But in the last few years I’ve been rediscovering the music of my teenage years and also how kickass the album covers were. It took me a while to whittle down my list to my favourite top 10. I’m sure I’ll come across a few later and wish I included them, but for now this is my definitive list in no particular order.

Warlock – Triumph & Agony
- Awesome painted cover: check.
- Chrome logo: check.
- Foxy blonde woman in leather being fondled by a demon: check.

Vinyl was king in the 80′s and hard core audiophile metal fans still prefer this format. The beauty of the large dimensions of vinyl covers is you can appreciate the detail and work put into painted artworks like this cover. This would look great on the side of a panel van.

Motorhead – The Bomber
This cover appeals to the plane spotter in me. Apparently there was a slight uproar that an English band would choose a German bomber, a Heinkel 111, over the English Lancaster bomber. Lead singer & bassists defended this decision: “Sure, it’s a filthy memory – but the fact is the bad guys make the best shit.” The scale of the band member to the aircraft is all wrong but I think it adds a comical air to the setting.

The Cult – Electric
The photo of the band is the only weak part of this cover and feels like a last minute add in. Sorry Ian Astbury, I’m sure that is your best raccoon hat.

But metal bands have the best logos, and creative use of typography and i think this cover is a great example of that. Metal band logo designs always seem to embody the nature of the group it is representing.

Def Leppard – Hysteria
This cover design is actually pretty cheesy and a good indicator of late 80′s graphix and that’s why i like it. The album is called ‘Hysteria’ so lets have a badly painted morphing of faces screaming. Overlay it on the plans to the Death Star from Star Wars IV and have a paint splattered album title, job done.

Judas Priest – British Steel
I’ve never understood the appeal of ‘The Priest’ but I’ve wanted to like them based on my fondness for some of their covers, which include Screaming for Vengeance & Turbo Lover. British Steel is my favourite.
This cover couldn’t be any more metal. A leather studded arm firmly gripping an oversized razor blade, all set on a “how more black could this be? and the answer is none – none more black” background. And their logo is just kick ass.

Kiss – Rock and Roll Over
I remember flicking through my friend’s extensive Kiss album collection for the first time and coming across this cover. It stood out in stark contrast to the direction of their other covers, and even other fellow metal groups cover designs at the time (1976). It feels like more of a designed cover then some artistic piece with it’s symmetry and very poppy japanese influence.

Poison – Open Up and Say.. ahh!
For me, this is the quintessential 80′s Hair Metal album cover. Day-glow colours, a Gene Simmons inspired tongue, big hair and a ridiculously unsubtle and misogynistic album title.

Aerosmith – Permanent Vacation

I love this for the great Sailor Jerry Tattoo inspired illustrations and the way they are placed in a repetitive wallpaper pattern. The red illustrations on black also balance really well with the yellow Aerosmith logo.

Iron Maiden – Somewhere in Time
It would be sacrilegious to not have a Maiden cover in this list. They’ve had some great covers but I guess this one stands out for me due to the fact it reminds me of Blade Runner. It came out around the time I started getting interested in metal, making this the first Maiden cover I came across. It also features one of my favourite incarnations of Eddie.

Van Halen – Fair Warning
This cover

I’ve loved Van Halen from the day I first listened to Van Halen 1. They’ve had a few interesting album covers after their first two releases, with Fair Warning being the standout for me. This cover is a little disturbing, which is fitting for what was hailed as Van Halen’s darkest album. But it wasn’t until I researched this cover that I discovered the complete painting “The Maze” created by the Canadian artist William Kurelek. The painting is a depiction of the artist’s  tortured youth and makes for a very bold and interesting choice for a so-called “hair band”. Then again, as fans of the band already know know, they were always so much more than that.

In WWII, when American soldiers were asked by journalist why they were going to war the standard response was “for Mom and apple pie”.

For some reason the dish of apple pie worked its way into the American consciousness as a representative of all that was wholesome and good about the nation; a reminder of comfort and innocence. Which eventually made it great fodder for those subversives keen to test another American ideal: freedom of speech.

Enter Mom’s Apple Pie, a ten-member band from Ohio that boasted a sound similar to bands like Chicago. They released two albums in the early seventies and, while they achieved a degree of national success, are best known today for their controversial cover art.

At first glance, Mom’s Apple Pie’s self-titled release features cover art that might be at worst ironic. We see an American Gothic style painting, reminiscent of the work of Grant Wood.

While the “Mom” in Wood’s painting looks thoroughly miserable, the Mom on this album cover is instead licking her lips – perhaps in anticipatory delight. Further subverting the image are the large, modern speakers in the background that suggest that this mom likes to rock out while she’s baking. It’s a strong image but not one that lives up to its legendary status until, as the tagline to American Beauty suggest, you “look closer”.

Meet the oozing, bright-red vagina that resulted in this classic cover being banned. However to imagine that the band was outraged or shocked by the ban would be a little naïve.

Roger Force, saxophonist for Mom’s Apple Pie, gives some background: “I remember (Terry) Knight (the head of Brown Bag records) at one of our recording sessions, showing us the cover. He said it was one of his publicity stunts… He had it all planned, the record would get recalled and it would be a big deal. It was 30,000 albums covers that were recalled.”

“I was 19 at the time. My older brother was a two-term Vietnam veteran; I was the one with the long hair. I took that album home to show my parents and – I’m embarrassed. My father looks at it and he says, “well – it’s not that bad.”

