Browsing the Internet yesterday I found an interesting article in Wired titled; “Designers Work to Rescue a Dying Art Form – the Album Cover.” It was written back in February last year so it’s a little bit dated. However, that doesn’t make it less interesting.The author examines how labels are working to re-create the feeling of the physical album cover online and highlights some of the examples. One example that immediately comes to mind is Apple Cover Flow. Cover Flow is nice enough, but in general I don’t think this is the right direction.The goal shouldn’t be to replicate the way things are done in the real world on the Internet. Rather, the capabilities of the Internet should be utilized to create a new and more interesting context for the listening experience. In this equation the album art is less important than what happens with and around the music. Meaning how people, together with the artist/label, co-create the context.So online it can be argued that the context of the music is the new cover art. The key is then to get the right infrastructure in place to enable interaction, and add the right content and design to make it happen….