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The coolest, all-time, greatest, almost iconic, nearly famous album covers of all-time. It doesn't really matter what sort of adjective you lot desire to put it in front end of the words "album cover," because lists of this sort of are always incredibly subjective. What we tin say for sure, though, is that anthology covers are vitally important to how a record is received past the public. (It's hard to imagine Sgt. Pepper's with the cover to the White Album and vice versa.) Even in today's digital historic period, a cool record cover can have a huge bear on. (Artists as varied as Immature Thug and Glass Animals can adjure to that.) So, without farther ado, here is our choice of just 100 of the greatest record covers of all-time.

100: The Flamin' Groovies: Supersnazz (design by Cyril Jordan)

Bandleader Cyril Jordan's terrific comic art has turned up on numerous The Flamin' Groovies covers and posters over the decades. On their 1969 debut, the cavorting characters were there to remind you how much fun rock'northward'roll was supposed to be.

99: The Bee Gees: Odessa

If The Beatles could do a double "White Anthology," the Bee Gees could practise a fuzzy blood-red one. The red velvet encompass, with gold embossed lettering, served discover that Odessa was going to exist unique and beautiful, which information technology was.

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98: The Rolling Stones: Beggars Banquet (design by Barry Feinstein)

Beggars Feast is a rare example where an album's ii famous covers actually complement each other. Put the notorious bath cover together with the engraved invitation on the US replacement, and y'all've got the yin and the yang of The Rolling Stones at the time.

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97: Ol' Dirty Bastard: Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dingy Version (pattern by Alli Truch, photograph by Danny Assure)

Whenever hip-hop started to take itself also seriously, ODB was there to disrupt, agitate, and give the middle finger to convention. Forgoing any blinged-out tropes, the erstwhile Wu-Tang member put a doctored version of his welfare ID bill of fare on the front cover of his solo debut, as both a reminder of where he came from and to destigmatize existence on public help. As he rapped on Wu-Tang'southward "Dog Sh_t,": "Got meals only still grill that former practiced welfare cheese."

96: Nick Lowe: Jesus of Absurd/Pure Popular for At present People (blueprint past Barney Bubbles)

On an album that made a mad nuance through the whole of pop history, Nick Lowe pictured himself in a bunch of different guises, from rockabilly hoodlum to sensitive balladeer (there were different pics on the US and Britain versions), all with tongue firmly in cheek.

95: Jefferson Airplane: Long John Silvery (design by Pacific Eye & Ear)

Jefferson Plane's Long John Silver hails from the aureate age of elaborate album covers. Since people were already using LPs to store and make clean marijuana, the Airplane gave y'all a cardboard box holder for information technology, along with the pot, or at least a realistic-looking photo.

94: Billie Eilish: When Nosotros All Fall Comatose, Where Exercise Nosotros Go? (design by Kenneth Cappello)

Any artist who dares to look this terrifying on the cover of their kickoff anthology deserves all the platinum success they get. Inspired past the album's themes of the subconscious, the nighttime sleeve of Billie Eilish's When We All Autumn Asleep, Where Do We Get? served notice that Eilish was hither to mess with your head.

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93: Parliament: Mothership Connection (photo by David Alexander, pattern by Gribbitth)

George Clinton'southward gonzoid take on outer-space take a chance found its perfect match in the effortlessly cool spaceship-political party embrace for Parliament'due south Mothership Connectedness . The fact that it looked remarkably low budget but made it funkier.

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92: Geto Boys: We Tin can't Be Stopped (pattern past Cliff Blodget)

Walking a razor-sparse line between exploitation and cultural commentary was the Geto Boys' modus operandi, and goose egg exemplified this dynamic more than their famous 1991 album embrace art. The graphic photograph of Bushwick Nib at the infirmary was every bit unflinching as their music.

