An album with famous cover art
When you hear “albums famous for their cover art,” which jackets come to mind?
There are all sorts: the photo of a baby swimming underwater, the banana illustration, the shot of the band walking across a crosswalk, and more.
In this article, we’ll introduce a roundup of classic albums with jackets you’ve probably seen somewhere.
You might even find works where you haven’t heard the songs but the cover design looks familiar.
Let’s dive right in!
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Albums with famous cover art (1–10)
London CallingThe Clash
If you’re a bassist who loves rock or punk, this jacket is so insanely cool it’ll sweep you off your feet! It’s London Calling, the masterpiece by The Clash—icons of ’70s London punk who later wove reggae, ska, R&B, and more into their sound, and who remain one of Britain’s most beloved rock bands.
Released in 1979 as the band’s third album, it marked a major evolution from their early, straight-ahead punk rock and earned worldwide acclaim.
That famous cover captures bassist Paul Simonon just a split second before he smashes his bass on stage during a performance of the classic “White Riot,” a raw, powerful image that perfectly fits a punk band.
The shot was serendipitously captured on film by Pennie Smith, The Clash’s official photographer at the time.
The distinctive album title logo is an homage to Elvis Presley’s debut album.
The fusion of reverence for old-school rock ’n’ roll with a chance onstage mishap created a truly historic cover—hard not to get sentimental about it.
As an aside, Paul himself reportedly immediately regretted smashing his bass, which he’d done out of frustration over a rough performance.
The Velvet Underground & NicoThe Velvet Underground
Even if you don’t know the band, chances are you’ve seen that banana cover at least once.
The Velvet Underground, a legendary rock band born out of 1960s New York, included artists who would become vital figures in rock history—such as Lou Reed and John Cale—who later found success as solo artists.
Although the band never achieved major commercial success, the overwhelming avant-garde edge and artistic quality of their music influenced not only the music world but virtually every facet of pop culture.
Among the group’s many legacies, the most famous is surely the banana cover of their 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, mentioned at the start.
Designed by Andy Warhol, an iconic figure of American Pop Art, it became one of the most famous album covers in the world and inspired countless parodies.
As the “peel slowly and see” text on the sleeve suggests, the original vinyl featured a gimmick where you could peel off a banana sticker.
Several reissues—such as later paper-sleeve CDs—have recreated this feature, so be sure to check them out.
The NightflyDonald Fagen
A dapper man in front of a record player, cigarette in hand, saying something into a microphone… A superb masterpiece where the image created by the album jacket perfectly links with the content of the work! Donald Fagen, founder of Steely Dan—a band that achieved great success with a style fusing various genres—released his solo debut album The Nightfly in 1982.
It’s often cited as one of the earliest popular music works from the dawn of the digital recording era, and thanks to its outstanding sound quality, it’s frequently used by professionals to check audio equipment.
Its sound—an exquisitely refined band ensemble fused at a high level with urbane songwriting—has been heard in many settings, from drives to cafés, both then and now.
The man on the album cover befitting such a classic is actually Fagen himself.
It’s said to be his vision of a “late-night DJ,” and the fit between image and concept is so perfect it takes your breath away.
Unsurprisingly, it has inspired many homages and parodies; in recent years, Keisuke Kuwata of Southern All Stars even used a parody photo of this album jacket for a magazine cover.
Albums with famous cover artwork (11–20)
NevermindNirvana
Arguably one of the most famous rock album covers in the world.
Nirvana, the band that drove the grunge boom of the ’90s, released their major-label debut and second album overall, Nevermind, in 1991—an extraordinary work that rewrote the music scene and became a historic hit.
Laying bare the stifled truths of the generation dubbed Generation X, the album lines up a string of gemlike classics born from Kurt Cobain’s genius for songwriting, the trio’s finely tuned ensemble interplay, and the masterful production by famed producer Butch Vig and mixer Andy Wallace.
More than 30 years after its release, its luster remains undimmed.
The cover artwork—featuring “a naked baby swimming underwater toward a one-dollar bill”—has become legend and was parodied across many fields.
That said, the person who was that baby has had mixed feelings about the cover; in 2021, he filed a lawsuit against Nirvana.
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex PistolsSEX PISTOLS
The Sex Pistols, the most famous punk band the world over to come out of 1970s London, released their first and only studio album in 1977: “Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.” Its provocative content sparked both praise and backlash—high-end department stores in the UK refused to sell it, and media outlets declined to promote it—but it nevertheless shot to No.
1 on the UK charts.
In Japan, it’s also known by the straightforward localized title “Katte ni Shiyagare!!” It’s only natural that a great album comes with a jacket design for the ages, and sure enough, this cover has exerted influence far beyond punk culture, inspiring homages across many fields.
The designer was Jamie Reid, a British artist who handled much of the Pistols’ artwork.
His approach—turning the menacing idea of a ransom-note style into something simple and unabashedly pop—is incredibly cool.
The first U.S.
pressing of the LP features a different color scheme, making it a must-check for collectors.
In any case, it’s an essential work for understanding ’70s British pop culture, and the rest of the Pistols’ artwork is similarly extreme and outstanding—well worth digging into.
Aladdin SaneDavid Bowie
An incomparable artist whose musicality and persona both shifted fluidly as he blazed through a turbulent era—leaving a profound impact not only on the music scene but on culture at large—David Bowie.
Though he sadly passed away in 2016, he continued creating as an active artist throughout his illness, and it’s still fresh in our minds that his final album, Blackstar, was released just two days before his death.
Bowie had deep knowledge and appreciation of the arts in general, and his album covers are so renowned that it’s hard to single out just one.
This time, let’s look at the cover of the 1973 masterpiece Aladdin Sane.
Following the massive success of the previous year’s concept-album triumph, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Bowie released this as his next move, and it brought him major success—reaching No.
1 on the UK charts and becoming his first Top 20 entry in the US.
The impact of the cover—Bowie wearing Pierre La Roche’s now-iconic red-and-blue lightning bolt makeup—was enormous, and it’s no surprise that it spawned countless parodies and homage pieces.
The photo was shot by photographer Brian Duffy during the album’s photo session.
Weasels Ripped My FleshFrank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention
Frank Zappa is one of the greatest geniuses in rock history—an incomparable artist often labeled an eccentric or oddball.
With a freewheeling approach and a fiercely independent mindset that relentlessly clashed with authority and censorship, he continued to produce an enormous body of work throughout his 52 years, all backed by his extraordinary musical talent.
Many of Zappa’s famous quotes have such impact that, in the age of social media, they’ve spread in ways probably quite different from what he intended.
From 1964 to 1975, Zappa worked under the band name The Mothers of Invention, and the album introduced here, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, was released under that name in 1970.
Japanese titles for Zappa’s works are often striking—perhaps in keeping with his persona—and this one is known in Japan as “Itachi Yarō” (“Weasel Bastard”).
The album’s powerful original cover art—literally depicting “a weasel ripping a man’s cheek”—was created by American illustrator Neon Park.
It was this design for Weasels Ripped My Flesh that first made Park’s name widely known; he would later become famous for doing nearly all of Little Feat’s covers.
The story behind why and how Zappa asked Park to design this jacket is quite a punchy one—definitely look it up if you can!