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Here's a link we love: MentalFloss.com wrote up the stories behind 11 classic album covers. (Remember back when they really were albums?)
Some of these histories you've heard before. You may already know that the peelable sticker on the banana on the Andy Warhol-designed "The Velvet Underground & Nico" had to be painstakingly applied by hand. And you probably have seen at least one interview with Spencer Elden, who in 1991 was the swimming four-month-old baby shown on Nirvana's "Nevermind."
But the MentalFloss story digs up some fascinating facts I didn't know about other classic covers.
Members of The Who didn't really, um, self-water that concrete piling on the cover of 1971's "Who's Next," but not for lack of trying. The site quotes photographer Ethan Russell as saying "Most of the members were unable to go, so rainwater was tipped from an empty film canister to achieve the desired effect."
The prism on Pink Floyd's 1973 "Dark Side of the Moon"? Came from a school textbook.
The Joshua Tree on the cover of U2's 1986 album of the same name? Died in 2000, but fans have marked its California desert location with a shrine.
Other album covers explained in the fun list include The Clash's "London Calling," the Beastie Boys' Licensed to Ill," and Beck's "Odelay."
What's your favorite album cover? Tell us in the comments.
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Carlos Santana's eponymous 1969 release, Cat Stevens' 1970 release "Tea for the Tillerman" (looked like an illustration for a children's book I would have enjoyed), Led Zeppelin's 1970 "III" release - so trippy, Heart's 1977 "Little Queen," the Eurythmics' 1983 release "Touch" - Oh, Annie... Too many to list 'em all!
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, trying to figure out who all those people were without looking at the guide, when I really wasn't "worldly" enough yet to know who most of them were!! LOL!!! And back then we didn't have the internet to "google" them either!!
Abbey Road, Tales from Topographic Oceans, Court Of The Crimson King, Sticky Fingers, Screaming for Vengance, Abraxas.
ALL of Iron Maiden's albums!!
The original Blind Faith album with the young girl. Lucky enough to buy it before the U.S. prudes got up in arms. The Brits aren't terrified by a little nudity.
Absolutely the best.
Battles - Gloss Drop
Queen's "News of the World". Cover was done by the great science fiction artist Frank Kelly Freas.
Rush's "Moving Pictures"...So little in that cover, but so much going on. Would also agree on the Iron Maiden work. I would also throw in Marillion's early albums with Fish, specifically "Script For a Jester's Tear", or "Fugazi". Honorable mention to Spinal Tap..."How much more black can it be?...None...None more black"....
Chuckling in appreciation of your mentioning those Marillion albums. I'm hoping that a few guys ('cos face it, only guys listened to Marillion) picked up on the hint and had their first listen to Peter Hammill.
What's an album?
Cheap Thrills - the best of the best.
Stand Up by Jethro Tull was fun, as was Thick as a Brick. Volunteers, by Jefferson Airplane.
"Black" by Spinal Tap. It was black, black, black!
Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat" was fun to look at. I'm wearing a CSNY "Deja Vu" concert T-shirt as I write this, it looks just like the old album cover. I liked Joni Mitchell's "Miles of Aisles", because she painted Pine Knob Music Theater just the way it looked in the 1970s. I liked her version of CSNY's greatest hits album "So Far", too.
the first Blue Cheer lp, Magical Mystery Tour and Hawkwinds Space Ritual and Santana's Abraxas