91: The Cars: Candy-O (design past Alberto Vargas)

Alberto Vargas was already the most famous pin-up creative person before designing the famous encompass for The Cars archetype 1979 album Processed-O, but this painting of a stylish redhead, on a car of grade, became his nearly famous piece. Candy-O is ane of the ii best uses of pin-upwardly art on a rock record, forth with…

90: Courtney Honey: America'south Sweetheart (blueprint by Olivia De Berardinis)

For her debut solo anthology, Courtney Love took the Cars' concept a step farther by enlisting the younger, edgier pin-up creative person (known professionally as Olivia) to pigment her. Of course, it got an extra dimension past playing with Love's own prototype at the fourth dimension.

89: The Rolling Stones: Their Satanic Majesties Request (design by Michael Cooper)

The Rolling Stones probably couldn't shell the Beatles for a psychedelic album in 1967, but they arguably had the cooler album cover, the commencement 3D sleeve in stone. X points if you can observe where the Beatles are hiding in the 3D image on Their Satanic Majesties Request.

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88: Public Image Ltd: The Flowers of Romance

PiL'south follow-upwards to their famous Metal Box anthology embrace was even cooler, showing non-performing bandmember Jeanette Lee with a rose in her teeth, a weapon in her hand, and a murderous look in her eyes.

87: The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Cloak-and-dagger & Nico (blueprint past Andy Warhol)

Information technology was weird, information technology was witty, it was Warhol. The famous minimalism of The Velvet Hush-hush & Nico peel-away banana album cover became an influence on punk visual style many years after and remains 1 of the greatest album covers.

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86: The Miracles: Hi, We're The Miracles (pattern by Wakefield & Mitchell)

The cool album cover for The Miracles' 1961 debut encapsulates the quondam-school showbiz that Motown would soon lead the world away from. Merely it's so cheerful that you still have to love it.

85: The Go-Gos: Dazzler & the Trounce (design by Ginger Canzoneri, Mike Doud, Mick Haggerty, Vartan)

The Go-Go's sense of playful subversion extended to their sendup of glamorous cover photos on their hit debut, Dazzler & The Crush . It was their party; you could join if they allow you.

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84: Dr. Dre: The Chronic (pattern by Michael Benabib)

This famous album cover did wonders with its simple strategy. On his Dr. Dre'south solo debut The Chronic , the design assumed that Dre was already an icon and presented him appropriately.

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83: Quincy Jones: The Dude (design by Fanizani Akuda)

Jeff Bridges' got zip on the original "The Dude," the effortlessly cool and quixotic anthology cover character that appears on Quincy Jones' genre-blending solo debut. Q always had an ear for talent – as his cantankerous-cultural LP proved – but he also had an middle for design. (He spotted the eponymous "Dude" statue at an art gallery and took it habitation for inspiration.)

82: Cocteau Twins: Heaven or Las Vegas (design by Paul West)

The pattern-centric 4AD label did some of its finest work for the Cocteau Twins album covers. This shimmering paradigm is undeniably beautiful, yet you never know just what it ways…but like their music.

81: James Brown: Hell (design by Joe Belt)

Arriving one yr after his milestone anthology The Payback , Brown delivered the double-album Hell, which called out societal ills both on tape and on the elaborately illustrated cover. Designed by artist Joe Chugalug, who made his name capturing the characters of the Wild West, Chugalug trained his aim on another night chapter of American history, depicting fallen soldiers, addicts, and an imprisoned populace. Ane of the virtually famous funk album covers ever.

80: Slayer: Reign in Blood (design past Larry Carroll)

Ane of the greatest metal covers e'er designed, designer Larry Carroll packed a thousand nightmares into this Bosch-similar painting for Slayer'south thrash masterpiece Reign in Blood , which influenced metal imagery for decades to come.

79: Rex Crimson: In the Courtroom of the Carmine King (design by Barry Godber)

Robert Fripp saw this dramatic painting afterward In the Court of the Ruby Male monarch was completed and knew it perfectly suited the music, with the crazed comprehend figure every bit the 21st century schizoid man. Sadly, the artist passed away only months later.

