I think it looks great during video calls.

Here's how I did it:

Step One - Stalk eBay

With lockdown, I couldn't exactly go to my local record store. And I didn't fancy rummaging through bins of second hand items trying to find exactly what I wanted. So I decided to buy a job-lot of records from eBay.

Beatles collections are regularly sold. Some are designed for people who want pristine records, and some who want original pressings. Prices can go absolutely wild. I managed to find someone selling a collection of Beatles (and solo) records which had attracted no bids. While other sets went for £400, I snapped up 33 records for £165 including delivery.

A fiver per LP!

While it might have been nice to have factory-fresh covers, I kinda like the worn æsthetic.

OK, it didn't include every record that I wanted. And had a few that I didn't really want on my wall (sorry Michael Jackson fans!) so the real cost was about a tenner per record.

Step Two - Hang 'em High!

Sticking things to walls is fun! But I didn't want to damage the record sleeves, and I wasn't overly keen on drilling a hundreds of holes in the wall. I considered lots of solutions (see later) but ended up using...

STICKY MAGNETS!

These strong magnets come with 3M glue pads to stick them to non-magnetic surfaces.

These particular ones were £9 for 10 magnets. A cost of £1.80 per album

Step 3 Test

I stuck one of the magnets to the wall. The glue held it tight, so I tested whether two magnets could hold up a the weight of the cover and the record. They couldn't. I could have bought some more powerful magnets, but I decided just to ditch the vinyl.

I didn't want to damage the record sleeve, so I stuck the magnet to a bit of cardboard which was small enough to fit inside the sleeve.

Moment of truth...

IT WORKS!!

Step 3 - Stabilise

Getting the interior magnet in exactly in the right place was a bit annoying. Especially as my grid wasn't exactly perfect.

The strip of cardboard was just what I needed. I could snap the magnets together, and then move the album sleeve vertically and horizontally - keeping the magnet in place.

Flapping open

Some albums aren't just sleeves, they open up gatefold style. I didn't want them flapping about, so needed a non-destructive way to keep them shut.

I used paperclips. They're small, discreet, and cheap.

Sorry that I didn't use some 3D printed, biosonic, weak-nuclear-force, mechanised doo-dahs. Sometimes simple is best!

Step 4 - More Music

I had 10 magnets, so I stuck five albums up - one by each Beatle, and Sgt Pepper.

Step 5 - More Magnets

I had proved that the set-up worked. So I bought a butt-load more magnets. They're cheaper in bulk. And you can always find a use for a spare magnet.

Final Costs

• £10.31 per LP
• £ 1.69 per pair of magnets
• =====
• £12.00 per stuck up sleeve. Not bad!

I also have a bunch of records to sell, or swap, and four pairs of magnets for other projects.

Other options I considered

Buy pre-framed records.

Some enterprising folk sell pre-framed Beatles record covers for £20 each.

Didn't include the vinyl. But ready to go.

Solo Frames

If I just wanted 12x12 frames, the cheapest I found was around £9 each.

Print your own

There are loads of high resolution scans of album covers. Printing a ready-to-hang canvas box frame would cost about £15 each.

Minor risk of copyright infringement. Lack of authenticity. A bit sterile?

Simple Hangers

I found these hangers with built in record sleeves for £15

The plastic might be too glossy. The reviews mention the sleeves tearing easily. There's also no sense of mystique that you get with floating magnetics.

But, £1.88 per record is a good price, and they're a lot easier to hang - just bash a nail into the wall!

3D printed shelves

I found a bunch of 3D printed mini-shelves on Etsy

They were about £2 - £4 each. They looked nice - but I was worried they'd be too fragile. And, they're really only suitable for holding records. With my magnets, I can swap to anything light enough.

Final Thoughts

I don't care if I'm going through a mid-life high-fidelity crisis. I've turned a plain, boring wall into something that brings me joy. If my tastes change, I can quickly and easily shuffle the record sleeves around.

And there's no way I'm buying a record player!

