Besides being bona fide artwork, an album cover also has several important missions to achieve. First, it has to capture the audience's attention and stick out of the crowd. For that, the illustration or the photo has to be either thoroughly original or a cleverly regurgitated familiar image; it also doesn't hurt if it's on the controversial side of things. Another 'must' for an album cover design is representing the essence of the music and the soul of the band itself. A pretty big ask for such a small, single image! Aching to see which of the album artworks succeeded in these tasks and took the title of being the greatest ever? We do too! And for that, we've compiled a thorough list of the greatest album covers ever!
Of course, we do not doubt that you've already seen at least the top 30 of them, but did you know the stories of these artworks' conceptions? Neither did we, so we took the time to dig a bit and wrote the stories under the top 30 submissions for your consideration and amusement. Some of the album covers were, in fact, happy accidents, while others caused serious accidents being made (we're talking about you, Pink Floyd). So all you have to do now is scroll down below, check out the greatest album covers of all time, and vote for the ones you fancied the most. Just play fair and don't base your votes on your music preference this time, but rather the artwork! Also, don't forget to share this list of iconic album covers with your friends, as they too might like to learn the stories behind them.
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#1 Pink Floyd - The Dark Side Of The Moon (1973)
For their eighth studio album, Pink Floyd continued working with Hipgnosis (an English art design group) and George Hardie, who have previously designed covers for several bands’ albums. The cover design for The Dark Side Of The Moon was inspired by a photo of a prism with a light beam projected through it; it was found by one of the Hipgnosis group members in a photography book. The design stands for three elements: the band’s stage lighting, the album lyrics, and Wright’s wish for ‘a simple, bold, and classy’ design. It was also the first time that Pink Floyd felt confident enough of Waters’ lyrics to print them on the album’s sleeve.
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68points
#2 Queen - Queen II (1974)
As the Roman numeration indicates, Queen II is the second album by Queen. Mick Rock, a well-known rock photographer of the time, was engaged by the band to create a cover for this particular album. According to him, the band hoped to get a cover that would grab people’s attention since their first release failed to do so miserably. It’s fun to know that this iconic photo was inspired by a similar one of Marlene Dietrich, taken in 1932. While Mick Rock argued that the photo might be pretentious, all Mercury cared about was that it was absolutely fabulous.
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62points
#3 The Beatles - Abbey Road (1969)
Abbey Road is the eleventh album by The Beatles with a cover that’s probably the most widely imitated throughout the music industry. Here, you can see the band strolling across a street near Abbey Road’s record studio. The legendary photo was based on MacCartney’s ideas and sketches and taken by Iain Macmillan. He had only ten minutes to take six photos while a police officer held the traffic behind him. A fun fact is that the car visible in the photo (a white VW Beetle) got its license plate stolen right after the release of the Abbey Road album - some souvenir.
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60points
#4 Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (1975)
Wish You Were Here is the ninth album by Pink Floyd with a cover design by Storm Thorgerson. The album’s cover design plays on the themes of absence and unfulfilled presence and the idea of fearing showing your true feelings so as not to ‘get burned.’ Hence, one of the businessmen in the photo is literally on fire. The photo of two people sharing a handshake - an often empty gesture - was hidden behind opaque shrink-wrap and only visible upon tearing it off. The band loved the end design of the cover so much that they even burst into a spontaneous round of applause upon inspecting it.
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60points
#5 The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth album by The Beatles with a cover design by two pop artists, Peter Blake and Jann Haworth. Once again, it was based on MacCartney’s sketches, and the famous crowd behind The Beatles were all cardboard cut-outs. Except for the figures of the band themselves from the Beetlemania era - those were wax sculptures borrowed from Madame Tussaud’s museum. A couple of The Beatles - Lennon and Harrison - had requested Hitler, Jesus Christ, and Mahatma Gandhi to be put in right beside them, but, fearing controversy, EMI declined their wishes. Only Ringo had no wishes for the cut-outs, stating that ‘it’s all fine by me.’
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58points
#6 LED Zeppelin - LED Zeppelin (1969)
This was the debut album of LED Zeppelin, released in 1969 with a picture of burning Hindenburg chosen by Page on its cover. The entirety of the supervision of the design was handed over to George Hardie, whose name you’ve already seen and will see a couple of more times on this list - an album cover magician. The original photo of the burning Hindenburg was taken by Sam Shere in 1937 and was altered to fit the band’s vision.
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57points
#7 Pink Floyd - Animals (1977)
Animals is the tenth studio album by Pink Floyd with a cover, unusually, designed by Waters (although they also employed Hipgnosis to come up with some ideas). The shooting of the picture has quite a funny story to it - on the second day of the shooting, the helium-filled pig balloon broke free of its moorings (there was no marksman to shoot it down on that day) and disappeared out of view. The wind carried away this pig to the area of Heathrow airport, causing panic and delayed flights. After a while, the helium pig landed in Kent and was recovered by a farmer, who was furious about the massive swine scaring his cows. Finally, the balloon was superimposed on the photos of the Battersea Power Plant.
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55points
#8 Fleetwood Mac - Rumours (1977)
Rumours is the eleventh studio album by Fleetwood Mac released in 1977, often considered the band’s magnum opus. In the cover photo, you can see Stevie Nicks dressed as her ‘Rhiannon’ stage persona, posing with Mick Fleetwood. Herbert Worthington took the bizarre photo and, although there’s no particular explanation to what is going on in there, it was made to look mysterious on purpose. And to the question about those danglies between Fleetwood’s legs… Well, there’s no answer.
