Album Art-The Stories Behind Music's Iconic Album Covers

Send us Fan Mail The Stones were never blacker or bluesier than they were on this album with photo art by David Bailey and liner note screed and controversy complements of Andrew Loog Oldham. Grab a copy and listen along with us. For a more complete story or to see the images go to www./https://iorr.org/albums/The-Rolling-Stones-Now.pdf Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear...

Send us Fan Mail What do a graphic designer, a Star Trek fan who never saw the movie, a collaborator with a NASA scientist, and the creator of Public Enemy's logo all have in common? They are one man, Chuck D, who is largely responsible for the hip-hop master piece, Fear of a Black Planet. Grab a copy, the booklet too and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd l...

Send us Fan Mail Never has a cover image articulated an album's theme so well. A young woman, all alone in the middle of nowhere is only half a person and that half person is an amalgam of other people--angst and alienation in a collage. Grab a copy, the booklet too and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail...

Send us Fan Mail "He's not a friend, he's a psychopath." Here is the last or the latest story of a Slim Shady album cover. You choose. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail It's a banana. That's it. Well, not exactly. When you peel it it is a people-colored fruit. Oh yeah, Andy Warhol thunk it up. It is one of the most popular album covers of all time and we've got the story. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail  So may I introduce to you, the act you've known for all these years, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. But who are these people? You won't want to miss this story that our Beatles expert Ken Orth promises is but part one of a two part story. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartt...

Send us Fan Mail Rush-ay? Are you poutine me on? Learn the story of this Canadian prog rock band's pun-filled album art. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail Radiohead created the first album cover suitable for an AI artist but they did that 25 years before AI could do that. Dunwood and Dr. Tchock created a chaotic masterpiece in OK Computer. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail This week we cover Jackson Browne, the male Carole King, and one of an endlessly talented stable of Laurel Canyon musicians. If you were a hippie you had a water bag and if by chance you didn't you had this water bag album. Grab a copy and listen along with us. We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail Do you hyphenate After-Math or not? Go ahead and while you're at it put a comma in Paint It, Black. The US cover was the first that was not a traditional studio shot and it launched the Stones into the world of album cover art. Grab a copy and listen along with us. For a more complete story or to see the images go to https://iorr.org/albums/black-and-blue.pdff We'd love...

Send us Fan Mail If you missed San Francisco during the hippie era the next best thing may have been Telegraph Avenue on a green day. All of that is captured on this album cover. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail Here it is, the pillar of punk rock music and the punk rock movement. The Ramones is that band you see on this cover. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail Almost heaven, West Virginia, and it truly is. This is the story about the cover of Ghosts of West Virginia a quilt that tells the story of a hardworking underpaid tribe of people who powered much of our country's last century and a half--coal miners. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecove...

Send us Fan Mail This cover features the most iconic wall in the history of rock music photography, Herb Green's hieroglyphic wall. It also includes the first mention of Jerry Garcia on an album cover. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail Smells Like Teen Spirit is a song that launched several generations of lifelong fans of a band too shortlived. But the cover launched Nirvana into and then out of orbit. It is one of the best known covers of all time.  Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail Nevermind this album spawned some nice Supertramp tunes, the real news is the cover predicted 911 21 years before it happened.  Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail Joy Division's debut album used radio signals that could have been from little green men in a galaxy far far away for the cover art. Instead the image got a female physics student and a new PhD screwed and not in a good way. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail The Stones second greatest hits compilation includes the final shots of the five original Stones together for the last time. It was dedicated to Brian Jones who died soon after the cover shoot. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail School's out for summer, school's out forever, school's been blown to pieces. No one taps, touches and teases teen angst like Alice Cooper. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail Once again we bleed on the cutting edge of album art relevance, this time with Queen B and her fabulously successful reclamation project that begins right here on the cover. By the way, Blair Caldwell took the photo. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail Looking back, Smith said she had not intended making a big statement with the cover. Her fusion of poetry and rock and roll, along with this iconic photograph has frozen her in the minds of millions. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail This is a punk classic cover for the one record band that spawned the careers of Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious among others. It is the ransom note cover, colored one way for the UK and another for the US. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail Nica was Monk's patron. She sacrificed her life for him. This, we believe, is his tribute cover to this French Resistance Freedom Fighter millionairess. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail What do you do to follow Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band's album cover? The opposite. This is the story of the Beatles eponymous white cover album.  Grab a copy and listen along with us to a special guest, Beatles expert, Ken Orth. We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

Send us Fan Mail This album spent 741 consecutive weeks on the Charts and its Hipgnosis designed cover, with an assist from writer/bassist Roger Waters had a significant influence on that run. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com