(As an aside, it always boggled my mind that CDs don't come with metadata burned onto the disc. Even a single spare megabyte would be enough to hold detailed track listing, artwork, etc.)

Back when I started, there was no way to get album artwork. Most media players will recognise that if a .jpg is in a folder with music, then it should be treated as the album artwork. This file is usually called "cover.jpg" or "albumart.jpg" - but that's only convention; any name will do.

So, rather than re-rip all by CDs, I wrote a quick bash script to scrape the images from albumart.org. First the script and then some notes about the choices I made when writing it.

#!/bin/bash -e
# get_coverart.sh
#
# This simple script will fetch the cover art for the album information provided on the command line.
# It will then download that cover image, and place it into the child directory.
#
# ./get_coverart.sh <relative -path>
#
# get_coverart Beatles/Sgt Pepper
#
# get_coverart Beatles/Sgt_Pepper
#
# get_coverart "Beatles - Sgt_Pepper"
#
# To auto-populate all directories in the current directory, run the following command
#
# find . -type d -exec ./get_coverart "{}" ;
albumpath="$1"

# Escape any problematic character
encoded="$(perl -MURI::Escape -e 'print uri_escape($ARGV[0]);' "$albumpath")"

# Skip if a cover.jpg exists in the directory
if [ -f "$albumpath/cover.jpg" ]
then
echo "$albumpath/cover.jpg already exists"
exit
fi

# Tell the user what is going on
echo ""
echo "Searching for: [$1]"

# scraping AlbumArt.org
url="http://www.albumart.org/index.php?skey=$encoded&itempage=1&newsearch=1&searchindex=Music"
echo "Searching ... [$url]"

# Grab the first Amazon image without an underscore (usually the largest version)
coverurl=`wget -qO - "$url" | grep -m 1 -o 'http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/*/[%0-9a-zA-Z.,-]*.jpg'`

echo "Cover URL: [$coverurl]"

# Save the imager
wget "$coverurl" -O "$albumpath/cover.jpg"

Notes

I originally suggested this as an enhancement for the popular ABCDE Linux ripper. It's based off this older, now obsolete, script.

AlbumArt.org uses images from Amazon.com - why not just use the Amazon API?

The Amazon API is great but it requires that you get an account with Amazon and include an API key with every request. That means you can't just dump the script on a box and start downloading - you'd need to configure it first?

Why the change from XPATH?

I love XPATH and use it regularly. What I found when deploying this script to a new Ubuntu install was that xmllint wasn't installed by default. On the other hand, grep is installed on every machine. Seeing as how the Amazon images are a fixed pattern, a regular expression works just fine.

What if there are multiple results from a search?

This will automatically download the first one. As this is a command line tool, there's no practical way to display the various images. I did look at ASCII art conversion, but that's problematic. Some albums work well - e.g. Little Mix's DNA

.=====+++O887?+++.+===~~INMNMMMMMN?~==~.
.=7I+=~~NMM8ND$=+.====~OMMMMMMMMMMMD~=~.
.~=+=ONMD8ZNNN88I.~~~~:MMMM=?MMMMMMMN=~.
.~==ZNN+:,,,N8ODO.:~~~=NMMZZ:$MMMMMMN=~.
.===NZNII..+O88ONI.=~:=,DM+$::7NMMMMN:~.
.+=7DD8,::~,,DD88O.OOIZOMMM~=7.+MMND+~,:
.=+8DND+,:~,=DD8DD~,8DZ+:NMZ?~?8MMMNNMO~
.==DNNNNI=++NDDNNDZ$MNOOOON7++IMMM8?==~M
.+?NMNNN78N8MNNNNNOI?+???I?I+=+IM8$+++I:
.=NMMMNDN==MNNMNMN$=+?8$I+?+==+???III==+
.8NMMMNN?=+M$IIII:I,77II7D?+~~=??:ONMNZ?
.MNMNMMZ7~+MO7~II:7=7???77$,......,:??=M
.MMMM8=.......,~=~=.I:I,7,I=+==+=====+=.
...,~=?8D878DO+~~~=?~=7++NNM8NNMD===+==.
.==~=~DD8DNNON8+7I=+?=78ND~:::~NNNI===~.
.==~~~NI:,,:I88+:~~~.~=8M?:,?,=+NOM7+=~.
.=~=~~8~,...,?8~~~~~.+=MDND:,I::8MMZ=+=.
.==~~~ZDD+.+7+$~~~~~,,~MM7:~=.,=DNNMI+=.
.~~~~:?:,~,,,7=:~::~~.+NMMI7:~:~NDNNN+=.
.~~==~:I,,,,~D::~:~~=.DMDNNI::O+NN8DN+=.
.====~=:,,,~N~:::~~==.N8NDDN+=~+DOODN$=.
.+====~D+,M~~,.,:====.ND8NNN+::=DD8OND=.
.??,++++I~,?+:,,:::~+87D8DNM:::~MNODND=.
.?=,.~=~,+,$+?+??++~IMNNNMNN$,,,MNNMNNOI
..$+~~=.:~,Z====++++7MMNMNM,~,,,MMNNNMM.

