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Here are readers' picks for the 10 greatest album covers of all time.
By Andy Greene
10. The Velvet Underground, 'The Velvet Underground & Nico'
Andy Warhol got credit for producing the Velvet Underground's 1967 debut LP, but his exact role in the creation of the album has always been a little murky. The cover, however, was entirely his project. Early versions of his famous banana print cover said "peel slowly and see," and there was a peel-away banana sticker that revealed a pink banana underneath. With drug songs like "Heroin" and "I'm Waiting For The Man," some have interpreted the album's cover as a reference to the old schoolyard rumor that smoking a banana peel will get you high. Whether or not that was Warhol's intent, the cover remains one of his most famous works.
9. Pink Floyd, 'Wish You Were Here'
Hollywood stuntmen Ronnie Rondell and Danny Rogers worked on nearly 200 movies – including Speed, Titanic, Beverly Hills Cop, Bad Boys and Waterworld. They remain best known for a single photograph taken on the Warner Bros. backlot in 1975. For the cover of Wish You Were Here, Rondell wore a business suit over a flame retardant suit and shook Rogers' hand while his clothing was on fire. To protect his head, Rondell wore a wig over a hood. Despite all the precautions, at one point during the shoot, the wind blew in the wrong direction and briefly spread the flames to Rondell's moustache. The Warner Bros. lot where the photo was taken looks remarkably the same today.
8. Bruce Springsteen, 'Born To Run'
The cover of Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run was shot by Eric Meola during just two and a half hours in June of 1975. "They came in at 10:00 a.m," Meola recalled in a 2006 interview. "They were exhausted. They looked as if they'd been up all night . . . It was a statement about race as well. I wanted to capture on film what they did in concert. It is very hard to re-create that kind of energy. But to their credit, they did it." During the final show of Springsteen and the E Street Band's 2009 tour, Springsteen and Clarence Clemons recreated the classic pose in the middle of "Growin' Up." With Clemons currently recovering from a stroke, Meola's photograph has taken on an added poignancy.
7. The Beatles, 'Revolver'
German-born artist and musician Klaus Voorman was a longtime friend of the Beatles, and an obvious choice to draw the Revolver cover. The group played him their new track "Tomorrow Never Knows" before he sketched his first draft. "They were being so avant-grarde," Voorman has said. "I thought the cover has to do the same thing. How far can I go? How surreal and strange can it be?"
He asked the Beatles to give him old photos of themselves, and he pasted some of them onto his own drawings. He had trouble with George Harrison's face, so he pasted newspaper photos of eyes and lips onto it. For many years Voorman worried that the original was lost – but he claims to have recently tracked it down. "I'm not going to tell you where!" he said. "It's well kept and looked after and I'm happy about that."
6. The Rolling Stones, 'Sticky Fingers'
The second album on our list designed by Andy Warhol, Sticky Fingers was the Rolling Stones' first album for Atlantic Records – which gave them the freedom and budget to mass-produce this cover with an actual zipper. When unzipped, it revealed white underwear with the Rolling Stones' tongue logo on it. Contrary to legend, the man in the underwear is not Mick Jagger. It's one of Warhol's associates, though nobody seems to be able to agree on exactly who it is.
rollingstone
By Andy Greene
10. The Velvet Underground, 'The Velvet Underground & Nico'
Andy Warhol got credit for producing the Velvet Underground's 1967 debut LP, but his exact role in the creation of the album has always been a little murky. The cover, however, was entirely his project. Early versions of his famous banana print cover said "peel slowly and see," and there was a peel-away banana sticker that revealed a pink banana underneath. With drug songs like "Heroin" and "I'm Waiting For The Man," some have interpreted the album's cover as a reference to the old schoolyard rumor that smoking a banana peel will get you high. Whether or not that was Warhol's intent, the cover remains one of his most famous works.
9. Pink Floyd, 'Wish You Were Here'
Hollywood stuntmen Ronnie Rondell and Danny Rogers worked on nearly 200 movies – including Speed, Titanic, Beverly Hills Cop, Bad Boys and Waterworld. They remain best known for a single photograph taken on the Warner Bros. backlot in 1975. For the cover of Wish You Were Here, Rondell wore a business suit over a flame retardant suit and shook Rogers' hand while his clothing was on fire. To protect his head, Rondell wore a wig over a hood. Despite all the precautions, at one point during the shoot, the wind blew in the wrong direction and briefly spread the flames to Rondell's moustache. The Warner Bros. lot where the photo was taken looks remarkably the same today.
8. Bruce Springsteen, 'Born To Run'
The cover of Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run was shot by Eric Meola during just two and a half hours in June of 1975. "They came in at 10:00 a.m," Meola recalled in a 2006 interview. "They were exhausted. They looked as if they'd been up all night . . . It was a statement about race as well. I wanted to capture on film what they did in concert. It is very hard to re-create that kind of energy. But to their credit, they did it." During the final show of Springsteen and the E Street Band's 2009 tour, Springsteen and Clarence Clemons recreated the classic pose in the middle of "Growin' Up." With Clemons currently recovering from a stroke, Meola's photograph has taken on an added poignancy.
7. The Beatles, 'Revolver'
German-born artist and musician Klaus Voorman was a longtime friend of the Beatles, and an obvious choice to draw the Revolver cover. The group played him their new track "Tomorrow Never Knows" before he sketched his first draft. "They were being so avant-grarde," Voorman has said. "I thought the cover has to do the same thing. How far can I go? How surreal and strange can it be?"
He asked the Beatles to give him old photos of themselves, and he pasted some of them onto his own drawings. He had trouble with George Harrison's face, so he pasted newspaper photos of eyes and lips onto it. For many years Voorman worried that the original was lost – but he claims to have recently tracked it down. "I'm not going to tell you where!" he said. "It's well kept and looked after and I'm happy about that."
6. The Rolling Stones, 'Sticky Fingers'
The second album on our list designed by Andy Warhol, Sticky Fingers was the Rolling Stones' first album for Atlantic Records – which gave them the freedom and budget to mass-produce this cover with an actual zipper. When unzipped, it revealed white underwear with the Rolling Stones' tongue logo on it. Contrary to legend, the man in the underwear is not Mick Jagger. It's one of Warhol's associates, though nobody seems to be able to agree on exactly who it is.
rollingstone