78: Moby Grape: Wow (design by Bob Cato)

1 of the psych era's great hallucinations, the famous album encompass for Moby Grape'due south 1968 double LP Wow showed an otherworldly landscape with the world'due south largest bunch of grapes. Wow indeed.

77: Kayne W: Yeezus (blueprint by Kanye West and Virgil Abloh)

One of the most famous album covers of contempo vintage. Kanye West brings the minimalist "White Album" concept to the CD era. You could as well see Yeezus as the last commemoration of the physical CD before it disappeared.

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76: Elvis Presley: 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Incorrect (blueprint by Bob Jones)

Ultra-cool Elvis (in his shiny gilt Nudie suit) gets multiplied in one of the well-nigh indelible early on 60s images and greatest anthology covers. If in that location are that many Elvis fans, nosotros will, of course, need 15 Elvises.

75: Black Flag: My War (blueprint past Raymond Pettibon)

Black Flag'southward trailblazing punk-metal wouldn't have been the same without Pettibon's grisly comic images, though in this case, not quite every bit grisly as the anthology itself.

74: Talking Heads: Speaking in Tongues (design by Robert Rauschenberg)

The abstraction of the Talking Heads' beautiful, moving-parts embrace for their 1983 record Speaking in Tongues couldn't have better represented the music inside. It would have been rated higher if the affair wasn't and so tough to shop.

73: The Mothers of Invention: We're Only In It for the Money (design past Cal Schenkel)

Frank Zappa wrapped his skewering of hippie culture Nosotros're Simply In Information technology for the Money in an equally barbarous parody of the famous Sgt. Pepper album cover to great success.

72: The Pogues: Peace and Love (design by Simon Ryan)

One of the greatest joke anthology covers, the boxer was already a perfect image for the Pogues, but don't miss the subtle flake of play hither. (The word "peace" of course has five letters.)

71: Rush: Moving Pictures (design by Hugh Syme)

Blitz's greatest anthology covers expressed both their one thousand concepts and their cerebral humor. In this staged cover for Moving Pictures , which features many of the characters from the songs, nosotros observe at least three different visual plays on the anthology'southward championship.

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70: The Beatles: Abbey Road (blueprint past John Kosh)

Every bit it turns out, The Beatles were but too lazy to become to Mt. Everest – aye, that was the original plan – so they came upwardly with something just as memorable by leaving the studio and crossing the street, resulting in the famous Abbey Road album cover. Information technology's since gone done equally one of the greatest of all fourth dimension.

69: Marvin Gaye: I Want Y'all (pattern past Ernie Barnes)

All of Marvin Gaye's cool album covers are works of art in a fashion, simply Ernie Barnes'south 'Sugar Shack,' which graces the encompass of I Desire You , is the only 1 currently hanging in a museum. Barnes'due south sensual figures and jubilant dancers reflected the carnal nature of Gaye'due south 1976 anthology.

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68: Joe Jackson: I'm the Man (design past Michael Ross)

There'southward plenty of punk attitude on Joe Jackson's album embrace for I'm the Man, where he portrays the hero of the title vocal – a sleazy grapheme who'll sell you anything – as long as you don't really need it.

67: The Beatles: Yesterday and Today (design by Robert Whitaker)

Okay, so it was a petty graphic and provocative, merely every bit the single most controversial thing The Beatles ever did (and the nearly expensive for an original), the cover of Yesterday and Today surely earns a place on a list of the greatest anthology covers.

66: Alice Cooper: School's Out (blueprint by Craig Braun)

In that location were nearly as many copies of Alice Cooper'due south Schoolhouse's Out in 1970s high schools as at that place were actual school desks. Ten points if you lot got the original with the underwear inner sleeve.

65: Aerosmith: Draw the Line (design by Al Hirshfeld)

Anyone who went to plays or read the New York Times in the 70s will recognize the work of the line-cartoon caricaturist Al Hirschfeld, who did his magic on Aerosmith'southward members here. As e'er, his daughter Nina'southward proper noun was subconscious a few times in this famous album embrace.