Whereas Sgt Pepper is hard to make out.

:::::::::::::::::::::::~~~~~~::::::,,,,,
:,:::::,~::==:::O7~~:~8~=~~=Z+~:I:::,,,.
~+.:+8~D7:::~+8??:==I:O?~$:~$ZI=7IO:,,~:
:I$=,N$=:8O7?7+I?=.8?78OI:~+I~7O$Z$O+?$:
,O$.~D8$~~Z+ZD7$$DOO=8ZZ?OI8?:D7=887Z8Z?
~87+Z$+:~8+,:OD8O~=NDD7OO$+Z8D:ZDDDD88Z?
$O88Z8?DDD?ZZN+ODI,D?88D887$7=D8D+D8O8Z=
,7ID=88II7IOZ7ZZZ7$:===$77~I:~88ZIIO88$?
~..DDDDDDDDOIN=7$7~?I?=OIZ$I:$Z7+?Z+88ZI
Z+,8DDDDDDD+D7O?8ZZ777?8Z8I==OD~8~D$7OZ?
,,D8DDDDNDDDO8Z=$Z8+IZDOZ+ZI+D?88+78O8~=
I?ZDDDDNDN8N=+O+7II$7?ZO+Z$7I8DDOZ?DDII=
=~DDDONNNNNDZZOZZI+?Z+87OOZOZ$8D888D8+II
+=D8NNDDDNDD8N+Z,?OZ~?~88ODOZ+ODDD88DI:?
~~DDDDD8DNDDDO~??:,+7~=DD8DNDDD8788:D,::
~=D8==8DDNNNDO=$=?O$~I:DDO$?DDDDDDD=?OZ+
OD8DZONNDNNDNNN=~7~Z+,DNN8?$DNZZ?DDDO8$7
7O=O8:D78DZNZZN77$7OD8?7$I7=?~D$O8O~~Z7I
=Z$O88D$N$O8N88ZZZ$ON8NDNNZO7ON$7OD8?Z$~
IZD8ZOD8O$OOD$8DDNZNN$DDNN$8ZDNDO$DDZ8OI
7ZDO8ODDO8DOD8N88$ZNDDNDNN8DD8N8$OOZ8O$?
IZDNNNNN8NNNNNNNMZ7N=+Z7O=O7ZI:~DD8DD8OI
Z8DND+$Z+OD+NNNDN8DNDNNNN++I+$=ZDDDDDD8?
ONNDDNO8=D8NNNNDDZD8~NNNONNNNNN8NDDDDDD$
8D88ZNNNOONNNNNDDD$ODNDD8ZMNNDN8D8NNDDDI

There are amazing tools like aview - but again, that's an extra program which the user might not have.

If your album directories are sensibly named, the first hit is usually good enough.

Hang on! There's a mistake!

Quite probably, this is a quick and dirty script. I'm sure there are lots of edge case and (no-doubt) some poor coding practices. If you wish to contribute a patch, please drop it in the comments.