Rock

Album: Daydream Nation
Artist: Sonic Youth
Cover Artist: Gerhard Richter

“One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting.”
Gerhard Richter 1973

Album: Mom's Apple Pie
Artist: Mom's Apple Pie
Cover Artist: Craig Braun, Terry Knight

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 [...]

Album: Dixie Chicken
Artist: Little Feat
Cover Artist: Neon Park

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

Album: Cover Artist: Storm Thorgerson

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 [...]

Album: Playing Possum
Artist: Carly Simon
Cover Artist: Norman Seeff

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 [...]

Album: The Stone Roses
Artist: The Stone Roses
Cover Artist: John Squire

Seminal British band The Stone Roses released their self titled debut album in 1989. The cover features artwork by band member John Squire, who was largely responsible for the band’s visual identity.

Squire is an accomplished visual artist who at the time was heavily influenced by Jackson Pollock.

The painting featured on the cover of The Stone [...]

Album: Breakfast in America
Artist: Supertramp
Cover Artist: Mike Doud, Mike Haggerty, Aaron Rapoport

“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 [...]

Album: Into the Purple Valley
Artist: Ry Cooder
Cover Artist: Mike Salisbury, Marty Evans

“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 [...]

Album: Washing Machine
Artist: Sonic Youth

The first time I saw this t-shirt it was being worn by one of the cool guys in school. I didn’t know anything about Sonic Youth but I did really want the shirt. Unfortunately there was an unwritten rule that if someone from school wore a band shirt first, that was it – it just [...]

Album: Foo Fighters
Artist: Foo Fighters
Cover Artist: Jennifer Youngblood

The gun featured on the cover for Foo Fighters self titled debut is the “XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol,” which was released in 1935 as a tie-in toy for the Buck Rogers comic strip and radio show.

The photo was taken by Grohl’s then wife, talented photographer Jennifer Youngblood, who is responsible for some iconic images of Grohl’s [...]