64: Eric B. & Rakim: Paid in Full (pattern by Ron Contarsy)

Between the rappers' Gucci-way outfits and the piles of money in the background, the embrace for Eric B. and Rakim's sophomore album Paid in Full said it all about going bigtime in 1987 and is considered one of the greatest anthology covers in hip-hop.

63: Joy Partitioning: Unknown Pleasures (design by Peter Saville)

The cover of Joy Division's 1979 debut tape is an bodily depiction of radio waves. This stark blackness-and-white cover became so iconic that it's at present worn proudly on T-shirts by teens who've never heard of the band.

62: Funkadelic: Maggot Encephalon (photo by Joel Brodsky, design by The Graffiteria/Paula Bisacca)

P-funk's wild fusion of funk, surrealism, and popular art extended across music, resulting in some of the most provocative LP covers of the era. Model Barbara Cheeseborough's screaming visage on the comprehend captured the swirling chaos of the 70s and searing funk-rock of Maggot Encephalon.

61: Family: Fearless

Ah, the days when bands had the money to carry out their wildest ideas. The cover for the British prog-rock outfit Family's 1971 album is a multi-foldout caricature and features an early calculator graphic, adding the private ring photos to each other until they become the pretty mistiness at acme correct.

60: The Beatles: Run into the Beatles! (design by Robert Freeman)

The somber, adumbral photo featured on both the US and United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland album version of Run into The Beatles! was only the opposite of the smile pic that everybody expected to see, and the outset of many deport-overs from the Beatles' art-school days.

59: Pink Floyd: Ummagumma (design by Hipgnosis)

Most of Pink Floyd's covers would exist in the running for a list of the greatest album covers, but nosotros wanted to highlight something that wasn't Nighttime Side of the Moon. This burst of Storm Thorgerson / Hipgnosis imagination features four versions of the aforementioned photo (except that the band rotates one position in each), matching their sense of surrealism.

58: Metallica: …And Justice For All (design by Stephen Gorman)

Metallica'south trademark mix of stupor value and social commentary had few better expressions than this prototype of a modern take on Lady Justice for their famous 1988 anthology cover to …And Justice For All .

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57: The Mamas & The Papas: If You Tin can Believe Your Eyes and Ears (design by Guy Webster)

With all four bandmembers together in a bathtub, the cover said more than well-nigh The Mamas & The Papas than what was probably intended. The toilet on the original cover of If Yous Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears also proved to be a no-no in 1966.

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56: Madonna: Madonna (design by Carin Goldberg)

All of Madonna's album covers are striking in their own fashion, only in that location'due south something special nigh her 1983 self-titled debut. She looks like she can see everything that'south going to happen to her in the adjacent forty years.

55: 10cc: Ten Out Of 10 (blueprint by Hipgnosis)

The embrace for Ten Out Of ten remains one of Hipgnosis' fiendishly clever 10cc covers and one of their more overlooked albums. Hither they're on the 10th flooring of a hotel standing at the precipice, and but 1 of the guys seems concerned almost it.

54: Thelonious Monk: Underground (photo by Horn Grinner Studios; art direction/design: John Berg and Richard Mantel)

A nod to how Thelonious Monk must've felt as a pioneering jazz creative person, Underground casts the pianist as a French Resistance fighter in WWII. Columbia Records art manager John Berg was responsible for iconic covers like Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits and Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run, but this was probable one of his more than expensive: They built an unabridged set, complete with costumed extras, to create Monk's arresting album cover.

53: Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin Ii (design by David Juniper)

Information technology was an art-schoolhouse friend of Jimmy Page'due south who created this mythic embrace by superimposing the bandmembers over a famous shot of WWI High german fighter pilot the "Carmine Baron" and his crew. Many Americans wondered what Lucille Ball was doing there but information technology was actually French actress Delphine Seyrig.

