1999

The cover for Prince's 1999 almost never featured the artist's face at all — Prince initially wanted a completely abstract design with just the album title floating in purple space.

The concept emerged from Prince's desire to create something that felt both futuristic and timeless, matching the apocalyptic themes of the title track. He had been experimenting with purple as his signature color, and this cover would cement that association forever.

Photographer Allen Beaulieu, who had worked with Prince since his early Minneapolis days, was tasked with creating a portrait that felt mysterious and otherworldly. The shoot took place at Beaulieu's studio in a single afternoon session.

Beaulieu used dramatic side lighting to create the stark shadows across Prince's face, while a purple gel filter gave the entire image its ethereal quality. Prince insisted on minimal retouching, wanting the raw intensity of the original photograph to shine through.

The typography was kept deliberately simple — Prince rejected several ornate font options in favor of clean, sans-serif lettering. He personally supervised the color separation process to ensure the purple tones reproduced exactly as he envisioned.

Allen Beaulieu had become Prince's most trusted visual collaborator, understanding the artist's perfectionist nature and minimalist aesthetic. Their working relationship was built on few words but deep creative understanding.

Warner Bros. executives were initially concerned that the cover was too stark and wouldn't grab attention on record store shelves. Prince refused to compromise, insisting that the simplicity would make it stand out among busier designs.

Upon release, the cover became instantly iconic, with the purple-tinted portrait appearing on magazine covers and posters worldwide. Critics praised its sophisticated minimalism in an era of flashy album artwork.

The visual became so synonymous with Prince that purple lighting became standard at his concerts for decades. The cover influenced countless R&B and pop artists to adopt monochromatic color schemes for their own album artwork.

Music photographers began copying Beaulieu's dramatic side-lighting technique, making it a standard approach for moody portrait sessions. The cover's influence extended beyond music into fashion photography and portrait work.

The original color transparencies for the cover shoot were stolen from Beaulieu's studio in the 1990s and have never been recovered, making the existing prints even more valuable to collectors.