For one reason or other, the greatest album cover you can think of

[fever606]

The Sky's Gone Out was always a favourite...


As well as pretty much all of Vaughn Oliver's work...

[panoramic]

[scottT]

I remember being surprised by a candle painting at a Gehard Richter exhibit...that shock of recognition and weird feeling of something very familiar yet out of context.

[Straight6DOHC]

The Velvet Underground and Nico and The Stones Sticky Fingers are two album covers that are so good, there's probably people who haven't even heard them, but know what they are.

[Shadoweclipse13]

This is one of my favorites. GREAT cover.

Here are the ones that really stick out for me:



The Black Keys - Turn Blue


Brand New - The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me


Circa Survive - On Letting Go


Dredg - The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion


The Graduate - Only Every Time


Sparta - Wiretap Scars (Probably my favorite album cover ever)


Shiny Toy Guns - III


Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak


Thrice - Vheissu


Sianvar - Stay Lost


Gunship - Gunship


Flight Of The Conchords

(Sorry for the large images. I tried to find the smallest of each, but there were a few that only had one available and it was huge.)

[Ceylon]

Always been a fan of the original sandpaper sleeve for The Return of the Durutti Column:



An idea knicked from the Situationist International's Mémoires...for when destroying the system starts with destroying your other records! Lore has it that these were put together from 12" sheets of sandpaper and wallpaper paste by members of Joy Division and A Certain Ratio in Alan Erasmus's apartment

I've always been a fan of auto-destructive art which is also kind of a Situationist thing, but a record sleeve that has to be kept on its own lest it ruin other record sleeves is just brilliant.

For sure, the whole Dune/John Prophet/Heavy Metal sci-fi comic book vibe fits that album so well.

Also the Dazzle Ships cover is beautiful, much like the ships themselves.

[Singlebladepickup]

Animal collective - merriwether post pavillion

[Haddock]

Some very good candidates posted so far (Unknown Pleasures stands out).

The Velvet Underground and Nico and The Stones Sticky Fingers are two album covers that are so good, there's probably people who haven't even heard them, but know what they are.

Both Andy Warhol designs.

I'm surprised to be the first to post this :

[mackerelmint]

[MechaBulletBill]

I'm surprised to be the first to post this :

I came pretty close but I'm NOT surprised that the [often] hipper-than-thou OSG crowd avoided the cover of one of the biggest and most iconic albums ever

[Bradley-Jazz]

These are all great. But there is still this...

[luau]

[dc]

These are all great. But there is still this...

it's an iconic cover to be sure, but do we deduct any points for cribbing the idea?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley_(album)

[Bradley-Jazz]

Oooh no, not at all. I think the appropriation of the Elvis lettering is really important to it. Are they rebelling against Elvis or celebrating him? It gives it a backstory, if you like, which for me really adds to my enjoyment of the cover. A bit like finding out about the pulsar image for Unknown Pleasures, way back when (and then having to find out what at pulsar is).

There's a fine history of trading off other people's sleeves, isn't there. I like this one a lot too:



nicked off this...

[tune_link]