Staff Picks: 6 of Our All-Time Favorite Album Covers

Everyone’s got that one special album cover that’s worthy of hours of obsession. Many more of us have a whole stack of covers we can analyze and write books about. Here’s a small selection of the album covers that charge our imaginations and perfectly complement the story on the record inside.

1) Gris-Gris, Dr. John (1968)

Picked by: Andrea

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an album cover that so accurately describes the music that lies in wait beyond the packaging. You probably don’t even need to hear the album to know what it sounds like based on this funky, swampy, voo-doo, psychedelic portrait of The Night Tripper. It’s dark, gritty, smokey — the exact feelings that come into yo’ groovy headspace when you hear the first lyrics of this album from the song “Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya-Ya.” Then, as you ease into to that last track, “Walk On Guilded Splinters,” you realize exactly what’s happening in this image (which definitely warrants his facial expression). Masterful.

2) The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd (1973)

Picked by: Jim

Sleek, elegant, and so in tune with the music inside the packaging; the next time images and music would mesh so well was when MTV went on the air. Its sheer simplicity forces you to stop and ponder; the fact that the themes of isolation and the need to seek clarity out of a mad world coming from the music as you watch a prism separate light into its colors makes the cover a beacon to allow your mind to wander without going over the edge the way Syd Barrett’s had, which is supposedly one of the main influences on the album. The package so complements the content, it set the standard for years afterwards.

3) Parallel Lines, Blondie (1978)

Picked by: Rick

I’d have a hard time narrowing it down to just 10, to be honest. Abbey Road or Sgt. Pepper’s? Who’s Next? Houses of the Holy? Candy-O? Even as I write this I’m not sure which one I like best of all, but I’ll go with Blondie’s Parallel Lines. I chose this because this was the album that brought Blondie into the public consciousness, and this album cover actually helped sell them to the general public. As a punk band, they’d released two previous albums, and before Parallel Lines, they’d never had a Top 40 — even Top 100 — hit. Enter Mike Chapman, who produced the album and sent them in a more mainstream direction. Both “Heart of Glass” (their first of four #1 songs) and “One Way or Another”(#24) resulted, and the cleaned-up-looking band on the cover said they still had that edginess (note the guys’ shoes), hipness, and toughness, but they weren’t safety-pin-through-the-cheek punks. The focus was on Debbie Harry of course, and a few of the band members apparently didn’t like the message it seemed to convey that they were just a backing band for Harry. But it’s a great cover, not only for how it helped sell Blondie as a group, but also as an indication of the punk-to-pop crossover that was taking place in the late ’70s.

4) Yesterday and Today (“Butcher” cover), The Beatles (1966)

Picked by: Erika

I love gross, black humor, so picking this album cover was a no-brainer. Their smiling faces amid raw meat and decapitated, naked baby dolls makes me giggle with glee! (Is it any coincidence that all four Beatles eventually became vegetarians? I think not.) It’s also a telling sign of the Beatles’ transition from mop-tops to experimental artists. By 1966, fame was clearly taking its toll, so it’s not surprising that they pushed to use these unusual and out-of-character photos to promote their next album. First used as a promo image for the “Paperback Writer” single, Capitol Records created around 750,000 copies of Yesterday and Today using the same photo. The reaction to the initial copies was, predictably, angry and disgusted. Yet Capitol, who had already pressed too many copies to destroy all of them, simply pasted a new image over the original “Butcher” albums. The new cover, showing the Beatles posing around a trunk looking unhappy and bored, was used until 2009, when the Butcher cover was restored for the remastered U.S. Albums box set. The rarity of these original albums, especially if you had one where the “trunk” photo was never pasted over the original, makes them extremely valuable; a mint-condition original recently sold for $15,000.

5) School’s Out, Alice Cooper (1972)

Picked by: Sarah

Not only is the title track arguably Alice Cooper’s most famous anthem, the School’s Out album cover itself is iconic, featuring the band members’ initials scratched into a school desk. The original record sleeve even opened the way a school desk would. In typical Alice Cooper fashion, there was controversy — the record came wrapped in a pair of panties (made of paper), an idea that came about when the band was considering the kind of items that might be found hidden beneath a school desk. Needless to say, the paper panties didn’t last very long as they were deemed to be a fire hazard. The cover was given a whole new treatment in 2011 when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the commemorative Old School box set was released; the collector’s items were housed inside a desk-style box.

6) The Who Sell Out, The Who (1967)

 

Picked by: Jen

This album cover by the Who is a true piece of pop art. Primary songwriter and conceptual leader of the band Pete Townshend wanted to create an album that tied music and consumerism in the ultimate pop art statement and make fun of the whole thing by cheekily proclaiming that the band had “sold out.” Featuring faux advertisements between tracks, the concept extended to the cover art by showcasing the band with some of the products promoted in the “ads.” Usually only the front cover for an album receives any attention, but the Who were clever enough to take advantage of the entire packaging as their pop art canvas. Probably the most amusing image in the collection is Roger Daltrey sitting in a tub of Heinz Baked Beans (we can only imagine how gross and uncomfortable that photo shoot must have been). What this cover really represents to me is the wonderful blend of visual arts with music by former art students; many of the musicians in British Invasion-era bands were art school attendees before making it big in music, usually on a track towards careers in advertising and graphic design.

What are your all-time favorite album covers? Let us know in the comments!