The album is undoubtedly the best invention of the last century – but the music isn’t the whole story. The album cover has been a cultural obsession for as long as there have been albums. Since 12-inch vinyl records came out in cardboard sleeves in the 1950s, musicians and fans have been fascinated by the art featured on the covers. When The Beatles revolutionized the game with the cover of Sgt. Pepper in 1967, it became a way to make a visual statement about where the music comes from and why it’s important. But the art of the album cover is constantly evolving.
That’s why we celebrate this art: the 100 best album covers of all time, from Biggie to Beyoncé to Bad Bunny, from Nirvana to Nas to Neil Young, from SZA to Sabbath to the Sex Pistols. We have rap, country, jazz, prog, metal, reggae, flamenco, funk, gothic, hippie psychedelia and hardcore punk. But all of these albums have a unique look that fits their sound. The most memorable covers become part of the music – how many Pink Floyd fans have scratched their heads at the sight of the prism on the cover of Dark Side of the Moon after rolling up their smokes with it?
What makes an album cover a classic? Sometimes it’s a portrait of the artist – think of the Beatles crossing the street or Carole King in Laurel Canyon with her cat. Others opt for iconic, semi-abstract images such as Led Zeppelin, Miles Davis or My Bloody Valentine. Some artists show where they come from, like REM, who represents the South with Kudzu, or Ol’ Dirty Bastard, who welcomes the Brooklyn Zoo with his food stamp card.
Many of these covers are by legendary photographers, designers and artists such as Andy Warhol, Annie Leibovitz, Storm Thorgerson, Raymond Pettibon and Peter Saville. Some have cosmic symbolism that fans have to decipher, others rely on star power. But they are all classic images that have become an important part of music history. And they all show why the world’s love for albums will never end.
100
Spinal Tap, “Smell the Glove”
1982
Discussing “the problem with the cover” of the (non-existent) 1982 album “Smell the Glove” by Spinal Tap (a completely fictional heavy metal band) wasn’t all that easy, as recounted in a scene in the documentary This Is Spinal Tap: “You put a greased-up, naked woman on all fours, with a dog collar around her neck and a leash and a man’s arm outstretched, hanging on the Leash and shoves a black glove in her face so she can sniff it,” says artist representative Bobbi Flekman (Fran Drescher). “Don’t you find that offensive?” Well, someone did, and so Spinal Tap ended up with an all-black cover. The band members placated it by saying it looked like black leather, a black mirror, death and sadness. Then Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) got it: “There’s something about it that’s so black that you wonder, ‘How much blacker could it be?’ And the answer is: ‘Not anymore. No more black.’” The joke manifested itself in real life with the soundtrack album by Spinal Tap, a punk band called None More Black, and “black albums” by Metallica, Jay-Z, Prince, the Damned, and many others. Additionally, years later Spinal Tap released their original album cover, albeit somewhat toned down, on the cover of their single “Bitch School”. -KG
99
Grateful Dead, “Europe 72”
1972
Whether together or apart, San Francisco artists Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse ensured that the Grateful Dead’s albums were as trippy (1971’s Grateful Dead) or earthy (Workingman’s Dead) as the music within them. Their imagery for the band’s live triple album is among the simplest in Dead album history. The big, awkward foot threatening to stomp on Europe is a fun metaphor for the Dead’s wild shows on that continent, and the “fool” smashing an ice cream cone into his forehead on the back cover is just silly Dead fun. (It could also be related to a story in drummer Bill Kreutzmann’s memoirs in which the band dumps ice cream on an annoying fan’s forehead.) Even in the land of the Dead, where visual and musical excess is the norm, Kelley and Mouse have recognized that sometimes less is more. -DB
98
Lil Yachty, “Lil Boat”
2016
The cover of Lil Yachty’s debut mixtape “Lil Boat” shows the rapper in dungarees in a small boat in the middle of the sea. The collage is framed by a red frame on which are printed the numbers 33.7750° N 84.3900° W – the coordinates of the Five Points neighborhood in downtown Atlanta – identifying the then 18-year-old rap singer as the latest manifestation of the city’s fast-moving and influential scene. Mihailo Andic, who designed Lil Boat based on a photo provided by Yachty’s management, took inspiration from Tumblr. “I thought it would be a great idea to suggest a cover to his management team: Yachty, on a boat, in the middle of nowhere,” he told Green Label in 2016. “My whole style is to retouch photos and layer them on top of each other to make them look like one. -MR
97
Public Image Ltd, “Metal Box”
1979