52: The Minor Faces: Ogden'southward Nut Gone Flake (blueprint by Nick Tweddell and Pete Brownish)

One of the first round covers, the tobacco-tin can design for this psychedelic gem stood out in the racks and prepared you for the cheerful surrealism of the album's main suite.

51: Dave Mason: Alone Together (design by Barry Feinstein and Tom Wilkes)

This album cover was more of a multimedia assemblage, incorporating the die-cut edges and the marble-swirled disc into the overall blueprint and giving an instant visual image to the summit-hatted Dave Mason.

fifty: Elton John: Don't Shoot Me I'one thousand Just the Piano Player (design by David Larkham and Michael Ross)

Some of Elton's greatest album covers were a bit splashy, others a little somber. The one for Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player was merely right, drawing from his soon-to-be-legendary honey of movies.

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49: Ian Dury: New Boots and Panties!! (blueprint by Barney Bubbles)

One of many great Stiff Records album covers, this caught Ian Dury's personality and stood in stark dissimilarity to the elaborate sleeves on the marketplace at that time. Barney Bubbling also did the handwritten notes, ofttimes mistaken for Dury's.

48: Dave Brubeck: Time Out (encompass by Neil Fujita)

Dave Brubeck's 1959 album Fourth dimension Out is probable the most famous use of pop art on a jazz cover. In this case, the interlocking geometric shapes are a visual answer to the anthology's innovative time signatures.

47: Wendy Carlos: Switched-On Bach (design by Chika Azuma)

Sporting a photograph of JS Bach with a Moog synthesizer, Wendy Carlos' pioneering electronic album Switched-On Bach was dissimilar anything people had seen (or heard) before in 1968. As the first classical anthology to get platinum in America, Carlos helped to bring Bach… to the hereafter. Heighten your hand if you likewise thought the true cat was a head of lettuce.

46: Pinkish Floyd: Animals (blueprint by Hipgnosis)

Not every ring would wing a squealer over Battersea Ability Station, but few other bands would make an album that admittedly chosen for it.

45: Hüsker Dü: Warehouse: Songs and Stories (design past Daniel Corrigan, Hüsker Dü)

The album embrace for Hüsker Dü'due south concluding studio album is one of those cases where a cover is exactly similar the album: vivid, colorful and jarring in a welcoming way.

44: Chelsea Wolfe: Hiss Spun (design by John Crawford)

Like all goth-influenced artists, Chelsea Wolfe has a potent sense of the dramatic. The coiled-upwardly trunk on the cover of her 2017 album embodies all the personal changes the songs deal with.

43: Blondie: Parallel Lines (design by Ramey Communications)

The great thing about the famous Blondie Parallel Lines album encompass isn't only the black-and-white limerick but the way Debbie Harry (the simply one not grinning) exudes power, while all the guys look a bit goofy.

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42: Utopia: Swing to the Right (design by John Wagman)

This Reagan-era concept anthology makes its visual point by using a photo of Beatles records existence burned that followed John Lennon's "more popular than Jesus" remarks. Merely in this example, the photo is a Mobius strip, and the album they're burning is the very one they're continuing in.

41: Taylor Swift: 1989 (design by Austin Hale and Amy Fucci)

On a throwback-themed anthology, Taylor Swift presents an old Polaroid of herself, but incomplete and out of focus. The mysterious image on 1989 's cover was an piece of cake one for her fans to re-create, and they did.

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40: Apprehensive Pie: Rock On (design by John Kelly)

Why in the world did Humble Pie become a bunch of policemen to form a human pyramid? Considering they could, of course.

39: The Rascals: Once Upon a Dream (pattern by Dino Danelli)

I of the many imaginative trips from the late 60s, this aggregation – by the band'south drummer – represents various personal dreams of the band members.

38: PJ Harvey: To Bring You My Love (pattern by Valerie Phillips)

It may be a more glamorous comprehend later her kickoff two, but this photo of PJ Harvey – in which she could easily be mistaken for Shakespeare's Ophelia – unsaid that a newer, softer image comes at a price.

