Artificial intelligence will transform most industries akin to how the Internet completely changed the world. This effect can already be felt in certain industries.
I think that the music industry will change a lot in the future as a result of our advancements in AI. We've already begun to see what type of power artificial intelligence can have in music.
In April 2023, a song featuring AI-generated voices from Drake and The Weeknd went viral. It received millions of plays across different social media platforms.
Apart from voice cloning, one of the things I also see happening in the very near future is that a lot of musicians will want AI-generated artwork for their album covers. If you practice prompting in Midjourney, I think you should take some time to focus on creating album covers. You never know who might like what you made.
In this article, I'm going to talk about how to write Midjourney album cover prompts. I'll also share some prompts for album covers that I've written, along with the images Midjourney generated from them.
How to Write Midjourney Prompts for Album Covers
Regardless of whether or not you're a musician, you have to put yourself in the mindset of one when you're writing prompts for album covers. Think of how you would describe the concept behind the artwork to a designer.
Think about an image that would represent an album. Say the concept is searching for meaning in life. Think of a scene that would represent that feeling. Otherwise, you can also use "search for meaning" in your prompt and see what Midjourney will generate.
Since Midjourney has a soft cap of 60 words, you should keep your prompts concise. If you can't explain what you want to create in 2-3 sentences, then you should try creating something else.
It's also important to be mindful of the keywords you use in your prompts. For instance, sometimes it's a great idea to let the model know you want to design an album cover. In other cases, you might find that leaving this keyword out of your prompt will give you the best results.
One more thing I feel like mentioning - you should use the default aspect ratio in Midjourney when making album artwork.
14 Midjourney Prompts for Album Covers
I've decided to split the prompts in today's article into multiple categories. These categories represent some of the most popular music genres today. I'll do two prompts per genre.
Now, let's see how good Midjourney is at creating album covers.
Midjourney Prompts for Rock Album Covers
/imagine album artwork, man holding a rock guitar sitting on a barrel of gasoline with fire around him, photorealistic, full HD, photograph --v 5
I know there are certain flaws to this image (the face and the fingers), but it could be reworked in Photoshop. Everything else in the image is awesome. It's crazy what Midjourney can make from only a short text prompt.
/imagine rock album cover, rebel, outcast, wolf, lone wolf, morals, principles, honesty, values, the good fight, inspiring --v 5
In this prompt, I specifically mentioned that I wanted to create a rock album cover. I specified the music genre to see what type of aesthetic the AI model would use. I have to say that Midjourney did a really good job with this cover.
The model also included some weird letters in the image, which you could easily remove if you wanted to.
Midjourney Prompts for Rap Album Covers
/imagine rap album cover, turning a dollar to a million, motivational, pursuit of your goals and dreams, inspirational --v 5
I like this artwork. It's interesting to see such great outfit choices for this cover even though I didn't mention them in my prompt at all. I love the jacket he's wearing. I could easily see this being a rap album cover.
/imagine rap album artwork, photorealistic, award winning photo, urban city environment, concrete jungle --v 5
It's not really as photorealistic as I wanted it to be, but that's okay. If it was a real photo, it would look like it was heavily edited in Photoshop. It's easy to tell that this image was generated in Midjourney, but that doesn't change the fact that it would make for a solid album cover.
Midjourney Prompts for Pop Album Covers
/imagine pop album cover, young female singer posing and showing her confidence knowing that she's going to become the biggest celebrity on the planet --v 5
When musicians are releasing their debut album, they should be on the cover so people can remember what they look like. This would be an excellent cover for a debut album by a pop musician.
/imagine pop album cover artwork, colorful, paintballs, creative, trending --v 5
I decided to do something different with this prompt. I wanted to only include a few keywords to Midjourney and let the AI model do its thing. The only thing I mentioned that I wanted to see was paintballs.
This is a very experimental type of prompting because the randomization is significantly increased when you don't give clear instructions on what you want to be featured in the image. But the result came out great. It's something I'd love to see as an album cover.
Midjourney Prompts for Metal Album Covers
/imagine metal music album cover, album artwork, becoming the ruler of the underworld, illustrated, creepy, dark --v 5
This is such good artwork. I couldn't wait until I got to the metal music section of the article because the two images for this genre are breathtaking. I love how this was illustrated. If I had a metal band, I would definitely use this image.
/imagine metal album cover, mystical forces, communication with the dead, supernatural powers, horrorcore, darkcore, spooky --niji 5
I wanted to use the Niji Model 5 here because I think it works great with the aesthetic that's generally seen in the metal album artwork. If you don't know, the Niji Model 5 is a Midjourney model for anime that you can activate by typing /settings in the Midjourney Discord server and pressing the Niji button.
Midjourney Prompts for EDM Album Covers
/imagine cognitive dissonance, thoughts shattered to a million pieces, modern artwork, dystopian, abstract --v 5
I feel like abstract prompts work best when you're creating an EDM album cover. I literally couldn't pick out one single image from this set, so I decided it was best to show you all four generated results. If I really had to pick one, I think the first image is the best.
/imagine album cover, sonic waves flying throughout the boundless universe, acidwave aesthetics, abstract --v 5
This time, I had no trouble picking out the best image from the set. There is something special about this design. I can't really explain it, but this is without a doubt one of my favorite images that I generated using Midjourney so far.
Midjourney Prompts for R&B Album Covers
/imagine r&b album cover, young woman on a search for love, feminine, beautiful, inspiring --v 5
I left a lot of room for Midjourney to randomize the outputs for this prompt. I gave a generic theme for the album and this is what the AI model created. Midjourney is usually not too good with hands, but there are no issues with that in this image.
/imagine r&b album cover, the main theme of the album is getting over a hard breakup and adjusting to the single life, there are many sad songs on the album about breaking up with a partner --v 5
I took a different approach here compared to the previous prompt. In this prompt, I gave more information about the album. I mentioned that there are many sad songs on it. The generated output was quite good.
Midjourney Prompts for Country Album Covers
/imagine country album artwork, old country singer sitting in front of an old diner, both have been around for several decades, iconic --v 5
This is the type of country album cover you'd see from a local legend that has been making music for decades. I wanted an iconic photo and I got it. The only thing I'm worried about is where his other hand is, but let's forget about that detail.
/imagine country album cover, young blonde female country singer, becoming a star, success, wholesome, portrait, photorealistic --v 5
Taylor Swift, I think there's a new singer you should be worried about. This honestly got me thinking about how difficult it is to create a viral song performed by a fictitious character where the voice is AI-generated. You might see me trying something like that in the future.
Final Thoughts
I'd like to think that these were all great potential album covers. As long as you upscale the images using some other piece of software, you'll have a truly high-quality image that could be used as an album cover.
I feel like there is a certain aesthetic to every music genre, but really there are no rules when it comes to making art. You simply create what you think is cool.
That's why I would encourage all my readers to get as creative as possible when they're writing prompts (as long as you don't cross the 60-word soft cap). Set your thoughts free and write whatever pops up in your mind.
You can also make other cool stuff in Midjourney. For instance, I have a great article on Midjourney prompts for logos. There is also one where I made book covers using this AI model. I suggest you check out both of these articles to see some cool prompt examples that could inspire you.
There are endless possibilities when you're using this artificial intelligence model. And the best part is that it's only going to get better from here.
