Our Favorite Album Covers
We love album covers. Brilliant cover art can be the icing on the cake of a fantastic album. These are our personal favorites, so don’t be surprised if we aren’t talking about Abbey Road and London Calling - everyone already knows they’re iconic.
C: Let’s get right into it. The first one I would like to talk about is Melodrama by Lorde. It reminds me of a Van Gogh painting, and it has a stunning color scheme. It’s an image of Lorde looking sad (and possibly hung over) in her bed, which is reflective of the personal tones of the album.
L: I’ll start with Meddle by Pink Floyd. This is not the Pink Floyd album cover most people talk about, but I’m always entranced by it. What IS that? I think of an elephant in a swimming pool. Whatever it is, it’s meant to mess with your mind, just like everything else Pink Floyd does.
C: Next on my list is Tapestry by Carole King. Obviously a staple of ‘70s singer-songwriter era, but its cover art is also amazing. It shows her sitting in front of a window in her house with her cat. It’s quite literally a window into her life. It is understated yet masterful.
L: What can you say about White Blood Cells? It’s a straight uppercut, just like Jack White’s virtuosity. This album cover defined their look and the raw two-part sound he created with Meg White. Incidentally, I saw them on this tour and the show knocked me out. In a good way.
C: Let’s get into Nevermind. This one is in your face, unapologetic and full of rage against the machine. It’s as punk as it gets. It’s a naked baby in a pool grasping for a dollar on a hook. Just like the band, it demands your undivided attention.
L: Paul’s Boutique. Maybe there’s more to this boutique than I understand, somewhere in the lore of the Beastie Boys. But I’ll stay oblivious. I love that it’s a junky shop on a junky corner in Brooklyn full of t-shirts and key chains and bottle openers. It’s indicative of the groundbreaking use of cross-genre samples in one of the great hip-hop albums of all time.
C: Now for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. It’s a beat-up school desk with Lauryn’s face on it and an indent to hold a pencil. It fits in with the school dialogue at the end of each song and shows her background. An iconic cover for an iconic record.
L: Born in the USA. Bruce Springsteen’s butt in a pair of Levi’s 501 jeans with a red bandana hanging out. ‘Nuff said.
C: For my final cover, I have The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, an image of Ziggy Stardust walking down a street at night. It’s futuristic, weird, mysterious and shows exactly how much of an enigma David Bowie is (not to mention that he predicted the future with K. West).
L: Gotta end with Horses by Patti Smith. Awhile back Michael Stipe made a book with her called 2x Intro. He had fallen madly in love with her the first time he saw this album cover. She stares unflinchingly into the camera with ferocity, intelligence and composure as only Patti Smith - the godmother of punk and a personal hero of mine - could. Michael Stipe called the image “startling.”
C + L