Album cover of the year

Janelle Monae's double album The Electric Lady is out on 10 September and for that we should all be very grateful.

After revealing the track-listing on Monday (it has Prince and Solange on it), the artwork appeared on Twitter last night, via artist Sam Spratt (he does the Angry Birds adverts, fact fans).

Spratt says he spent "month" painstakingly painting the covers, of which there are two. They are quite simply out of this world.

Since they went online last night, I've been struggling to remember what the second cover remind me of. It's an album from the 70s, definitely. Probably a disco record. And it also had a painted cover.

These porn-tastic Donna Summer covers could definitely have been an inspiration.

And the hand-painted style owes something to the, ahem, "unique" visuals favoured by multi-legged funk beast Earth, Wind And Fire.

But Janelle never quite matches the majesty of Harvey Scales: Undisputed king of 70s disco iconography.

And we can only dream of her equalling this masterpiece.

So I'm stuck... Can anyone work out the album I'm thinking of? Answers on a pumpkin to the usual address.

In the meantime, here's the video for Dance Apocalyptic again, because it's awesome.

Janelle Monae - Dance Apocalyptic

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