Top 10 Album Covers

There was a time when album covers meant something. You brought the album home from Caldor or Montgomery Ward and got lost in the cover. Not like today, when you buy a new CD from Newbury Comics or BMG and spend precious minutes trying to separate the security cellophane from the plastic case. And if you're buying your music online, there's no connection at all.

It was the era of the album that captured our attention, its broad, cardboard palate giving artists plenty of room for creativity. It's difficult to appreciate the artwork on a smallish CD cover.

For their sheer brilliance and originality, these are the Top 10 album covers of all time:

1. Rolling Stones "Sticky Fingers"
The marketing department had cash on its hands when it brought in Andy Warhol to design the cover with an actual brass zipper on the crotch of the jeans. Clearly a collector's item if you can find the original 1971 release.

2. The Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
Incredible. Original. Hip, way ahead of its time. John, Ringo, Paul and George, in full pastel uniform holding brass instruments, surrounded by cutout photos of the famously living and famously dead.  A young Marlon Brando, Edgar Allen Poe, Marilyn and Dylan. And dozens more.

3. Led Zeppelin "III"
The original release was a spinning circle disc underneath the cover that let you change pictures. The Jimmy Page idea was supposed to be based on crop rotation charts. It was a novel concept for the acoustic-spirited album, a marked contrast from "II." All of Zep's albums were unique, but this one stands out.

4. Yes "Tales From Topographic Oceans"
Tough to choose just one album cover from the band that raised the bar for album cover design. The band's 1974 release is a portrait of the ocean bottom, with the sun just over the horizon under a blue, starry sky. Surreal, like Yes' music.

5. The Who "The Who By Numbers"
Late Who bassist John Entwistle etched the cover, which is a "draw by numbers" picture of the band, with an unshaven Keith Moon standing inside a broken snare drum. Original concept.

6. KISS  "Alive!"
America gets its first close look at the phenomenon that would be known as KISS. The greasepaint, the glam, Gene Simmons' wild hair and darting tongue -- it was all on this cover. The band had released three previous albums, but it was "Alive!" that propelled Gene, Paul, Peter and Ace to super-stardom.

7. Black Sabbath "Black Sabbath"
The 1970 debut is scary as, well, hell. A dead-looking woman with a green face is eerily standing at the edge of the woods in front of an English home. Its simplicity is haunting and still sends shivers when pulled from the album collection.

8. Hell Toupee "Hell Toupee"
Boston funk-rock band's full-length debut. The focus is a brain (borrowed from a local school lab) with a punk-red hairdo,  wearing a headset and puffing on a butt. Wonderful concept that bridged '80s Kenmore Square with Allston back-beat funkadelics.

9. Frank Zappa "Weasels Ripped My Flesh"
One of the greatest musicians and composers of our lifetime, Frank Zappa's album covers were always weird and wacky. But it was this 1970 Mothers of Invention release that jumped off the record racks, a cartoon of a man shaving with a weasel. Only FZ could have come up with this concept.

10. Lynyrd Skynyrd "Street Survivors"
The seven-piece band, in its prime, is devastated by a plane crash that kills singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines. The photo on the cover shows the band in flames, with Gaines' head and shoulders most prominently burning. Eerie foreshadowing. The cover was redesigned sans the flames shortly thereafter.

Comments

[Wefo]

Nice list. Before I started scrolling down I was wondering if HT was going to be on there.

Zep "In Through the Out Door" may not be the best album cover in the world, but it's certainly one of the most clever.

I'd also put Floyd "Wish You Were Here" on an honorable mention list.

"Who are You" falls into the "Street Survivors" class as far as Moon sitting in the 'not to be taken away' chair. "Who's Next" was pretty gutsy.

Wefo

[Dan]

Agreed on "Who's Next" and "Wish You Were Here." And "In Through the Out Door" was unique (didn't that originally come in a paper bag?).

Tough to pick just 10. Santana "Abraxas" is pretty good. And "Abbey Road" sure created a lot of controversy with Paul's bare feet.

[Cyn]

Boy, you tweak some memory chords sometimes. I moved away from the east when I was 18, but Caldor--
that was K-Mart before K-Mart (and as a teenager I of course, hated it).

Good list.

I'd have to add the first Pretenders album cover. I don't know that it was "brilliant," but it sure was riveting. Chrissie Hynde, fingerless gloves, and leather. Oh, the possibilities!

[Dan]

Yeah - Chrissie Hynde. One of the original female rockers. Good choice.

[Chuck Carmody]

Who is sitting at the bar in the "In Through The Out Door" cover?

[Dan]

Hmm. Not sure. Jimmy Page? Bob Dylan? Wilfredo Matos?

[ozbok]

just wondering if u could give me a hand with a pic?

[rh4]

what about more of the pure contrasting visual incredibility, like Yes's?
or any more modern albums as well? some people still like covers! like the Red Hot Chili Peppers "Californication." A classic!

[Matt]

I like the list.
Personally, I would have to add Live's Throwing Copper and The Darkness with Permission To Land. What about Extreme's Accidental Collication Of Atoms?

[Rocker Gone Web Designer]

Again I am reminded of what an amazing though short-lived experience Hell Toupee was. Billy put that album cover together in record time since he only had 20 minutes before the brain had to be returned. I remember his house smelled like formaldehyde for quite some time. Next time you’re wondering whether or not to check the “organ donor” box on you license application I’ll bet you’ll think of Hell Toupee.

[James Kurtz III]

Nice list.

Sgt. Pepper FTW.

I put together a list of the best and worst album covers of 2008. Click my name below if you're interested.

Thanks.

[A considered music lover...]

I disagree almost full heartedly on this list... I understand Yes, but it almost seems that you only took the greats in the industry and grab their best looking covers... bugs me that you have not broadened your musical horizon to even more modern music as well... The greats had good artwork, but there are many modern album covers such as The Mars Volta covers that I would drop off in my top ten album covers....
Rating: 1/10