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52points
#9 The Beatles - Revolver (1966)
Revolver is the seventh album by The Beatles with a cover drawn by German-born bassist and artist Klaus Voormann. Voormann’s artwork was partly-drawn and partly made as a collage, using photos taken by Robert Freeman in 1964-65. The inspiration for this artwork was taken from the works of nineteenth-century illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, whose works were highly influential on fashion and designs of the 1960s. Each of the Beatles’ members is depicted seemingly in another state of consciousness, with images tumbling and pouring out of their heads.
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51points
#10 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures (1979)
Unknown Pleasure is the debut album by the English band Joy Division, released in 1979. The iconic album cover used now for T-shirts, mugs, notebooks, and everything else you could think of isn’t composed of random lines. Those lines, in fact, are radio wave patterns from the pulsar (a rotating neutron star) called CP 1919, and this particular image was found in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy.
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50points
#11 LED Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti (1975)
Physical Graffiti is the sixth album by Led Zepellin. It was released as a double album in 1975. The album’s cover was designed by Peter Corriston, who used a photo of two New York City tenement block buildings. The interesting part is that the sleeve was a die-cut, and by moving it, you could either see Physical Graffiti spelled out in the windows or pictures of various famous people as well as the band. This was a truly innovative design for the time and even got nominated at the Grammys for the best album package in 1976.
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46points
#12 The Who - Who's Next (1971)
Who’s Next is the fifth studio album by The Who, which was released in 1971. On the cover, you can see the band members seemingly having just urinated on a massive concrete piling protruding from a slag heap. The photo was taken by Ethan Russell in a town called Easington Colliery and was somewhat inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s movie 2001: Space Odyssey.
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43points
#13 David Bowie - The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (1972)
The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (often shortened to Ziggy Stardust for convenience) is the fifth album by David Bowie, released in 1972. The photo used for the album cover was taken by Brian Ward in monochrome and recolored by illustrator Terry Pastor. He also retouched the typography that was initially pressed on the photo using Letraset. The whole vibe of the retinted photo is trying to tell the audience that Bowie is, in fact, a visitor from another world and dimension. The glowing sign seen in the photo was that of a furrier company called K.West, who, upon discovering that their sign was used for a pop music album cover, took it down, wishing for no association with this kind of culture.
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43points
#14 Cream - Disraeli Gears (1967)
Disraeli Gears is the second studio album by the British band Cream, released in 1967. The album cover was designed by an Australian artist Martin Sharp, and this is his vision of the band’s music - warm, electric, and fluorescent. The photos used for this psychedelic collage were taken by Bob Whitaker, who’s very well known for his work with The Beatles, sort of a star photographer. Besides trying to capture the essence of Cream’s sound, the artwork was also inspired by Cambodian statues of deities, with ancient trees growing right on them. The association shows like this - band members’ faces with the music swirling right from their heads.
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43points
#15 Yes - Relayer (1974)
Relayer is the seventh album by an English prog-rock band called Yes, which was released in 1974. The album’s artwork was designed and illustrated by Roger Dean, who has worked with the band since 1971, starting with designing their logo. For the Relayer album, Roger chose to depict a gothic cave, merging into an impenetrable fortress, an ultimate castle. The warriors on horseback, also depicted on the cover, refer to the lyrics of The Gates Of Delirium - a heavily war-themed song. By 2020, the original painting by Roger Dean went on sale for 6 million dollars.
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42points
#16 Blondie - Parallel Lines (1978)
Parallel Lines is the third album by the rock band Blondie, released in 1978. The album took its name from an unreleased track written by Debbie Harry; only the lyrics were included in the first vinyl edition of the album. The iconic photo was taken by Edo Bertoglio and was chosen by the band’s manager, despite the members feeling strongly against it. The simplicity and the sternness that the image is showing make the artwork instantly recognizable and iconic.
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41points
#17 King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King (1969)
In The Court Of The Crimson King is the debut album by the prog-rock band Crimson King, released in 1969. The painting used as this album’s cover was done by a computer programmer Barry Godber, and it is Barry’s own face. Sadly, Godber died shortly after the release of In The Court Of The Crimson King, making it his only album cover design. Now, one of the band members owns the original painting, describing it as reflecting their music to its bare bones.
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40points
#18 David Bowie - Aladdin Sane (1973)
Aladdin Sane is the sixth studio album by David Bowie, released in 1973. The title of this album is a pun on ‘A Lad Insane,’ which was initially expected to be the main title. Brian Duffy shot the absolutely iconic image gracing the cover of this album in his north London studio. It is known that the lightning bolt crossing Bowie’s face was copied by Duffy and makeup artist Pierre Laroche from a National Panasonic rice-cooker in the studio. The makeup was completed by a vile purple wash, evoking the image of a death mask. Upon its release, the image quickly became the center of talks - some deemed it offensive, while others found it daring and revolutionary.
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36points
#19 AC/DC - Back In Black (1980)
Back In Black is the seventh album by Australian band AC/DC, which was released in 1980. According to Angus Young, the cover was a sign of mourning for their lost band member, lead singer Bon Scott, replaced by Brian Johnson on this album. And though Atlantic Records disagreed with the cover, they accepted it with the condition that the AC/DC logo would be outlined in grey.
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36points
#20 Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass - Whipped Cream & Other Delights (1965)
Whipped Cream & Other Delights is the fourth album by Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass, released in 1965. Besides having enjoyed great success with sales, this album also became an icon of classic pop culture because of its cover, of course. It depicts model Dolores Erickson (who was three months pregnant at the time) wearing chiffon and doused in shaving cream. The cover became so widely popular that several bands have since parodied the photo for their own albums, even playing with the title. For instance, Soul Asylum’s album named Clam Dip & Other Delights.
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36points