The Album Cover Art Is a Drawing of Two Cute Kids in a Sort of 1960s Style
They're images you've seen a grand times, but what do they mean, and how did they stop up on the cover of your favourite always albums?
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We rounded upwards 50 of the most iconic pieces of album artwork from indie releases from Joy Sectionalisation, David Bowie, Amy Winehouse, Nirvana, The Smiths, Strokes, Killers and more and dived into their back stories. Some of the tales of these covers' creation are as interesting every bit the albums themselves…
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The Smiths – Meat Is Murder
The Smiths – Meat Is Murder: The original photo of this soldier, Marine Corporal Michael Wynn, was taken in 1967. He had the words "Make war not honey" inscribed on his helmet. It was used as the prototype for Emile de Antonio'due south doc 'In the Yr of the Pig' in 1968, but The Smiths inverse the wording to "Meat is Murder" for their '85 album. Wynn is reportedly still alive and living in Australia.
3
Amy Winehouse – Dorsum To Black
Amy Winehouse – Back To Black: Amy arrived four hours late to this shoot, having been partying all dark at her friend'due south wedding. Shot in a black room at photographer Mischa Richter's house in Kendal Rise, which had blackboard paint on the cupboards, this was the last shot of the day, with early evening lite streaming through a bay window to the right. It was the terminal fourth dimension Richter saw Amy.
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Nirvana – Nevermind
Nirvana – Nevermind: Conceived afterward Cobain and Grohl watched a program on water births, the iconic sleeve was somewhen shot in a public swimming pool with 3-month-old baby Spencer Eldon. When concerns regarding the epitome showing the babe's penis were raised, Cobain suggested a sticker saying "If you're offended past this, you lot must exist a closet paedophile".
5
Radiohead – Child A
Radiohead – Kid A: "The overarching idea of the mountains was that they were these landscapes of power, the idea of tower blocks and pyramids," says sleeve artist Stanley Donwood. He and Yorke – nether the Tchock allonym he uses when making art – were also inspired by a photo of the war in Kosovo, which concluded in 1999.
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The Clash – London Calling
The Clash – London Calling: Photographer Pennie Smith didn't want this blurry live shot to exist used for the cover, merely Joe Strummer and the band's graphic designer Ray Lowry overrode the decision, calculation in the distinctive pinkish and light-green lettering of Elvis Presley'southward debut album. The remains of the shattered bass are at present on brandish at Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
7
Joy Sectionalisation – Unknown Pleasures
Joy Partitioning – Unknown Pleasures: Renowned creative person Peter Saville designed the sleeve, which is based on an image of radio waves taken from the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Astronomy. The original image, created in 1970, was then reversed and so that blackness was the dominant colour, leading to an instantly recognisable print that's been replicated on merchandise ever since.
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Oasis – Definitely Mayhap
Haven – Definitely Maybe: One of the nearly iconic sleeves of them all (an exact replica of the room was recently mocked up for a special exhibition), 'Definitely Maybe's artwork was shot in Bonehead's living room with numerous prominent cultural reference points – a scene from The Good. The Bad And The Ugly, a poster of Burt Bacharach – on display.
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Led Zeppelin – Iv
Led Zeppelin – Iv: As a 'fuck you' to the critics who'd put the success of their kickoff three albums down to hype, Led Zeppelin decided to release their fourth untitled. Instead of whatever words, the cover features a painting vocalizer Robert Found found in an antiques transport in Reading. The record itself displays four symbols, or runes: i for each band fellow member.
10
Blondie – Parallel Lines
Blondie – Parallel Lines: This classic sleeve got the band'southward manager, Peter Leeds, fired. Without telling the band, he chose the image, which had been rejected past Debbie Harry – "I don't think it'southward a great design, personally," she said – without informing the band, who were hoping it would evidence them fading in and out of the monochrome stripes. Leeds was replaced by Shep Gordon.
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Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Plane Over The Body of water
Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea: Based on a vintage postcard, Mangum asked artist Chris Bilheimer to replace the confront of the woman with a irish potato. The resulting image tiptoes a thin line betwixt cheery nostalgia and something much eerier.
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Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan: Shot in 1963, this one has Dylan and his then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo strolling down Jonas Street, NYC. Critic Janet Maslin once wrote that the cover "inspired endless young men to hunch their shoulders, await distant, and let the girl do the clinging," but really Dylan was just chilly.
