Greetings from The Crux Hotel! // Paramount Studios Tour + Djo Album Cover Location

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Greetings from The Crux Hotel! 🐭🗝️☆ 

Back in August 2025 when I visited Los Angeles, one of the biggest highlights of the trip was getting to take a tour of Paramount Studios. Of course tons of iconic movies and TV shows were filmed there, but one of my personal favorite parts of the tour was seeing the building facade used on the cover of one of my favorite albums ever - The Crux by Djo!! I absolutely love Djo's music and this was so cool to see in person. Not to mention, this is also one of my favorite album covers of all time too!

The cover was shot on Paramount's outdoor cityscape backlot. It's a part of a massive set that's been used in countless projects, meant to mimic the look of New York or Chicago. The tour guide drove through this part of the lot really quickly because they were actually filming something there that day, but I'm so glad I got to get a few pictures of it. Hopefully one day I get to go back and take pictures in front of it! 

The Crux's cover was photographed by the incredible Neil Krug, who has been apart of creating the visual identities of so many iconic albums over the years. This cover also earned Djo his very first Grammy nomination in 2026, in a new category for Best Album Cover. 

There are so many little details and Easter eggs scattered across the artwork that bring the music to life visually. From the obvious touches like The Crux Hotel's street address being 29, the Potion Café and Golden Line subway station on the back cover, and Joe himself trying to climb into - or maybe trying to escape - the third story window. Some of the more abstract representations of the lyrics and underlying messages behind the songs are also some of my favorite parts of the artwork. One of my favorite examples of this is the rain cloud above a girl's head on the bottom left corner of the cover, which directly connects to a lyric from "Potion" and metaphorically represents a lot of the emotional weight that runs through so much of this music.  



There are countless subtle visual elements that you only really notice when looking at it up close on a physical format like the vinyl as well. Seeing a full-size version of it brings so much more of the world they built to the forefront, almost like a scene from a Where's Waldo spread. 

It feels like a surrealistic look at a bustling city, full of people at their own crossroads in life, yet still deeply personal to Joe and the journey he took while making the music. The setting woven into the scene also beautifully represents what the link between Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City represents for him, which is embedded so deeply into the The Crux's story. 

This building was also featured on the cover of The Crux (Deluxe), which was released about six months after the standard in 2025. It now depicts the once busy cityscape as a desolate street in the middle of the night. It's the exact same setting and framing, but now shown through a completely different lens - which is very much what the 12 song expansion represents musically as well. These added songs give so much more insight into the journey of making this album and all of the directions he could've taken narratively in the process. Again, if you look closely at the deluxe cover in person, there are still so many funny details hidden throughout - you can even spot the the original album cover in the trash can on the bottom left!

Both parts of The Crux take the listener on such a beautiful journey of rediscovery and experimentation with so many different sounds and influences being merged throughout.

I felt inspired by the one year anniversary of The Crux's release to share some of my photos from the Paramount Tour paired with a few of my favorite lyrics from the album. Honestly, this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of my favorite lines from this album that have really stuck with me in so many ways throughout the last year. It was so much fun designing these! It's so special when music can spark endless artistic inspiration in the way The Crux has for me. The Paramount Studios Tour was also such a great experience that I cannot recommend checking out enough if you ever have the chance! Obviously I wanted to highlight a very specific part of the studio today, but the decades of history that have happened on the lot are absolutely incredible to see in person. 

I hope to turn this into an ongoing series of visiting album locations like this and will absolutely continue to create pieces like this whenever I get the chance to visit the places that shaped the music I love.

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