While reflecting on what a cool dad Force obviously had, I also can’t help but wonder what it is about penetrating pieces of pie that seems to capture the imagination?

I suppose don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

Knight was a true master of publicity and one of the coolest things about his label was that the records really came in a brown paper bag. He said of the Mom’s Apple Pie campaign: “that was some slice of pie, eh? We sent out piping hot apple pies in brown paper bags to all the DJs throughout New York to promote that record. That was a good campaign.”

He had also anticipated the band’s response to the album recall. When the authorities banned the original cover, a second version was promptly released, with the slice space filled by a prison wall and barbed wire. An American flag sat on top, as a tongue-in-cheek critique of censorship in the “land of the free”. Unfortunately I can’t find an image of this alternate cover anywhere but both versions have become eagerly sought-after collector items.

It’s a striking case of cover art that outlives the music. As Force sardonically observed: “I also remember Knight saying “I can take a piece of shit and turn it into gold.” Meanwhile, I’m famous – for an album cover.”

Okay, so here’s the lesson of today’s story: always pick up cool looking hitchhikers.

Illustrator Neon Park (born Martin Muller) was driving from the Mothers of Invention offices, where he’d finally succeeded in getting paid the $250 he was owed for the cover of Weasels Ripped My Flesh. (We’ve previously written a post about the history behind that awesome cover).

He saw a guy called Ivan who, as he tells it, “was hitchhiking in the rain in a tee-shirt, didn’t have a coat. He was getting very wet. He had a guitar with him, stuffed under his shirt. That’s why I picked him up.” As it turned out, Ivan was a songwriter and a friend of Lowell George, the co-founder of Little Feat and an ex-member of Mother of Invention.

“So I was on my way home, and there was this fellow human being in misery, and I picked him up. Almost got hit by a bus doing it. He said I should come with him to Lowell’s… I had my portfolio with me, so Ivan said I should show Lowell my stuff. Little Feat’s first album had just come out. I showed him my stuff and he liked it.” It was the beginning of one of the great collaborations between band and cover artist, as Park went on to create the images for nearly every Little Feat album to follow. At the same time the band’s line up would change constantly.

The first cover Park created for the band was the highly suggestive and very funny Sailin’ Shoes, which took us to an alternate Versallies for a trippy homage to Marie Antionette.

If the relationship between the cover and the title “Sailin’ Shoes” is hard to discern, that’s because when Park began the artwork the album was to be called “I’ll Eat It Here”.

He would get used to this kind of thing – in fact, it only got worse. The album Dixie Chicken was supposed to be called “Handcuffs and Accordians”, which once again explains the dissonance between the cover and the title.

The Dixie Chicken that Little Feat sing about is a southern strumpet who seduces a guy by singing him a song one night. He goes on to marry her and buy her everything she wants (“My money flowed like wine”). Once she grows bored of him, she runs off – but his humiliation isn’t finished.

Then one night in the lobby
Of the Commodore Hotel
I chanced to meet a bartender
Who said he knew her well

And as he handed me a drink
He began to hum a song
And all the boys there at the bar
Began to sing along

As great as the lyrics are, the woman on the cover of Dixie Chicken isn’t the femme fatale who comes to mind. She seems an urban vixen, as moneyed as she is mean and desirable. Much of the humour comes from how highly sexed the image is, with an instrument as neutered as a piano accordion transformed into a phallic, lust-filled object. The giant, pillowy background with its cold blue tones evokes a world that is one giant mattress; a place for endless play.

Park admits that the change of the title really worried him but the cover was much loved nonetheless. And if the visuals didn’t always match the new album titles, they always matched the feel and mood of the music.

Had he been given the brief for an album title “Dixie Chicken”, he may well have put forward one of the feathered females from his well-known duck series.

Park also worked with David Bowie, Dr. John and the Beach Boys and made illustrations for Playboy and National Lampoon. It is a terrible irony that this great illustrator started to notice a numbness in his hands in the early 80’s. It wasn’t until 1992 that he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. His response to the doctor? “I never even played baseball.”

He died a year later, having already assured his legacy.

This is the fifth in our series of five seminal album covers by female artists

I’m pretty sure my Dad had a really big crush on Rickie Lee Jones. Her name resonates for me because he was a huge music fan and started buying CDs when the format was released. He bought all of hers as soon as they were reissued and I vividly remember looking at this cover when I was a kid and listening to her biggest hit Chuck E.’s in Love.

It turns out that my Dad was not alone in his affections. In researching this cover, I’ve come across plenty of love letters to the Jones that appeared on the scene in 1979, with her alluring air of hipster cool. Blogger Al Barger puts it this way: “Obviously, Rickie was THE ultimate romantic fantasy object of any cool guy my age…The time less spiritual of my classmates were spending concentrating on the Farrah Fawcett poster or some such, I spent enthralled with that album cover with the beret and chewing on the cigar.”

At the time she was in a relationship with one of the only guys on the planet who could match her in the cool stakes (and shot for shot). Jones and Tom Waits were known as rock music’s “bohemian couple”. The first sleeve she ever featured on was Wait’s 1978 Blue Valentine and the photos on the back cover make for an image that is even parts trashy and alluring.

