The greatest album sleeves of all time

2006 will see the 50th anniversary of the LP chart.

At a time when music is increasingly being downloaded and uploaded, with people creating play lists on portable MP3 players served from web sites, the art of packaging music is being lost.

For the past five decades musicians have displayed their work inside packages that were often as integral as the music itself.

As a visual representation of their musical sound, these packages were often chosen by the artists and in many cases were designed by them too.

This book brings together 500 of the greatest album covers of all time and is arranged chronologically, beginning in 1956, ending in 2005.

There is a 50-strong judging panel selecting the final 500 entries, those judges having been drawn from the great and the good of the music industry.

The panel includes famous designers, musicians, producers and record company executives whose reasons for choosing covers will accompany the illustration of the sleeve.

From rock 'n' roll to pop, R&B to jazz, blues and even folk some of the album sleeves included are obvious and essential to such a volume, while others will surprise readers and jog memories. Some album sleeves might at first seem obscure, but they will have been included because someone more famous will have later 'borrowed' the style of the sleeve for one of their own releases.

The chosen entries might not necessarily be of a best-selling release, but they will be important artistically, stylistically or culturally.

This book will undoubtedly be an object of discussion and argument for music fans the world over.