Album Art-The Stories Behind Music's Iconic Album Covers
Album Art-The Stories Behind Music's Iconic Album Covers-takes a deep dive into the history of iconic album cover art. Images and additional information on Rolling Stones albums may be found at https://iorr.org/albums/. Find album art images at discogs.com by searching the album title. Look for a new episode each Friday.
Episodes
192 episodes
Trout Mask Replica--Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band | The Story Behind the Making of the Cover Art
What do you get when an album called Trout Mask Replica needs a cover and the art director goes to a fish market and buys a carp? You hollow out the head, convince Captain Beefheart to hold the stinking thing over his face for a couple of hours...
The Disintegration Loops--William Basinski | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
William Basinski was trying to save some old tapes. Instead, he recorded them dying. Weeks later, he watched the World Trade Center disappear from the Brooklyn skyline and filmed the last hour of daylight over Manhattan. Somehow, the dyin...
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Harvest--Neil Young | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
Neil Young sitting on a hay bale at Broken Arrow Ranch, wearing a hat and playing an old Martin guitar. It sounds like the perfect cover for Harvest—and it almost was. Then Neil Young and his longtime art director Gary Burden had a fal...
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Street Survivors--Lynyrd Skynyrd | The Story Behind The Album Cover Art
What are the odds? Ronnie Van Zant said he wouldn't live to see thirty. Steve Gaines got spooked and walked away from the album cover photo shoot after only a handful of pictures. The album was called Street Survivors. The band s...
Honey--Ohio Players | The Story Behind The Album Cover Art
Did a Playboy Playmate get murdered during the recording of an Ohio Players album? Millions of people believed she did—and swore they could hear her dying scream buried in "Love Rollercoaster." The truth is almost as fascinating as the rumor. W...
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars--David Bowie | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
David Bowie didn't just invent Ziggy Stardust—he invented an entire rock-and-roll mythology. But did you know Ziggy got his first name from a tailor's shop Bowie passed on the train? Or that the "Spiders from Mars" were inspired by real balloon...
The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys--Traffic | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
They cut two corners off a perfectly good album cover—and accidentally created one of the most ingenious packages in rock history. A failed movie in Morocco, a mysterious phrase scribbled in a notebook, psychedelic architecture, optical i...
Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More--Various Artists | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
One college freshman passed on an $18 Woodstock ticket because he thought he'd be watching people make belts and apple butter. Another couple decided to go at the last minute, wrapped themselves in a discarded blanket, and accidentally became t...
In Search of the Lost Chord--The Moody Blues | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
Was In Search of the Lost Chord really inspired by meditation and Eastern philosophy—or by acid trips with Timothy Leary? And how did a struggling artist, running out of time and ideas, suddenly discover the album cover by seeing...
You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love--Olivia Rodrigo | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
What do an 18th-century French aristocrat, a scandalous painting of a woman on a swing, and Olivia Rodrigo have in common? More than you might imagine. One of the most famous paintings in Western art hides a story of lust, deception, and secret...
Tommy--The Who | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
I listened to Tommy for more than fifty years before I finally figured out what the heck it was about. How does a floating globe, a shattered mirror, and an Indian spiritual master come together to create one of the most famous album covers in ...
Once Upon a Time in Shaolin--Wu Tang Clan | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
What if the world's most famous album cover wasn't actually an album cover? Wu-Tang Clan's Once Upon a Time in Shaolin exists as a single copy locked inside an ornate silver case. It sold for millions, ended up in the hands of Martin Shkr...
Foreign Tongues--The Rolling Stones | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
What do you get when Mick Jagger walks into a New York art gallery, a Chicago artist paints three Rolling Stones into one face, and a band that has spent sixty years speaking the language of rock suddenly starts calling itself The Cockroaches a...
Unfinished Music Part 1: Two Virgins--John Lennon and Yoko Ono | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
John Lennon made a lot of records. But only one got seized by authorities, hidden inside plain brown paper bags, and featured him and Yoko Ono standing completely naked on the cover.Was it a publicity stunt? A love letter? A piece of ava...
Siren--Roxy Music | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
She was a Texas teenager discovered sunbathing on the French Riviera. Within a few years she was sharing an apartment with Grace Jones, dating Bryan Ferry, inspiring "Miss You," and on her way to becoming Mrs. Mick Jagger—well, almost. But befo...
War-U2 | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
U2 called their third album War because, as Bono said, “war seemed to be the motif for 1982.” But the cover contains no tanks, no bombs, no soldiers. Instead, it shows the face of a child. Peter Rowen had already appeared on U2's...
Vanilla Fudge--Vanilla Fudge | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
Released one day after Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band at the absolute peak of the Summer of Love, Vanilla Fudge may have delivered the ultimate psychedelic album cover. A mysterious solarized golden woman dissolving into light… a b...
Back in Black--AC/DC | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
A black square almost became the most commercially dangerous album cover in rock history. AC/DC wanted no photos, no tribute portrait, no explanation—just black. Atlantic Records thought the band had lost its mind. Somewhere inside that a...
Island Life--Grace Jones | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
She wasn’t just posing—she was being constructed. The cover of Island Life didn’t capture Grace Jones in a moment. It built her into one. Using scissors, paint, and a surreal vision, Jean-Paul Goude created an image that is anato...
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Blood Sugar Sex Magik--Red Hot Chili Peppers | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
What happens when a band loses its center… and has to figure out how to keep going without it? The Red Hot Chili Peppers were coming apart in 1988 after the death of Hillel Slovak—their guitarist, their identity, their anchor. Three years later...
Locust Abortion Technician--Butthole Surfers | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
What happens when nothing changes…but everything changes? This week we take a look at the cover of Locust Abortion Technician by the Butthole Surfers.At first glance, it’s harmless— two clowns… a small dog… a quiet, almost cheer...
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Love You Live--The Rolling Stones | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
Andy Warhol thought he’d created a piece of pure art for the Rolling Stones—no title, no band name, just Mick Jagger and a striking image. Then someone picked up a marker… and changed everything.What followed was frustration, finger-poin...
News of the World--Queen | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
A silver robot, a dead man in its hand—and somehow, 24 years later, it’s holding Queen.Before News of the World terrified a generation of record store browsers (and one future Family Guy creator), it lived quietly on th...
We Are the Chantels--The Chantels | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art
They were Black teenage girls in the 1950s, creating a sound that would shape popular music—and doing it in an industry that wasn’t built for them to succeed on their own terms.We Are the Chantels isn’t just an album—it’s a stor...
