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Best Album Covers

rushchairman

rushchairman

In this age of dwindling record sales, where kids hardly recognize CDs, let alone vinyl, I think it would be appropriate to commemorate the dinosaur
that is...album art. Nominate those that you think are most noteworthy and why. Musical exceptionalism should be of no consideration here.

I'll start. Not only is this one dazzling piece of album art - it's probably the single greatest album title of all times. SPORTS.
A perfectly rendered scene from a 1980-something sports bar. Huey in the foreground, tie loosened, jacket flung over the shoulder - Let the good times
roll. Band mates gathered round the bar in various attires, variations on the theme of casual fun. Some non-descript football on the tube. Nineball set up on the table, ready for action. I could go on and on. and on. The cover speaks for itself. Better yet, it sings.

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xillion

xillion

Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures

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What you’re looking at is a graphic representation of the first pulsar discovered in the cosmos. Pulsars, described at length here, are rotating neutron stars which emit electromagnetic radiation. As far as analogies
go, this one is spot on. Throughout the record, Joy Division has a drive to represent their vision, which is far from cheery. Famously daring and eccentric producer Martin Hannett seemed to sense the angle of the record,
and filled the record with, as you’ll hear in a moment, foreign sounds and plenty of space. Peter Saville, the genius behind Factory Records‘ graphic design team, decided to embody the record’s themes of space and
emptiness boldly with the pulsar graph and not much else. Decidedly text-less, the album’s cover leaves listeners wading in a tumultuous wasteland of vague echoes and vast emptiness.
Click to expand...

Above excerpt from here.
 
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whavens

whavens

It would have to be this.
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Just noticed this is the edited version for Compact Disc, not a whole lot of difference though.
 
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maxman

maxman

I remember when Jane's Addiction released "Ritual de lo Habitual" and decided to make a clean cover because some stores wouldn't carry the artwork of the original. I thought putting the 1st Amendment on it was clever.
 

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dpm802

dpm802

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Herb Alpert's "Whipped Cream" album ...
here it is being held by Dolores Erickson, the girl on the cover, as she appears now at age 76.
 
I

i.am.zed

A couple more occurred to me.

The Beatle's Rubber Soul...the Fab Four start to go trippy and it shows in this cover
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Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy...just a cool picture
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Nirvana's Nevermind...love 'em or hate 'em, the album is secure in it's place in music history. Anybody with the slightest bit of familiarity of music from the early nineties will know exactly the album this comes from.
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I could go on and on with this stuff.
 
Snappy Lunch

Snappy Lunch

LZ III was the best of the LZ covers.
I am lucky enough to have a butcher cover. It was in my great uncles estate.
 

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Vickers

Vickers

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I bought this album sometime in 1985 or so at a record shop in Wiesbaden, Germany (Knie's Schallplatten) based solely on the cover. Some of the guys in this band later went on to form the Screaming Blue Messiah's, one of the most awesome bands ever.

The name "Motor Boys Motor" is from a song by the 101er's, which was Joe Strummer's pre-Clash band.
 
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