To mark the United States’ Semiquincentennial on July 4, 2026, The Current assembled a list of 30 essential album covers dominated by red, white, and blue, many by American artists but not exclusively. The roundup highlights Beach House’s fifth album, whose velvet jacket was designed by Brian Roettinger and used a red opaque-and-transparent cassette shell. The list calls out Fugazi’s all-red compilation of earlier EPs as reflecting the band’s DIY-punk aesthetic and commercial breakthrough, and Janet Jackson’s Control for its stylized cover by Tony Viramontes that reinforced her new image. The piece also notes Kraftwerk’s sleeve nods to Russian artist El Lissitzky, Pavement’s repurposing of a 1964 Ferrante & Teicher cover, Queens of the Stone Age’s burgundy-red variant, Redman’s red-filtered portrait shot by Danny Clinch, and TLC’s red-themed Oooh…On the TLC Tip. The Current frames these covers as part of a broader pop-cultural presence of red, white, and blue that runs from sports icons to everyday summer imagery, using the 30-cover gallery to salute the flag’s colors across music history.