A quote on the Tom Waits Library provides more detail about their romance: “The first time I saw Rickie Lee she reminded me of Jayne Mansfield. I thought she was extremely attractive, which is to say that my first reactions were rather primitive – primeval even. Her style onstage was appealing and arousing, sorta like that of a sexy white spade. She was drinking a lot then [1977] and I was too, so we drank together. You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed with her.”

Getting smashed was something that the young and beautiful Jones was extremely keen on and it would be naïve to suggest that her aura of cool wasn’t sustained by rampant self-destruction. In 1979 she staged a remarkable breakout, with a single and an album in the Billboard Top Five and five Grammy nominations. She even made the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine (the issue that sold like hotcakes).

Time Magazine dubbed her ‘The Duchess of Coolsville’. She was greeted with the kind of critical and commercial adulation enjoyed by Amy Winehouse – and I make that comparison in more ways than one. In recent interviews, she has talked about “using drugs to the extent that you know this time you might die. Whereas some people seem able to take dope a little bit for their whole lives, they are not going to take it to their demise. And those of us who are addicts are in great danger because nothing is ever enough.”

The photo and cover design are by Norman Seeff, who was responsible for Playing Possum sleeve and for the portrait of Mitchell used on the Hejira cover. I realise that this series of covers by women artists has also become something of a Seeff retrospective as well, which is testament to how incredibly in demand we was in the seventies. It’s well worth visiting his site to gawk at all the famous faces that he has helped to immortalize.

In this portrait of Jones, he creates a bohemian and jazzy atmosphere that evokes the music on the album. An article in The Guardian perfectly describes the appeal of this album cover, which “became iconic – the hollowed cheeks, beatnik beret, dangling cheroot; she looked so cool.” But for a beautiful woman in her mid-twenties her face is far too care-worn and gaunt. Her focus is exclusively on her smoke and the intensity with which she regards it tells you much of her compulsive nature. It’s not clear whether the beautiful light behind her denotes sunrise or sunset – but if it’s morning you assume she hasn’t been to bed and if it’s evening that she’s just woken up.

She could be Winehouse or Cat Power, or even Courtney Love, but perhaps she was one of the first women to realise (even subconsciously) that her weaknesses could become her brand; her addiction her hallmark.

Another famous cover from the 1979 was Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English, who had a substantial head start grappling with addiction.

Faithful seems to be holding the cigarette more out of habit than anything else and the blown out lighting and gesture instantly brings to mind the squinting pain we all feel doing the “walk of shame” after a big night. It’s just that her big night had been going for over a decade.

Today, both Jones and Faithfull are clean. They are still writing, recording and performing music. Former ‘it’ girls, they are now something far more admirable – battle-scarred survivors who have seemingly wrestled their demons and come out on top.

It’s always good to see the designers behind classic album covers getting critical and commercial recognition. And few designers could boast of a career as celebrated and prolific as Storm Thorgerson.

Taken By Storm: The Album Art of Storm Thorgerson was published by Vision On in 2007. It’s a selection of some of his best work from the past 30 years. The book also spawned a traveling exhibition of the same name.

Sleeve lovers in Brisbane can still catch Taken by Storm, which is showing at Artisan Gallery until August 1.

The same show toured to Sydney at the Global Gallery last December. For more information about this legend of cover art, there’s a nice article in the Courier Mail and an interesting interview that featured in in Time Out Sydney from late last year.

This is the fourth in our series of five seminal album covers by female artists

Parallel Lines, the third album by Blondie, was released in late 1978. By 1979, when they were finally huge in the States, the band felt the need to start a “Blondie is a Group” button campaign. Even for those discovering the band’s considerable appeal today, it’s so easy to think of Blondie as Debbie Harry and her backing band.

This is of course disrespectful to the musicians that created some of the best pop songs of all time – but it probably has more to do with Harry’s diaphanous star quality than any shortcoming on behalf of the others. A talented songwriter, confident performer and irresistible vocalist, she’s one of those few that manage to genuinely walk the: “women want to be her, men want to be with her” tightrope. As Rolling Stone puts it, she “invented a new kind of rock & roll appeal that brought New York demimonde style to the mainstream”. I was reading a book about the birth of hip hop which suggested that if graffiti tributes were the measure, then Harry was certainly the number one sex-symbol in the Bronx.

When Parallel Lines was being recorded, Blondies’ Machiavellian manager Peter Leeds was well aware who his meal ticket was. “I was not fond of Peter” Harry told Q magazine “He told the boys that they could all be replaced, I was the only important one.” While the cover for Parallel Lines is widely regarded as an iconic classic, ironically for the band it’s a symbol of manipulation and contributed to the dropping of Leeds as manager. “I don’t think it’s a great design, personally” says Harry.

The story revealed in Q’s “The 100 Best Record Covers of All Time” is really interesting and not at all what you’d expect. Apparently the band were sold on the idea that they would fade in and out of the stripes, which was the one element they liked. The facial expressions – Harry’s sexy as hell scowl contrasted with the guys’ goofy grins – were also Leeds’ idea. According to Harry, he tricked them into pulling the expressions once and then proceeded to make the cover without showing them.

“Everyone just flipped out” Harry said “We were shocked that the artwork had been completed without our approval and that the decision had been made without the band.”