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37: Oasis: Definitely Possibly (blueprint by Brian Cannon)

Their debut album pictured Oasis in the world's coolest crash pad, showing every band of the era how it ought to be living.

36: Grace Jones: Island Life (design by Jean-Paul Goude)

Graphic designer and art director Jean-Paul Goude met his lucifer, and his muse, with Grace Jones. Goude's visual re-imagining of the androgynous vocaliser led to some of the all-time album covers in music history, from Nightclubbing to Slave to the Rhythm and the arabesque grandeur of Island Life. "It looked correct to me and how I felt," said Jones. "Able-bodied, creative, and alien."

35: A Tribe Called Quest: Midnight Marauders (photo past Terrence A Reese, pattern by Nick Gamma)

Like a proto XXL "Freshman Class", the 3 alternate covers of A Tribe Call Quest'due south archetype third album Midnight Marauders featured a collage of 71 hip-hop personalities from Afrika Bambaataa to the Beastie Boys, like the Sgt Pepper of hip-hop. Concepted by Q-Tip, the Afrocentric cover came to fruition with the help of Nick Gamma, the former art director at Jive Records.

34: Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (design past Desmond Strobel)

Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood looked impeccably fashionable doing whatever it was they were doing on the famous Rumours album cover. It'due south off-white that the cover was a footling mysterious since the songs revealed everything else.

33: Steely Dan: Pretzel Logic (design by Raeanne Rubenstein)

Though Steely Dan was long associated with Los Angeles, the embrace for Pretzel Logic (actually shot at Fifth Avenue and 79th Street) looks, feels, and tastes like New York.

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32: Nifty Pumpkins: Adore (blueprint past Yelena Yemchuk)

Smashing Pumpkins' album covers were often softer and prettier than the music, but this cover (created by Billy Corgan's then-girlfriend) is the perfect translation of the obsessively romantic theme of Admire.

31: Ohio Players: Climax (blueprint by Joel Brodsky)

All the Ohio Players covers were legendary, and the early on Westbound ones were considerably more daring than the hitting-era ones for Mercury. Equally the band often claimed, fewer people would accept bought the albums if they'd put themselves on the covers.

30: The Louvin Brothers: Satan is Real (design past Ira Louvin)

Modern expiry metal bands got nothing on country duo The Louvin Brothers, who went to the inferno in 1959 and looked great in white suits while doing it.

29: David Bowie: Heroes (design by Masayoshi Sukita)

David Bowie has at least five of the almost iconic album covers of all time. From the lightning bolt on Aladdin Sane to Ziggy Stardust, it's hard to pick. But the sublime strangeness of this David Bowie photograph tells you everything y'all need to know nigh the creative madness of his Berlin menstruum. The encompass was memorably defaced by Bowie himself decades later.

28: Kate Bush-league: The Kick Inside (blueprint past Jay Myrdal)

The more ordinarily known US cover is nice plenty but makes it wait like a conventional vocalizer-songwriter album and Kate Bush is annihilation but. We're referring to the original Britain "kite" cover that introduced the strangeness and sensuality that Bush was all nigh.

27: Janelle Monáe: Dirty Computer (design by Joe Perez )

The perfect cover for a absurd, sensual and futuristic concept album, this captures Janelle Monáe'due south depth and mystery and is a beautiful piece of fine art in its ain right.

26: Miles Davis: Bitches Brew (design by Mati Klarwein)

Since Miles Davis' Bitches Brew sounded similar no other previous jazz albums, it couldn't look like one either. It took a German painter schooled in surrealism to create its mix of African folk art and psychedelia.

25: David Bowie: The Next Day (design by Jonathan Barnbrook)

Every fan did an immediate double-take when they saw Bowie's human action of self-sabotage here. By defacing the Heroes cover, Bowie establish the most dramatic way of saying "that was then, this is now".

