock screen is one of the last places to enjoy album art, it shouldn’t become a distraction-heavy GIF loop.

Album covers are more than decoration; they are visual statements tied to sound, identity, and cultural moments.

Streaming’s push for animations is not innovation; it’s a slow erasure of an art form that deserves better than a few seconds on a glowing rectangle.

Apple and Spotify might think they’re enhancing your experience with these flashy updates, but in reality, they’re killing the album cover, one animation at a time.

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