It was the final straw and Leeds was replaced by Alice Copper’s manager Shep Gordon. But at least the duo-chromatic cover, with the guys either predicting Reservoir Dogs or remembering the mod craze of the 60’s, featured the whole band. Singles artwork would be even more selective.

Much has been made of Harry’s influence on future female artists but it’s also interesting to see the “Blondie is a Group” dilemma replayed with such striking regularly. Should a band with a charismatic female lead singer resent the fact that she gets the lion’s share of the attention – or just be grateful for the attention?

Or is this just something that many bands have to deal with regardless of gender – after all, when most people think of Blur isn’t it Damon Albarn that comes to mind?

This is the third in our series of five seminal album covers by female artists

Much of Joni Mitchell’s best music concerns travel. Her classic record Blue opens with the line “I am on a lonely road and I am travelling”, while in the following tracks Carey and This Flight Tonight she leaves her lover for the allure of new adventures. In Court and Spark we meet the hero of Free Man in Paris, who misses life overseas when he was “unfettered and alive”. Hejira – a transliteration of the Arabic word for “journey” – takes this obsession with itchy feet to its logical conclusion. “I wrote the album while traveling cross-country by myself and there is this restless feeling throughout it” she explained.

The sleeve for Hejira is a great example of cover art that perfectly fits the music. Mitchell, who was a painter before she became a musician, designed it herself (we looked at a couple of her other covers in the post for The Shepherd’s Dog). “I trained as a commercial artist, as well as a fine artist. So when I began to record albums, I thought album art was a great way to keep both careers alive.”

For me, the photo  collage on the cover, with its empty road and forbidding but beautiful landscape, so aptly captures both the loneliness and glamour of solitary travel.

The icy background is from a 1976 Joel Bernstein photoshoot of Mitchell ice-skating on a frozen lake. She had just played a gig at the college town of Madison when a massive series of storms ripped through town. Mitchell decided to make the most of the misty, frozen surfaces of Lake Mendota for an impromptu shoot.

“When Joni awoke”, it recounts on her website “she donned a pair of black men’s skates, a long black skirt and a fur cape, took a limo to the lake’s edge and managed to conquer bitter winds and an already thawing, spongy ice while Joel took the pics.”

Images from this shoot would later be re-used for the 2005 compilation album Songs of a Prairie Girl.

The glamour shot of Joni’s face, with its impassive and confident expression, was taken in a studio later by Norman Seeff, the same photographer responsible for Playing Possum by Carly Simon. “Norman used a very difficult and strange psychological process,” says Mitchell. “He’d shoot forever and tried to get a shot of everyone he worked with crying. A lot of people cracked and didn’t go back. He could be a cruel overlord, but he took great photographs.”

Be it skating on thin ice or facing down an intimidating photographer, the road Mitchell travelled may have been at times lonely but it was seldom boring.

This is the second in our series of five seminal album covers by female artists

A lot of us have wanted to put Bono in his place from time to time. On the weekend I was reading a disturbing feature story on Bono, depicting him walking through Washington’s corridors of power, seemingly without the need for security clearance; every door on both sides of politics open to him. Fawning politicians lined up to tell the reporter that “you couldn’t say no to Bono”. Bono – who so happily mistakes record buyers for constituents and hates poverty as much as he does taxes – was depicted as half-saint, half-pop star.

So you would it would think it would have come as some honour when in 1997 Bono introduced Smith at a music magazine award ceremony as a “sister, lover, and mother”. Instead, accepting the award she said: “I’m not your mother, Bono. Do your own dirty work. Fuck you.” She later told NME that she found the statement “presumptuous”.

I recycle this minor controversy because this formidable attitude is embodied by the cover of Smith’s 1975 debut Horses. It’s an album that contains the unforgettable opening gambit: “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine” and forever cemented her reputation as the godmother of punk.

A keen proponent of independent theatre and performance poetry, she moved to New York in the late 60’s. Shortly afterwards she met art student Robert Mapplethorpe and by 1970 they were sharing the smallest room in the legendary Chelsea Hotel.

“We used to stay up all night,” Mapplethorpe said, “and she would do her thing and I would do my thing, and then we’d take a break and smoke a cigarette and look at each other’s work.”

Mapplethorpe ended up making his mark as a photographer and I remember studying the controversy his work caused in university. By the 80’s his main theme was interracial homoeroticism, which naturally baited the “moral majority” so empowered by Reagen’s ascendancy.

(Why this shot wasn’t used as the sleeve for the 80’s hit Ebony and Ivory I’ll never know.) His confronting work inspired a heated debate about government funding for the arts, of which Mapplethorpe was a recipient.

But before all the furor, in 1975, he had only just acquired a Hasselblad medium-format camera and started taking photographs of his friends and acquaintances. In the case of this image, the same sense challenge to gender norms is present. The man’s suit and defensive posture work at contrast with the confidence of Smith’s gaze and the delicacy of her hands to create something new. This isn’t the glam, make-up wearing, cross-dressing androgyny that Bowie had popularised.

Taken with only natural light, the cover emphasises a stark reality. The record company tried to touch the photo up and remove Smith’s hairy upper lip but she wasn’t having it.

There’s also an electric sense that this was the last moment of quiet before both Mapplethorpe and Smith lost their anonymity. They would both see plenty more hotel rooms in their high-profile lives, but never the shared poverty, intimacy and inspiration of the Chelsea Hotel.