24: Jethro Tull: Thick as a Brick (design past Roy Eldridge)

Largely written past bandmembers Ian Anderson, John Evan, and Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond (with aid from Chrysalis staffer and former journalist Roy Eldridge), the famous newspaper cover of Thick every bit a Brick is full of cross-references and cerebral wit – simply like the music – and Anderson said it took just as much work.

23: Nirvana: Nevermind (design by Robert Fisher)

The image of a baby grasping at a dollar pecker became i of grunge's coolest and most enduring symbols, an album cover that captured the attitude of Nevermind and the era. The baby in question, Spencer Elden, even recreated the photo 25 years later.

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22: The Who: Who's Next (blueprint by Ethan Russell)

The iconic cover for Who's Next worked on two levels: first as a futuristic image of The Who against a monolith; and second, when you noticed their zippers and realized what the guys had been doing.

21: Uriah Heep: The Magician'south Altogether (design past Roger Dean)

This cover is Roger Dean at his most vivid. When you walked into a tape shop, you could encounter this album clear across the room.

xx: Cream: Disraeli Gears (cover by Martin Abrupt)

Psychedelic anthology covers were an fine art class in themselves, and the explosion of colour (with the band looking suitably avuncular) made Cream'south Disraeli Gears ane of the definitive ones. The designer also wrote 1 of the album'southward virtually brilliant lyrics on "Tales of Brave Ulysses."

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19: Santana: Lotus (design by Tadanori Yokoo)

You don't necessarily go a matter of rare dazzler when you load a cover with as many fold-out panels and elaborate paintings as an 11-inch disc can hold, only Santana certainly did in this case, thanks to famed Japanese designer Tadanori Yokoo. Recorded live during Santana's performances in Osaka, Nihon, the full sleeve art is an amalgamation of Buddhist and Christian imagery, forth with Yokoo's signature pop fine art style.

eighteen: 10cc: How Dare You! (design by Hipgnosis)

The ubiquitous Hipgnosis squad outdid itself with this ultra-clever 10cc sleeve, which is not but inspired by one of the songs (the phone sexual activity-themed "Don't Hang Up") but is total of hidden gags, with the aforementioned people turning upward in each of the four chief photos.

17: XTC: Go 2 (design past Hipgnosis)

Another Hipgnosis job, the famous album cover for XTC'due south Go ii boasts a dense block of typed copy that taunts and messes with the album buyer's head. No wonder the clever lads in XTC loved it.

xvi: Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run (design by Eric Meola)

Information technology'southward hard to selection one Bruce Springsteen comprehend, when so many accept ascended to iconic condition. It could have just equally hands been Born in the United states of america, with its Annie Liebovitz photo and Bruce in a white t-shirt and blue jeans in forepart of an American flag. We decided to go instead with this kinetic photo that captured the camaraderie of the ring and the sense of rock'n'scroll mission. While the anthology fabricated an instant star out of Springsteen, the cover did the same for E Street Band's sax homo Clarence Clemons.

xv: Ramones: Ramones (pattern by Roberta Bayley)

The comprehend of The Ramone'southward 1976 cocky-titled debut is pure punk stone in all its black-and-white grittiness. A good encompass became a great one the moment when a bored Johnny Ramone decided to give the photographer the finger.

14: Pixies: Surfer Rosa (design past Vaughan Oliver)

The Pixies' debut cover is sexy, sinister, and full of secret meanings, starting with a vintage-looking softcore photo that was staged for the cover shoot.

xiii: Yes: Relayer (pattern by Roger Dean)

Roger Dean's fantasy paintings became as much a part of prog-stone iconography as the music. He fittingly put his coolest album cover on Yes' nearly creative album, an icy winterscape that illuminates the album's war-and-peace theme.

12: Frank Sinatra: Come Wing With Me (blueprint by Jon Jonson)

Each one of Sinatra's Capitol-era album covers was absurd and archetype in its own way, from the alone scenes on the ballad albums to the visual swagger on the swingers. The cover of Come Wing With Me caught both Sinatra'south natural charisma and the allure of the jet-ready era.

