Good answer. Such a great album, and such scope for the imagination topicwise, and then…blah. Gaudi as well.
Phil Collins. Was it just his face on every one of those solo albums? They made the 80s even more depressingly pointless and bland, and it was a stroke of genius to include references to his music in American Psycho.
Now then, I have to say I was very surprised to learn of his talent, especially in relation to his involvement in jazz fusion and reported friendship with Led Zeppelin and others.
I came here to say Sabotage. I heard a story where they came to the studio not knowing it was album cover day, so they just did it with what they were wearing.
Yea, Black Sabbath’s Sabotage has really bad cover art. Always thought Bill Ward looked ridiculous on it. According to Wiki,
[Bill] Ward, in fact, was wearing his wife’s red tights in the photo.
The Who cover art is supposedly negative commentary on 2001:A Space Odyssey, right?
That was one of the concepts tried, with the band making like ape men around the structure spotted serendipitously on the way home from a gig, but nothing really worked until Pete took a piss on the thing. The photographer, Ethan Russell tried to get the other three to do the same but they were bladder shy so the other three marks were created from a puddle of rainwater.
I think “Who’s Next” has a great cover. It says “that’s how the boys are”, no matter if this sends a positive or negative image, and actually this was most of what Pete Townshend wrote about in his prime. And it’s pop art, made on the spot!
A whimsical album that meticulously maintains a consistent style but doesn’t take itself too seriously…maybe it’s because it’s such a classic album but it never crossed my mind that the cover art didn’t fit with the sound of the album.
Giving this a little bump because… This just in:
Can’t attest to the quality of the music. Sorry.
j
ETA: the BBC story includes more images
Yeah, not too sure about the purported greatness of some of the offerings here, poo-ish album covers bedamned.
With Zep !V, I get it that they were trying to downplay image in service of the music, but no - that is one incredibly lame album cover. I also realise it was the 70s and everything, but its gatefold? Worse than Lionel Richie getting spread-legged jiggy with a pole.
That truncated shoulder’s sexy as DAYUM!
So did the Scorps rip-off Roxy Music with that very distinctly fetishized brand of HOT MODEL STRUTTING for their album covers?
Yes, other bands had babes on their covers, but no - not at all in that over-the-top, almost gratuitously fulsome manner those two bands did.
And that bubble gum is dumber than eff.
I had my first practice with my stoner/doom metal band tonight. Among other things,we decided on a Sabbath cover to work on (naturally). I’m thinking if we ever release anything, I want to copy this cover, and I want my tubby ass to be the Bill Ward in it. It’s sublime and beautiful in how bad it is.
I can’t remember who it was that quipped of the replacement cover that four of them look like they’re celebrating the fact that they aren’t going to prison, while the second one from the left looks like he’s just being shown the original cover for the first time.
One of my favorite bands is Buffalo Tom. Their album Big Red Letter Day is a glorious slab of college guitar rock that, even decades after I bought it, never fails to impress me. Nary a loser from beginning to end. But the cover is a complete loser. It’s this really weird image of a kid with an enormous head. It was sufficiently off-putting that I vaguely recall wondering if I should bother picking it up at all.
Excellent choice!
One of the Three Dog Night album covers was of a delivery room with the band dressed up in surgical garb with some kind of beast in the stirrups giving birth to a vinyl record (they used forceps). Later editions had a LARGE embossed Band-aid covering about half of the entire scene. Ick!
That is a great interpretation of that revised cover! 
I was never a big Scorpions fan (I’m of that era though), but I do like Sails of Charon and I think that is Uli Jon Roth on the second from the left.
Has anyone mentioned The Beatles White Album, yet?
Just white? Really? What more yawn inducing idea could there be? Is it a coincidence that I’m So Tired appears in this album?
There’s always exceptions. Anton Corbijn did quite a lot of work like that (though not always directly staring into the camera) that is quite emotive.
I mean, it’s distinctive and it sticks out. I don’t think it’s bad at all.
They couldn’t even work up the oomph to put a title to it – it’s not called, “The White Album,” just, “The Beatles.” 