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The Velvet Hole-and-corner – The Velvet Hole-and-corner
The Velvet Cloak-and-dagger – The Velvet Undercover: The front and back cover photos were shot past artist Baton Proper name, who lived in Andy Warhol's debauched NYC studio The Mill at the time of the album's release. He'due south namechecked past Lou Reed in 'That'southward The Story Of My Life'.
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Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation
Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation: A department of the painting 'Kerze' by German creative person Gerhard Richter, who was known for his photorealistic works. The original was auctioned by Sotheby's in 2008 with a guide cost of £two.5m, but information technology sold for £seven.1m.
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Jeff Buckley – Grace
Jeff Buckley – Grace: Designer duo Nicky Lindeman and Christopher Austopchuk came up with the cover concept, and much of the focus is on the vocalist's skillful looks. Speaking to 'Interview Magazine' in 1994, Buckley rejected the affiche-male child tag: "The way you await doesn't hateful shit if you can't sing, or if you're hateful to people".
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Interpol – Turn On The Brilliant Lights
Interpol – Plow On The Bright Lights: Inspired by minimal colour palettes and the Bauhaus art move, artist Sean McCabe eventually ended up using a photograph taken inside a London cinema as the bold epitome on the front end of Interpol'due south debut. "They knew their sound and look had a presence to it, and they wanted [the artwork] to have a sense of awe and wonder," he says of the sleeve.
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The Killers – Hot Fuss
The Killers – Hot Fuss: Despite the band's well-documented Vegas roots, the buildings pictured on the forepart of their 2004 debut were actually located at a construction factory in Shanghai, People's republic of china. The Chinese characters on top of the buildings read 'construction material evolution'.
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Foo Fighters – Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters – Foo Fighters: The embrace photograph of an antique Buck Rogers XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol was taken by Grohl's then-wife Jennifer Youngblood. The epitome caused controversy considering of the way that Kurt Cobain had died, but was only intended to necktie in with the sci-fi theme of the band's name ('foo fighter' was a wwII term for a UFO).
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The Stones Roses – The Stone Roses
The Stones Roses – The Rock Roses: The cover art is a Jackson Pollock-influenced painting by Roses guitarist John Squire (as well a noted artist), which is said to make reference to the May 1968 riots in Paris. The lemons that are featured on the sleeve refer to the fruit that was used as an antitoxin to tear gas.
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Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever To Tell
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever To Tell: Cody Critcheloe, frontman of electro-punks 'Ssion', created the illustrations of Karen, Nick and Brian. Karen afterward said she was taken by his "wacked-out artistic sensibility", maxim of the artwork: "It is my belief that Cody is a cult legend in the making. I was helpless to its electric, raspberry charm".
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Air-conditioning/DC – Back In Blackness
AC/DC – Dorsum In Black: The embrace of the archetype 1980 LP was a simple blueprint of evidently, stark black in honour of onetime Air-conditioning/DC singer Bon Scott, who passed away the same year after drinking himself to death.
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Kraftwerk – The Man Machine
Kraftwerk – The Man Machine: A hit take on Lissitzky and Rodchenko, this Constructivist prototype feels oppressive, but not directly communist or fascist: as percussionist Karl Bartos has said, it had "a stiff paramilitary epitome, but information technology is a contradiction because nosotros wore ruddy shirts and non brown." To make the artwork even more perplexing, the title appears in 4 dissimilar languages.
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PJ Harvey – To Bring You My Love
PJ Harvey – To Bring You My Love: Her first 2 album covers had featured the wok of Polly's friend and long-term visual collaborator Maria Mochnacz. The 'To Bring My Love' shot was taken by fashion photographer Valerie Phillips on the set of the 'Downward Past The Water' video, directed by Mochnacz.
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The Strokes – Is This Information technology
The Strokes – Is This It: The shot, taken past photographer Colin Lane, is of Lane'south and so-girlfriend and was taken spontaneously after she emerged naked from the shower. "We did well-nigh ten shots. At that place was no existent inspiration, I was only trying to take a sexy flick," says Lane of the epitome.
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Portishead – Dummy
Portishead – Dummy: A nonetheless from the ten-minute short moving-picture show 'To Kill A Expressionless Man', a spy moving-picture show homage starring Barrow as a rooftop assassinator and Gibbons equally the distraught married woman of the man he's contracted to kill.