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11: Patti Smith: Horses (design by Robert Mapplethorpe)

If Horses wasn't enough to make Patti Smith an instant icon of bohemian absurd, the Robert Mapplethorpe album embrace certainly was. Nobody ever slung a jacket over their shoulder that well.

10: Talking Heads: Lilliputian Creatures (design by Howard Finster)

Howard Finster'southward uniquely Southern folk art was a perfect lucifer for Talking Heads' back-to-roots album (and for R.E.M.'s Reckoning around the same time). While some of Finster's work had a darker streak, for this anthology he appropriately chose sunshine and wonderment.

nine: John Coltrane: Blue Train (design by Reid Miles, photo past  Francis Wolff)

Most of the archetype Blue Note covers were full of brilliant graphics and exuberant photos (and lots of exclamation marks!). Not and then with John Coltrane's Blue Train, whose cool anthology embrace photo and mood lighting marked it as a work to take seriously.

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8: Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass: Whipped Cream & Other Delights (design by Peter Whorf Graphics)

This iconic album cover said it all virtually coy mid-60s sexuality, bachelor-pad fashion. Despite its daring appearance, if you looked closely, the whipped-foam clad model was actually wearing a nuptials wearing apparel.

seven: Kendrick Lamar: To Pimp A Butterfly (photo by Denis Rouvre, pattern by Kendrick Lamar and Dave Complimentary)

Finding anthology art that captured the genre-pushing ambition of To Pimp A Butterfly was a tall lodge, just Kendrick Lamar and TDE were up to the chore, every bit Thousand dot assembled his hometown crew for a victorious political party on the White Business firm lawn, stomping on the symbol of a weaponized criminal justice organization.

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six: The Rolling Stones: Allow It Bleed (design by Robert Brownjohn)

The Rolling Stones always had cool, attention-grabbing album covers. Only while Sticky Fingers has a not bad story, Let It Bleed was equally unique and surreal. Taking its inspiration from the anthology's original title Automatic Changer, the front end has the album on a turntable stacked with all sorts of other things. Nosotros presume the mess on the behind happened after someone pressed "start."

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5: Big Brother & the Belongings Visitor: Inexpensive Thrills (design past R. Nibble)

Arguably the coolest 60s album cover of all, the art for Large Brother & the Belongings Company's sophomore tape was also most people'south introduction to the style of underground comic art perfected by R. Crumb. This manner of art would exist associated with psychedelic music from here on out, though Crumb was a bit anti-hippie himself.

4: The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper'due south Lone Hearts Society Ring (design past Peter Blake)

Peter Blake's pop-art assemblage on Sgt. Pepper's famous album changed record covers forever, and kept many of united states of america occupied for weeks trying to identify everybody at the ceremony.

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3: Elvis Presley: Elvis Presley (pattern by Robertson & Fresch)

RCA wasted no time in cleaning upwards Elvis, who'd look completely respectable on all future albums. Meanwhile, his debut allowed him to look similar the crazed hillbilly everyone'due south parents feared he was, captured in mid-song at the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory in Tampa, Florida. Which of grade leads us to…

ii: The Clash: London Calling (photograph by Pennie Smith, design by Ray Lowry)

A rare case where a parody (of the above Elvis encompass) becomes a work of art in itself. The effortlessly cool album cover image of bassist Paul Simonon swell his guitar practically screams stone'north'roll, simply like the music inside.

1: The Beastie Boys: Paul's Boutique (design past Nathaniel Hornblower/Jeremy Shatan)

This beautiful, panoramic view of Ludlow Street in NYC on the album cover of Paul's Bazaar did everything possible to put you correct into the Beastie Boys' earth, making it look both funky and inviting. It too made it essential to own the original, fold-out vinyl.

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Looking for more than? Notice the worst album covers of all time.

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Source: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/the-100-greatest-album-covers/

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