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)
Cool Struttin’Sonny Clark
With an album title like “Cool Struttin’” and this ultra-stylish artwork! It’s nothing short of the ultimate in cool, packed with the essence of ’50s jazz—a monumental classic released in 1958 that became more popular in Japan than in its home country.
Created by the giant jazz pianist Sonny Clark, who passed away at the young age of 31, this solo album needs no introduction as a timeless masterpiece and a classic of hard bop to funky jazz.
The artwork, which seems to declare that a stylish-sounding album deserves a stylish cover, features the legs of a woman walking through the city in a slitted tight skirt and high heels—said to be “the most famous legs in the world.” Jazz albums released by the prestigious Blue Note label often have chic covers, but this one is so captivating that even those not into jazz might want to buy it for the jacket alone.
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.
Albums with famous cover artwork (11–20)
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.
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.
Rage Against the MachineRage Against The Machine
Let’s assert that in the history of rock albums, there are very few jacket images as shocking as this one.
This is the self-titled debut album that Rage Against the Machine—who stormed onto the scene under a name so intense it practically seethes with “rage against the machine”—released in 1992.
With Zack de la Rocha’s charismatic, politically charged rap-shouting and fierce agitation; Tom Morello—whose background includes working as a politician’s aide—bringing intelligence and wildly inventive guitar playing that profoundly influenced later artists; and the ironclad rhythm section of Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk, who generate burly grooves with total command of dynamics, this quartet forged a mixture/alternative rock sound so consummate it stunned countless listeners.
Despite its extreme content, it became an explosive worldwide hit and a towering masterpiece.
The album jacket, whose impact fully matches the music within, features the famous photograph taken by American journalist Malcolm Browne of Vietnamese monk Thích Quảng Đức’s 1963 self-immolation in front of the U.S.
Embassy—a protest against repression by the regime.
From that alone, one can grasp what kind of ideology Rage Against the Machine hold and the stance they take in their activities as a band.
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.