Mapplethorpe died of AIDS complications in 1989 (various prayer circles probably high-fived) and in 1996 Smith wrote a book called The Coral Sea dedicated to her dear friend.

Today she still continues to record, write poetry and tour. As Bono very graciously responded after her outburst in 1997, “she never let’s you down.”

This is the first in our series of five seminal album covers by female artists

Carly Simon lead the life of 70′s dreams. The daughter of Richard L. Simon, a cultural mogul and musician, and Andrea Simon, a civil rights activist and singer, she had the perfect lineage to take a leading part in an era of progression and creative explosion.

She dated Cat Stevens, Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger and Kris Kristofferson before marrying James Taylor, another successful singer-songwriter. In fact so prolific was her list of famous and egocentric ex-boyfriends that it still remains a mystery who she wrote “You’re So Vain” about.

As a multi-award winning chart topper, she was a part of the early 70′s group of important female singer-songwriters that included Carole King and Joni Mitchell.

1975′s Playing Possum was a commercial disappointment and the album that put an end her chart domination. Today it also doubles as one of the most important record covers of all time and a great example of the power of a talented photographer and a brave subject.

Simon’s previous covers had been forgettable, showcasing her good looks and natural appeal in unremarkable settings.

No one expected that one year after Hotcakes the happily-married mother of one would reappear in nothing but negligee, fuck-me boots and a pair of stockings. Oh – and in a rather suggestive pose that brings to mind fellatio.

As it happens, neither did she. Simon arrived at the studio of legendary photographer Norman Seeff wearing an outfit that was consistent with her previous image. As she tells it, after a couple of glasses of wines, “Norman said: ‘Well don’t you have something on under that?”

It all sounds a little creepy – like the beginning of a bad (or possibly really excellent) porno. But keep in mind that this was one of the world’s most famous pop stars: there was no imbalance of power. In the resulting shoot Simon got “caught in the moment. I was dancing, I was all over the place… I was being Martha Graham.”

A transformation from squeaky clean singer to uber-sexualised vixen has become a cliche for many female (and indeed male) pop stars. A couple of raunchy shoots and some suggestive lyrics and you’ve graduated to an “edgy, adult artist.” In 1975 it was something else entirely.

With the cover of Playing Possum, the personally contented Simon embraced her sensuality and gave expression to a key part of herself.

There was no stylist on hand or rack of lingerie to choose from, she simply peeled off a layer and let go. While the front cover’s clenched fists speak of power and containment, the back cover is an equally telling image. Her smile and joy seem far more natural than the previous covers.

In no particular order, we’re taking a look at the select few albums that are not only referred to as “landmarks” but have actually created new landmarks. For the passionate fans that love these albums, the places depicted on these sleeves have become sites of pilgrimage.

Beastie Boys: Paul’s Boutique

Music journalist Dan LeRoy’s description of the making of Paul’s Boutique is an amazing read. In summary, the boys pocket a big payday from Capitol Records before decamping to various LA hotel rooms, which they proceed to trash and terrorise. Songwriting is aided by copious amounts of booze and an endless supply of grass. When concerned record executives arrive in LA, they are subjected to juvenile and hilarious pranks. By all appearances it would seem that they simply don’t give a fuck.

It sounds fantastic. By the time they’ve rented an antique-filled Hollywood mansion to record and party in, you’re convinced you know the story. The story where young geniuses get blinded by the fame, cash and drugs and ruin it all by releasing a self-indulgent piece of shit. And that is the exact narrative – except for the part where they release a self-indulgent masterpiece. Paul’s Boutique transformed the Beastie Boys from hip hop’s enfant terribles, dismissed by many as one-hit “frat hip hop” wonders, into respected artists.

The enduring success of Paul’s Boutique is evidenced by the impact of its record cover. The album title is taken from the very short Track 14, Ask for Janice:

…the best in men’s clothing. Call Paul’s Boutique and ask for Janice and the number is (718) 498-1043. That’s Paul’s Boutique and they’re in Brooklyn.

If there ever was a Paul’s Boutique in Brooklyn, there wasn’t by the time the record was recorded. The corner we see on the cover is in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, on the intersection of Rivington and Ludlow Streets. The shop is Lee’s Sportswear but the Beastie Boys attached the sign for Paul’s Boutique on the side for the shoot.

It’s not clear what drove them to celebrate this particular intersection but the cover folds out to reveal a very cool 360 degrees panorama of the area.

As the album became more popular, the corner started to attract tourists who took snaps of themselves in front of “Paul’s Boutique”. The online Beastie Museum has a fascinating page dedicated to the evolution of the neighbourhood.

A small eatery was eventually opened where Lee’s Sportswear used to be and, until early 2007, it was called Paul’s Boutique in honour of the album (it has since been renamed Three Monkeys).

The Beatles: Abbey Road

The most famous example of this genre must be Abbey Road by The Beatles.

The album was originally going to be called Everest and there were ambitious plans for a shoot in the Himalayas. In the end, they named the album Abbey Road after the studios where they recorded much of their music. Photographer Iain MacMillan was allowed all of 10 minutes to capture the Fab Four walking across the zebra crossing. Today the crossing is a major tourist destination and it’s fun to check out the 24 hour webcam, which at the right time of day captures keen fans trying to recreate the cover.

