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
146 episodes
The Original Monster Mash--Bobby "Boris" Picket and the Crypt Kickers
It took two hours, a $300 studio bill, and a Boris Karloff impression to make a Halloween song that just won’t die. From Hollywood wannabes to a bubbling beaker of sound effects, The Original Monster Mash rose from the lab in 196...
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Season 3
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Episode 144
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42:27
Forever Changes--Love
A psychedelic heart shaped like Africa, stitched together from five fractured faces, became the symbol of a 60s album that may have inadvertently launched the Doors. Forever Changes was Love at their breaking point—poetry tangled with ...
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Season 3
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Episode 143
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41:29
Crack the Skye--Mastodon
What do a Russian mystic, astral travel, and a teenage tragedy have in common? Mastodon’s Crack the Skye. Behind the energy-enfused face of Rasputin on the cover is a story of grief, transcendence, and cosmic odyssey — a record that cr...
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Season 3
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Episode 142
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47:00
Brothers in Arms--Dire Straits
Raise your hand if you know the first album to sell a million CDs and outsell its vinyl twin. Okay, hands down—it was Brothers in Arms. But the cover? That dreamy blue sky with a floating steel guitar wasn’t planned at all. A jazz phot...
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Season 3
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Episode 141
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36:57
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Frankenchrist--Dead Kennedys
Who could be offended by a bunch of old white guys driving miniature cars in a 4th of July parade on an album cover? Nobody, right? So, how did this album end up with criminal charges for its art and a $45 million lawsuit by some of the guys on...
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Season 3
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Episode 140
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49:41
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan--Bob Dylan
Two kids in love, freezing their butts off in Greenwich Village, accidentally make one of the most famous album covers of all time. Bob’s grinning, Suze is clinging, and Columbia Records is loving every snow-slushed step of it. One roll o...
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Season 3
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Episode 139
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33:03
Metamorphosis & Made in the Shade-The Rolling Stones
What do you get when two Rolling Stones compilation albums go head-to-head—both released within days of each other, both claiming the band’s legacy, and neither fully endorsed by the band itself? Metamorphosis may be the weirdest Rolli...
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Season 3
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Episode 138
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40:39
Straight Outta Compton--N.W.A.
A busted alley. A borrowed gun. A camera pointed skyward at six young men who were about to scare the hell out of America. No budget, no entourage, no Hipgnosis, no Photoshop—just a raw shoot that captured the exact moment gangsta rap was born....
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Season 3
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Episode 137
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29:54
The Best of the Lovin' Spoonful--Lovin' Spoonful
Three rock stars walk into a Baltimore pharmacy looking for a soda fountain goddess. No, it's not a setup for a joke—it’s how The Best of the Lovin’ Spoonful got burned into my teenage brain. The cover’s all charm, the band’s all...
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Season 3
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Episode 136
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32:11
Killers--Iron Maiden
Meet Eddie: punk-born, axe-wielding, and metal to the bone. On Iron Maiden’s Killers, the band’s infamous mascot came into his own—bloody, maniacal, and unforgettable. But Eddie didn’t start on a cover—he started as a joke… and a mask…...
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Season 3
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Episode 135
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41:47
Aoxomoxoa--Grateful Dead
A poster too psychedelic for Hawaii, a cover that might say "We Ate the Acid," and a bunny with a secret. Aoxomoxoa is the Grateful Dead at their weirdest—and possibly their most biologically symbolic. Rick Griffin’s trippy vision gave...
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Season 3
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Episode 134
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33:16
True Blue--Madonna
In 1986, Madonna wasn’t just making music—she was making statements, shaping image, and turning pop into high art. True Blue was the soundtrack of a passionate, tumultuous marriage, a romantic tribute wrapped in platinum pop, and...
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Season 3
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Episode 133
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36:27
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Playing Possum--Carly Simon
Carly Simon did not come to play, she came to play possum. In a moment that was part Shaft soundtrack, part Vogue cover shoot, and entirely unplanned (depending on which version of the story you believe), Simon took a stolen teddy, a g...
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Season 3
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Episode 132
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36:36
Rum, Sodomy and the Lash--Pogues
It’s one thing to borrow a painting for your album cover. It’s another to borrow one that includes severed limbs, drowned sailors, and maybe the best metaphor for life in a punk-folk band. For Rum, Sodomy & the Lash, The Pogues wen...
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Season 3
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Episode 131
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34:53
No Code--Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam didn’t just dodge the sophomore slump—they blew up the blueprint. But by No Code, they weren’t chasing hits—they were chasing meaning. The cover? A cryptic collage of Polaroids: teeth, fire, x-rays, Dennis Rodman’s eye, a sti...
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Season 3
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Episode 130
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34:10
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway--Genesis
This was a cover we wanted to like, but let’s just say it didn’t exactly knock us off our Broadway seats. Black-and-white, enigmatic, and full of art school ambition — it’s either a conceptual masterpiece or a poster for a freshman phi...
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Season 3
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Episode 129
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45:19
Dangerous--Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson wanted Dangerous to last forever—and with Mark Ryden’s mind-bending cover, he may have done just that. Painted by hand over six months, the artwork is a surreal circus of mystery, mythology, and self-mythologizing. You’...
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Season 3
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Episode 128
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53:19
Blind Faith--Blind Faith
What do you get when you mix Eric Clapton, a photographer haunted by his last shoot, and a spaceship that might be a metaphor—or something far weirder? You get Blind Faith—a band, an album, and an album cover that still makes peo...
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Season 3
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Episode 127
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39:19
Man's Best Friend--Sabrina Carpenter
What happens when an album cover drops before the album and instantly splits the internet in two? Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend hasn’t even been released, but its provocative cover has people clutching pearls, ra...
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Season 3
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Episode 126
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44:52
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Pet Sounds--The Beach Boys
Six clean-cut Californians feeding goats at the zoo. That’s the cover. But nothing about Pet Sounds is as innocent as it looks. Behind those matching jackets and polite smiles is a man chasing god through a four-track recorder. B...
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Season 3
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Episode 125
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39:47
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Wish You Were Here--Pink Floyd
Is that a stuntman on fire, or a metaphor for the music industry burning you alive? On the cover of Wish You Were Here, it's both. Pink Floyd turned their own disillusionment into one of the most hauntingly beautiful albums of the 1970...
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Season 3
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Episode 124
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46:41
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Load--Metallica
It looks like a lava lamp had a nervous breakdown. But the truth behind Load’s cover art is even weirder—it’s a cocktail of blood, semen, and photographic lightboxes courtesy of shock artist Andres Serrano. Metallica said yes to all of...
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Season 3
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Episode 123
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31:34
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Led Zeppelin II--Led Zeppelin
This cover takes a sepia-toned war photo, mashes in the band’s faces, throws in a jazz legend, and tops it off with a ghostly Hindenburg. It’s weird, bold, and unforgettable—just like the album it wraps around. Grab a copy and listen along with...
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Season 3
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Episode 122
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37:46
Downward Spiral--Nine Inch Nails
A smear, a spiral, a scream into the void—The Downward Spiral is Nine Inch Nails’ brutal masterpiece, a concept album that drags us down through obsession, despair, and dissolution. The cover, a distressed and decaying surface created ...
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Season 3
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Episode 121
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41:21
Parallel Lines--Blondie
The cover? A stark contrast of black, white, and attitude, with Debbie Harry front and center, daring you to look away. Is it a portrait of power, a nod to new wave precision, or something else entirely? Grab a copy and listen along with us. Qu...
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Season 3
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Episode 120
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38:02