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Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot: Surfacing so presently later on 9/11, 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot'southward' embrace image of two towers picked out confronting a bare background had a particular resonance. They're actually the twin Marina Metropolis towers, on the north bank of the Chicago river, and the cover was finalised before the catastrophic events.
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Elvis Presley – Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley – Elvis Presley: For 47 years it was believed that this photo – taken on July 31 1955 in Tampa, Florida – had been taken by Popsie Randolph. It was Baronial 2002 when Elvis skilful Joseph A. Tunzi discovered the shot was actually taken by William V "Red" Robertson. The cover style has been echoed over the years by everyone from Tom Waits to Chumbawamba.
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Pixies – Doolittle
Pixies – Doolittle: 'Doolitle' was the showtime album where 4AD's in firm designer Vaughan Oliver had access to the lyrics beforehand. Thus the monkey references in the track 'Monkey Gone To Heaven', while the booklet also contains oblique references to the likes of 'I Bleed' and 'Gouge Away'. Oliver said in 2013 that it remains his favourite 4AD sleeve.
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Lou Reed – Rock Due north Roll Animal
Lou Reed – Rock N Roll Animate being: The cover shot is credited to little-known photographer DeWayne Dalrymple, who worked during the '60s and '70s with artists including Wilson Pickett and psych-folk band The Trout.
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Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand: In conversation for an exhibition of Domino Records' sleeve art in 2007, art manager Matt Cooper recalled: "For such a simple design, this went through a surprising number of permutations. At one stage the back encompass was the front. The angle of tilt on the logo – 13 degrees – volition be forever ingrained upon my memory!"
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David Bowie – Diamond Dogs
David Bowie – Diamond Dogs: Bowie appears as half-homo, half-domestic dog graphic symbol Halloween Jack, leader of the Diamond Dogs gang. Lensman Terry O'Neill took the pictures, which were and then given to Belgian artist Guy Peellaert to render as a painting. RCA execs worried nigh the domestic dog genitals on show, and censored the image. "I thought information technology was very sad," Peellaert said afterward.
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Slint – Spiderland
Slint – Spiderland: The cover shot, which depicts the band standing in an abandoned quarry, was taken by none other than Bonnie Prince Billy (aka Will Oldham). 'Spiderland', however, is the singer'due south only notable foray into sleeve design.
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The Kinks – The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
The Kinks – The Kinks Are The Hamlet Green Preservation Society: The cover shot for 'Village Greenish…' took identify at Kenwood Firm on Hampstead Heath. Melody Maker lensman Barrie Wentzell took the pictures. 'Village Green…' would be the last album to feature the original Kinks line-up, with bassist Pete Quaife leaving in 1969.
34
Morrissey – Your Arsenal
Morrissey – Your Armory: Both the front end and dorsum cover images are live shots taken at a 1991 gig at New York's Nassau coliseum. The photographer was visual creative person and punk vocalizer Linder Sterling, whom the singer has described as "steadfast and abiding in [his] life" since they met in 1976.
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Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Deja Vu
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Deja Vu: Ceremonious war buff Stephen Stills wanted the cover to look like a photo from that era (1860s). To achieve that, the ring rented lookalike outfits from a costume store and requested that photographer Tom O'Neal use an onetime-fashioned wooden box camera for the shoot, which took identify in David Crosby's rental house.
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The Cure – Disintegration
The Cure – Disintegration: Paul Thompson and Andy Vella had designed all of The Cure'south artwork until this indicate, just for 'Disintegration' Robert Smith was thinking of using someone new. In response, Thompson and Vella moved from their usual abstract designs into i that focused on Smith'due south face up, which some saw as a conscious ploy to curry favour.
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The Prodigy – Music For The Jilted Generation
The Prodigy – Music For The Jilted Generation: At that place are two pieces of art on this album – the screaming cover, by Stuart Haygarth, and the gatefold, by horror illustrator Les Edwards. Liam Howlett plant a plaster head at Camden Market and asked Haygarth to sculpt information technology as if it were breaking through skin. Many interpreted it to be a visual response to the criminalisation of raves in 1994.
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Pinkish Floyd – The Nighttime Side Of The Moon
Pink Floyd – The Dark Side Of The Moon: Floyd's label weren't happy almost the prism gatefold sleeve, insisting it was as well minimalist. '…Night Side' concluded up beingness their biggest-selling album even so. Art group Hipgnosis, the squad backside the pattern, have said the prism is meant to gloat the group'southward famous low-cal testify.