Madness: Absolutely

A ska band from the 80′s, Madness shares with UB40 the record for the most weeks spent in the UK singles charts during the 80′s (214). This album peaked at #2 on the charts and was awarded 1 star by The Rolling Stones. You might remember the album’s breakout hit “Baggy Trousers”. Or not. So why was this location included in a recent London map for rock fans as a historic location to visit? For the same reason that the band continues to tour today with pretty much it’s original lineup, despite not charting since the eighties. Some bands attract the kind of loyal, die-hard fans that more successful or critically acclaimed musicians can only dream of.

Oasis: What’s the Story (Morning Glory)

In transforming a London street into a rock landmark, Oasis once again mirrored the success of The Beatles. Berwick Street is a vibrant location that features an open air market and old record shop, along with some sex shops.

To date What’s the Story (Morning Glory) is Britain’s fourth biggests selling album of all time.

Pink Floyd: Animals

The dramatic industrial setting for Pink Floyd’s The Animals is the Battersea Power Station, a now unused coal-fired power station located on the River Thames.

It’s an amazing building that has achieved worldwide fame largely due to this memorable sleeve. This was before Photoshop, so the inflatable pig in the sky was actually created for the shoot and tied to one of the giant chimneys. Believe it or not, the pig broke free, surprising pilots on the way to Heathrow, who were greeted by the sight of a giant, pink pig flying through the air. Police helicopters had to track it until it eventually landed safely in Kent.

The cover has been extremely influential and the Battersea Power Station subsequently used as a location by other artists including Morrissey, Tori Amos and Hanson.

DJ Shadow: Endtroducing

Something about this sleeve always reminds me of Paul’s Boutique – I’m not sure why. Either which way, both records are important contributions to the art of sampling. We’ve discussed this cover before but it’s interesting as an example of an indoor landmark.

The cover shows Chief Xcel and Lyrics Born in Records, an aptly named record store at 710 K Street in Sacramento, California. In December 2006, it relocated to the former Tower Records location at the corner of Broadway and South Land Park Drive. It’s DJ Shadow’s favourite record store and is equally as famous for being one of the last shops where the mountain of records still dwarf the CD selection. One more piece of trivia – the logo for Records was designed by Robert Crumb.

U2: The Joshua Tree

Famed photographer Anton Corbijn was responsible for the 1986 shoot featuring U2 in California’s Death Valley.  He said of the shoot: “It was taken with a panoramic camera to take more of the landscapes in which was the main idea of the shoot: man and environment, the Irish in America.”

It’s  testament to both the achievement of the band and the dedication of the fans that this forbidding, desert landscape still attracts visitors inspired by the album.

The actual tree from the  cover died more than seven years ago. I could go on about this very interesting cover but instead I recommend you take a few minutes to read the description of “The Search For u2′s Joshua Tree” by Tom Goller.

Eagles: Hotel California

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year, you can find it here

Here’s an interesting fact: Time Magazine still maintains that the Eagle’s Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) compilation has outsold Thriller and is actually the biggest selling album of all time. Whatever the case, there’s no doubt that the Eagles’ sold records like they were made from crack. Hotel California has moved 16 million copies in the US alone.

For the cover of this album Don Henley wanted to convey: “Faded loss of innocence and decadence. I was trying to use California as the microcosm for the rest of the nation.”  The building they used as the Hotel California is The Beverly Hills Hotel, which is located on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California. A luxurious grand dame, since opening in 1912 it’s welcomed everyone from Fred Astaire to the Clintons to Courtney Love.

The evocative photography is by David Alexander and while the cover looks quite straightforward, it actually cost US $60,000 to produce – a fortune by 70′s standards. This was due to the difficulty of getting over the palm trees and shooting the hotel with the sun behind it, a feat that necessitated a cherry picker and some degree of derring-do.

You could say that this fine hotel was already a monument or icon before the Eagles snapped it. But given the sheer beauty with which they mythologise and recontextualise the building, it’s hard to believe that any one of the Eagles’ multitude of fans could view this building as anything other than the Hotel California.

Led Zeppelin: Physical Graffiti

These two 5-story buildings can still be found today at 96 and 98 St Marks Place in New York. However, they look a little different in the flesh – in order to fit the buildings on the cover, they cropped and altered the photo to make it a 4-story building. The cover features die-cut windows on the building, so that, according to Wikipedia, “when the middle cover is wrapped around the inner covers and slid into the outer cover, the title of the album is shown on the front cover, spelling out the name “Physical Graffiti”.” Amazing concept, design and execution from Mike Doud, one of the true legends of sleeve design who’s work we’ve discussed before.

Much like the Battersea Power Station, the building was used again by other iconic artists, in this case The Rolling Stones. The video for Waiting on a Friend features Keith Richards and Mick Jagger hanging out the front.

As a popular tourist spot, the building also echoes the story Paul’s Boutique. On the first floor of 98 St. Mark’s Place you’ll find the Physical Graffiti thrift boutique store.

Bob Dylan: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

This is Dylan’s second album and it features the classic Blowin’ in the Wind (the man was averse to “g’s” at the time). Much like The Beatles just walked outside of their studio in Abbey Road and the Beasties simply picked a corner from a nearby neighbourhood, the location for this charming cover was seemingly determined by proximity. It was taken on the corner of Jones Street and West 4th street in Greenwich Village, only a few metres from where Dylan lived. The photo, taken by CBS photographer Don Hunstein, shows Dylan contentedly walking with girlfriend Suze Rotolo, the two of them huddling for warmth and sharing a private joke. Young, in love and extraordinarily talented, Dylan has every reason to be freewheelin’. Without the weight of his musical talent, it could be dismissed as a twee happy snap devoid of creativity. As it is, the cover is a much imitated icon.

