Los Angeles-based Gallery 1988 has opened up a new exhibit in which pre-existing works are given a new life by contemporary illustrators (ok then, this is officially a trend). It’s called Cover Band.

This time instead of designing entirely new film posters, the artists were given the actual vinyl copy of a classic album and asked to paint, draw, or somehow design over top of it. Over 50 records were altered as as result.

What differentiates this exhibition from any silly old online gallery of photoshop fun is the basic use of physical materials. Designing directly onto the LP meant no software tricks could be (reasonably) employed, and real art equipment could be used. Some of the results even have three dimensional elements to them, like the cover for Tom Waits’ Mule Variations, which has a miniature window sculpted onto the front of it.

Not every cover is a bona fide winner–there are some that just seem like routine pieces of trendy illustration tacked on, and others for which I’m at a loss to understand how the illustration fits (or contrasts with, or does anything useful with) the original album art. But there are a lot of covers, and among them are several worth mentioning:

This Velvet Underground LP reminds me of those Penguin Deluxe comic-book editions I love so much. Sure, you can whine about altering Andy Warhol’s classic cover, but then none of us would have any fun.

Here, Coltrane’s A Love Supreme gets that nautical treatment it’s always been crying out for.

Ah, Simon & Garfunkel. While it’s not perfect, any cover that features an elegant looking bird in a trenchcoat and collared shirt standing in front of Paul Simon is a cover that speaks to me.

Not content with Morrissey being just a plain old quarry, he’s now several additional things. I really like this one–it’s a full transformation of the original cover that works entirely on its own. This one is actually done by Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy.