Cover Story: Album Cover Art, the second book by esteemed music journal Wax Poetics, graphically narrates the vibrant subculture of record collecting through the art of the album cover. Its a must-have for record connoisseurs and art aficionados alike. As a music, art, and pop-culture book�sized and priced for impulse purchase� Cover Story easily spans multiple audiences. World-renown DJs, writers, and collectors handpicked Cover Story�s pastiche of rare, unique, and inspired album covers. Illustrated as a visual essay, Cover Story exhibits the diverse art forms and design styles of the record cover, each telling its own story. For the past six years, Wax Poetics magazine has served as the nexus between music history and record collecting. Wax Poetics Anthology, Volume 1 (powerHouse, 2008) has received critical acclaim for its design aesthetic and coverage of American music history. Debuting in December 2001, Brooklyn-born Wax Poetics hit newsstands with a new vision for music journalism. The Wax Poetics audience has grown exponentially, making musical anthropologists out of average music listeners. Cover Story: Album Cover Art vividly explores an element of music culture that has withered with the advent of MP3s and digital downloading. Records possess a visual as well as an aural capacity for storytelling. The record cover�eye candy for the music lover�speaks a language rooted in the environment and era of the music itself. And, more intimately, a record can create a profound sense of analogy with its owner, and it�s this relationship that we share. The Wax Poetics team: editor-in-chief Andre Torre