Today, Jones Street is described as a tranquil one-block haven that feels a little like a cul-de-sac because it hits the mid block of both of its intersecting streets. I wonder if the 22 year old Dylan had any idea that one day this tranquility would be regulalry punctuated by tourists seeking to commemorate and pay tribute to his achievments.

 Well, that’s our ten

We also recommend you check out the fantastic Album Covers Map by World Magazine which, with the help of contributing readers, shows where iconic album cover photographs were taken.

And please let us know which covers and landmarks we missed.

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”, reads the inscription on a bronze plaque inside the Statue of Liberty. Dedicated in 1886, it welcomed immigrants as they arrived by ship and fast became a potent symbol for the ‘land of opportunity’.

Visitors arrived by air in 1979 and it’s through a plane window that we see Supertramps’ re-imagined New York. Manhattan is now a giant diner – it’s buildings replaced by ketchup bottles and egg cartons; its famous icon a matronly diner waitress who holds aloft a glass of orange juice.

Breakfast in America was the band’s first LP after moving to the US and it would go on to sell 11 million copies worldwide (4 million in the States alone). It also won the 1980 Grammy Award for Best Recording Package

Art Director Mike Doud took his inspiration from the title and worked up various sketches of surreal images and visual puns. One of the rejected concepts involved giant Cheerios rolling down Arizona’s Monument Valley in a flood of milk. Just imagine.

If Doud had the vision and ambition, cover designer Mike Haggerty had the chops to pull it off. He assembled the cornflake box, ashtray, cutlery, eggboxes, vinegar, ketchup and mustard bottles and spray painted them all white. Haggerty’s original instinct was to cast a busty young stunner as the waitress but the band preferred Kate Murtagh, whose bingo-wings and manic smile contribute so much to the cover.

It’s the first time I’ve thought about what an important American archetype the diner waitress is, almost as ubiquitous as the cowboy, the cheerleader and the policeman. Sometimes she’s beautiful and sometimes she’s motherly – but she’s always street smart and careworn.

While Kate Murtagh’s advancing years are key to the cover’s success, it was a strange and cautious kind of vanity that kept Supertramp off their own record covers. “We wanted to be around a long time, and we didn’t want people watching us getting older” says keyboardist Rick Davies. It’s an interesting concern and one that makes more sense when you realise that back then record covers were a band’s primary form of self promotion. As it is, fans could check the band out on the back cover, being served at “Bert’s Mad House.”

Photographer Aaron Rapoport captures the long-haired band in a relaxed moment, seemingly unaware of the time warp that has transported them back to the American fifties. It’s a nice touch that they all read newspapers from their home towns in Britain, even though they were never as popular in the UK as they were overseas. In many ways they are just another group of immigrants, finding rich inspiration and a warm welcome in the creative and popular culture of America.

As one of the biggest-selling music artists of all time, Michael Jackson helped to set the template for contemporary cover art. This is the cover of his first solo EP, as he made the fateful decision to pursue a career away from The Jackson 5.

While the art direction and design have dated, what makes the cover so appealing is Michael’s sheer charisma and charm. He’s the very embodiment of youth – full of exuberance and casual optimism; his wide smile and cockiness all the more adorable because he appears to be wearing his big brother’s clothes.

Wikipedia defines tragedy as ‘a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure’. The cover of Got To Be There is most resonant today as a poignant ‘before photo’, given what a tragedy the artist’s life eventually became. He scaled a pedestal shared by only a handful of other entertainers, an achievement that only served to make his self-destruction more compelling.

Jackson album covers are no doubt being dusted off in households around the world, as people make an effort to remember him at his peak.

“We didn’t have video back then,” says Ry Cooder. “You had to suggest an alternative environment on the cover of your album. I used to think about ways to do this, mainly to please myself, and this one turned out pretty well.”

This is one of my favourite record covers for the very quality that Cooder pinpoints – the sense of storytelling and creation of an “alternate environment”. It’s a cinematic slice of pop culture that came about organically.

Cooder recorded Into the Purple Valley in a studio next door to a film lot that had fallen into disuse. He arranged for an old staff member to take him around the inactive lot and found his inspiration when he stumbled upon a pile of old painted sets. The now legendary guitarist, composer and producer proved to be a pretty resourceful guy, borrowing the car – a yellow 1939 Buick convertible – from his neighbor. He then cast his fetching wife Susan as the female talent.

It’s very DIY but Cooder is quick to credit the studio rain machine and seasoned lighting technicians for bringing it to life – “otherwise it just looks like nothing — a car and a flat painting of the sky.” If it perfectly evokes a pulpy old Hollywood movie, it’s probably because it was made during the industry’s dying gasps, when the equipment and know-how were yet to make way for special effects and new technologies.

The performance and outfits do a lot to further the story. Her summer hat, which she clutches nervously, immediately tells us that this was meant to be a different road trip entirely. And while she does little to conceal her nervousness, her husband makes a lame attempt to appear calm and in control. But if his posture doesn’t tip you off that he’s struggling to keep it together, his eyes certainly do. I can just hear him telling her that it’ll all be fine and to calm down in a slightly hysterical voice.