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Elton John – Goodbye Xanthous Brick Road
Elton John – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: Illustrator Ian Beck was chosen for the sleeve thanks to his work on singer-songwriter Jonathan Kelly'due south 'Wait Till They Change The Backdrop'. Elton's Rocket Record Company were so smitten they originally wanted to employ the same picture. Elton looks and so long-legged because Beck asked his taller friend Leslie McKinley Howell to pose for framing shots.
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Belle And Sebastian – If You lot're Feeling Sinister
Belle And Sebastian – If You lot're Feeling Sinister: Early in their career Belle And Sebastian would pass up to have their picture taken, so all their artwork was taken from archive photos and shots of friends, in homage to the classic Smiths sleeves.
41
The Nifty Pumpkins – Adore
The Neat Pumpkins – Adore: Corgan'due south then girlfriend, Ukrainian-born Yelena Yemchuk, who had been involved with the videos for the singles from 'Mellon Collie…', is credited with the art direction of 'Adore'. Compared to the whimsy of 'Mellon Collie…', the gothic darkness of the main epitome was a signpost to the bleakness within.
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The Ramones – Ramones
The Ramones – Ramones: The punk legends originally wanted a cover similar to 'Meet the Beatles!' for this cocky-titled album, but after a disastrous shoot which cartoonist John Holmstrom described as like "pulling teeth", opted for stark simplicity: the band lined up against a brick wall, expertly captured by photographer Roberta Bayley.
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Bloc Party – Silent Alarm
Bloc Party – Silent Alarm: The bare wintertime landscape was photographed by freelance Ness Sherry and expresses a desolate theme of isolation, loneliness and depression. A negative version of the same photo was used on the later release, 'Silent Alarm Remixed'.
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Kate Bush – Hounds of Dearest
Kate Bush – Hounds of Dear: The shot of Kate reclining seductively on the cover takes on a rather creepier tone when y'all observe it was taken by her own brother, John Carder Bush.
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The Kinks – Kinks
The Kinks – Kinks: The cover shot was taken by Klaus Schmalenbach, who went on to work with the band on several of their subsequent releases. He subsequently became a tape executive at BMG.
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Kaiser Chiefs – Employment
Kaiser Chiefs – Employment: Designed by veteran art director Cally – whose credits include records by Nick Drake, Scott Walker, Tricky and more – the sleeve was designed to resemble the battered box of a 1940's board game. A deluxe edition even came with a wad of Monopoly-way money
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The Replacements – Let It Exist
The Replacements – Let It Be: The forepart-cover photograph was taken by Dan Corrigan and features The Replacements sitting on the roof of the Stintsons' family abode. Left to right, it's Paul Westerberh, Bob Stintson, Chris Mars, Tommy Stintson. The pic is said to be a homage to the Beatles' final rooftop concert during the 1969 'Let It Be' sessions.
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Elastica – Elastica
Elastica – Elastica: Renowned German mode photographer Juergen Teller who was worked with artists including Sinead O'Connor, Bjork, Elton John, took the black-and-white snap for Elastica's debut – a cover that, with its sparse, sparing style, stood apart from the elaborate and conceptual sleeves favoured past Blur and Suede.
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The Cure – Boys Don't Cry
The Cure – Boys Don't Cry: The sleeve for 'Three Imaginary Boys' featured a refrigerator, a vacuum cleaner and a lamp – the latter apparently representing Smith. The aforementioned designer, Polydor art director Bill Smith, produced a similarly aesthetic sleeve for 'Boys Don't Cry', admitting ane that seems to interpret the track 'Fire in Cairo' quite literally.
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LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem
LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem: After years spent performing in punk bands, James Murphy's transition into an unlikely 35-yr-former dancefloor king was cemented with LCD Soundsystem's 2005 debut. What better paradigm to evidence this than a disco ball? Effortless, precise and perfectly executed, information technology was typical Murphy.
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Spiritualized – Ladies and Gentlemen
Spiritualized – Ladies and Gentlemen: "Music is medicine for the soul," said Jason Pierce, deciding on minimalist pill-themed artwork for his 3rd album sleeve: "1 tablet lxx min" information technology reads. Pierce actually cut several minutes from the album in order to round off the effigy and brand the typography look smashing. Designer Mark Farrow has since said he regrets the gimmicky packaging.
Source: https://www.nme.com/photos/50-iconic-indie-album-covers-the-fascinating-stories-behind-the-sleeves-1429676