“We were attracted to the idea that it would be difficult to open the can and get the records out,” Public Image Ltd guitarist Keith Levene tells author Simon Reynolds in Rip It Up and Start Again. The post-punk pioneers were already shaking up rock music with their long, repetitive, often improvisational songs, and Metal Box was rethinking the album format itself – three 45-rpm LPs, intended to be treated like 12-inch disco singles, all annoyingly crammed into an unwieldy can. “With Metal Box, the cover came first, both mentally and physically,” frontman John Lydon told Classic Rock. “We spent most of the advance on it, so it was a real challenge to make Metal Box because we didn’t have any money left to record.” -CW
96
Phoebe Bridgers, Punisher
2020
The cover of Phoebe Bridgers’ excellent Pandemic album represents everything we felt back then: fear, loneliness, heartbreak and the secret wish that aliens would lift you up into the sky and make you disappear. Bridgers and photographer Olof Grind took a 24-hour road trip through the California desert to find a location. “I’m always up for a good adventure when I’m shooting, and driving through the pitch-black desert on dirt roads at 3 a.m. got me even more excited,” says Grind. Bridgers made the skeleton suit her trademark and wore it throughout the Punisher album cycle and tour. And it’s still impossible not to think of the image of grind when you hear songs like the deliciously destructive “Moon Song” and the strangely romantic “Garden Song.” -AM
95
Offset, “Set It Off”
2023
Designed and directed by Amber Park, the cover image for Offset’s “Set It Off” features the Atlanta rapper plummeting through the sky as the world explodes around him. The image represents modern rap’s shift toward drama of Wagnerian proportions, with Offset a different kind of heroic survivor, surviving and overcoming his many controversies. He wears sequined socks and gold gloves, alluding to his fascination with Thriller-era Michael Jackson. And the image is constructed upside down so that it appears as if he is falling into the sky rather than out of it. “I wanted it to be a work of art,” he told Our Generation Music. “It looks like I’m falling down, but I’m rising.” -MR
94
Slayer, “Reign in Blood”
2002
How do you illustrate a text like “Raining blood from a lacerated sky/Bleeding its horror, creating my structure/Now, I shall reign in blood”? Slayer producer and label boss Rick Rubin turned to political cartoonist Larry Carroll, who tapped into his inner Hieronymus Bosch to create a mixed depiction of hell with a goat-like deity, decapitated heads and murderous black angels. “If I remember correctly, liked it [Slayer] “The cover I did for Reign in Blood didn’t at first,” Carroll told Revolver in 2010. “But then someone in the band showed it to his mother and she thought it was disgusting, so they knew they were on the right track. As a result, Carroll created similar hellscapes for Slayer’s South of Heaven, Seasons in the Abyss and Christ Illusion albums, creating some of the scariest covers in music history. -KG
93
Slint, “Spiderland”
1991
The members of Slint were still teenagers when they gathered in drummer Britt Walford’s basement in Louisville, Kentucky, to make the eerily sprawling indie rock they captured on their epochal second album, 1991’s Spiderland. This mix of youthful exuberance and youthful loneliness is also evident on the album’s black and white cover, which shows her smiling while treading water in a local quarry. The photo was taken by her friend Will Oldham, who would soon make a name for himself with the Palace Brothers and Bonnie “Prince” Billy. “We’re just youthful and happy,” guitarist Dave Pajo years later described the band’s attitude at the time to Rolling Stone’s Hank Shteamer. “When you’re younger, everything is so vital and huge.” -JD
92
Lauryn Hill, “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill”
1998
The wood carving that is the focus of Lauryn Hill’s only official studio album to date is inspired by both the artwork for the Wailers’ 1973 album Burnin’ and the album title itself. “She already had some great ideas inspired by the album title,” Columbia art director Erwin Gorostiza told Okayplayer in 2021. The two devised a plan to organize a photo shoot at Hill’s alma mater, Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey. After photographer Eric Johnson took pictures of her, they decided to select one of them as a template for an illustration that looks like the work of a stubborn, “uneducated” student sitting at a school desk. The result reflects Hill’s rustic blend of hip-hop, R&B and reggae sounds, as well as her journey to find clarity in a world torn apart by relationships and desire. -MR
91
Big Brother and the Holding Company, “Cheap Thrills”
1968
Counterculture cartoonist Robert “R.” Crumb drew the cover art for Big Brother and the Holding Company’s 1967 debut album, a psychedelic comic that tells the album’s story in each of its songs. The artist drew the cover after watching the band backstage at San Francisco’s Carousel Ballroom: “He really didn’t like our music, but that didn’t matter,” recalls drummer Dave Getz. It really wasn’t: Crumb captured the wild, fuzzy spirit of Janis Joplin and her bandmates, even if he intended what appears on the front to serve as the back of the cover. -MJ