The inside cover shows the couple enjoying a more joyous moment.

I’m not sure if this is the happy ending after their harrowing car journey or a glimpse of the lovely couple in more innocent times, before they found themselves under the dark clouds of the Purple Valley.

O.k. I know the two-tone burning Zeppelin image is the Zep equivalent of the Stones’ tongue logo but when I think of Bonzo and co. album covers – I think of Richard Drews’ novelty rotating disc sleeve for Led Zeppelin III,

Peter Corristons‘ Physical Grafitti,

and 1973′s Houses of the Holy, designed by Aubrey Powell and Storm Thorgerson.

To be honest I’m not a huge fan personally of the art for Zeppelin 1 and 2. The fourth album was branded with the cool zep-occult symbols and gave us the straw carrier and the torch bearer but I find them a little too closely related to the billions of shithouse druid-loving fantasy art metal album covers that came after them. CODA has to be one of the worst album covers of all time (and not in a Millie Jackson way). Presence had some great photography accompanying the record (also by Storm Thorgerson) and may well be the classiest zep cover but for me, Houses of the Holy is direct, efficient (in a long-winded, fantasy-art way) and a great representation of a band turning from ye olde metal/folk blues into something more universal .

Like the band themselves (and I love Zeppelin) the ‘Houses of the Holy’ cover art is all grand ingredients; pompous, epic nonsense – juvenile fantasy – innocence/sexuality (see Blind Faith post for a more direct example of nudie kids in rock art history) conceptual mysticism, dynamic contrasts, big effects (for the time) and, ultimately, more depth than a concept that is potentially lacking ‘seriousness’ (again, like the band) might have achieved.

Thorgerson, Powell and (later) Peter Christopherson were the core of London-based Hipgnosis (not the polish electronica outfit), something of a popular choice for 70′s rockers, having also done Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Yes, Styx and other contemporary album covers.
Wikipedia claims Thorgerson was fired after getting on the wrong side of the band with an idea involving an electric green tennis court – but Aubrey Powell’s account implies the band simply opted for one of two ideas from the design team.

The design itself was inspired by an Arthur C. Clarke sci-fi story that contained a final act where loads of semi-formed human children run, like lemmings, off the edge of the earth (I always found the fact that no children are facing the camera a little ominous and this backstory makes them even creepier).

Powell explains the shooting conditions at Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland at superseventies.com

- “I shot the whole thing in black and white on a totally miserable morning pouring with rain.” Though the cover appears to be one wide-frame photograph, it is actually a collage of thirty different shots; only two children posed for the shoot. “Originally,” says Powell, “I’d intended the children to be gold and silver. Because I shot in black and white and it was a gray day, the children turned out very white. So when we hand-tinted it, the airbrush artist, by accident, put a kind of purple tinge onto them. When I first saw it, I said, ‘Oh, my God.’ Then we looked at it, and I said, ‘Hang on a minute — this has an otherworldly quality.’ So we left it as it was.”

It’s definitely a side effect of living in an age that plunders the past for modern ideas but the fact these images could still sit comfortably (apologies to anyone noting the cart before the horse) underneath a Wolfmother or Priestess logo gives creedence to clarity of the concepts and the contribution Powell/Thorgerson made to setting a standard for contemporary 20th century album art design.

Originally, the album was released with a thin paper cuff, featuring the bands name and album title, which covered the little phosphorous asses of the kids.
Unfortunately, just like 2 years earlier, the Spanish government went a bit pink in the cheeks and banned the album (apparently some southern states in the U.S. did the same) and the familiar image is now the one with Atlantics’ contribution to ‘functional’ design.

The almost hand-drawn, thin-lined, b&w font actually looks great with the photo, complementing the big chunks of colour and soft edges of images – but it’s in the wrong spot innit?

Zeppelin excelled the way a talented athlete does – by moving, running, jumping, sweating – and attacks on their contributions to ‘serious’ art/music are like chiding a football team for not knowing how to long divide without a calculator.
So to me, even tho’ some of Led Zeppelins’ artwork may seem a little hokey, including this one – Houses of the Holy remains the perfect banner for it’s team at the time. Confident, epic, menacing, naive and (sorry about the poor pun) cheeky…

You’re probably like me in the fact you’d never heard of Yatha Sidhra let alone this album. But I’ve seen this around and finally got some good artwork to show it off.

The use of the die cut works perfectly. A die cut would have to be one of the cheapest and more effective “tricks” up a designers sleeves. The artwork below is reveal when you open the record cover.

Here is my best attempt to patch up the artwork. All versions of the image had the type removed as seen above.

The only downside to this would have to be the back cover. It’s like they forgot they needed a back until they sent it to the printer. And then let the printer hack something together.

The music itself which I previewed from here, sounds like Boards of Canada meets Jesus Camp soundtrack, while mixed down by Peter Gabriel with the world music dial set on India. This might explain the Indian motif to the artwork.

The genre of music is termed Krautrock. A generic name for the experimental music scene that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. Not to be mistaken for the Crocodile Rock :)

After seeing this I remembered Mika’s “Relax” single which uses a similar concept.

Question: Does anyone have any info on the artwork featured on the cover. Was it a custom job or an appropriation of a classical piece?