The 100 Greatest Album Cover Photographs of All Time

A lesson in the history of photography as viewed through the lens of Western popular music in the latter half of the 20th century

Welcome to the biggest project ever undertaken here at Art + Math. Hundreds of hours in the making, teams of researchers scouring the globe, no stone left unturned, employing complex algorithms and rigorous methodology¹ all with a singular purpose: to unequivocally determine the best album cover photographs ever made.

There are several surprises herein, not the least of which being (for me anyway) how many world-famous photographers are represented. I shouldn’t be surprised, of course, given how intertwined visual art and popular music have long been.

For those of us who grew up in the age of vinyl, album art was often integral to the enjoyment of a record. The sheer size of an LP made it easy to appreciate compelling illustration, photography and design. And, as you’ll see here, bands and record labels clearly cared about visuals too. Much was lost in the shift to compact discs, even more in the transition to streaming. Which begs the question: will there be great album covers in the future? And if so, will anyone see them?

At least we will always have these 100 sublime examples, the absolutely unassailable best of the best.

Without further ado…

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100. Vampire Weekend - Contra

Who doesn’t love a Polaroid cover? Especially when that vintage snapshot perfectly encapsulates the 80s vibe of the music. This one also has a wild story. The long and the short of it being that the photographer licensed the image to the band but had forged the model’s signature on the release. She didn’t know she was the face of a popular record until her daughter brought it home. A good read!

99. Sammy Hagar - I Never Said Goodbye

This energetic portrait by the great Annie Leibovitz is representative of a technique that was popular from the late 80s through the digital revolution, and a formative influence on me. In the days when commercial photographers shot transparency film, one technique for guaranteed drama was to take studio strobes out into the real world and balance the strobe key light with a glowing sky background. This look was all over Rolling Stone covers courtesy of the likes of Leibovitz and Mark Seliger.

98. Beastie Boys - Paul’s Boutique

These days this street corner looks nothing like it did when Jeremy Shatan (a former bandmate of Beastie Mike D) shot this wild panorama that made the Lower East Side intersection of Ludlow and Rivington famous. “We shot about 30 rolls down there,” Shatan says, “and then we went to the roof of 101 Park Avenue in Midtown and did more panoramics up there. In the car between locations, they played me some of the Paul’s Boutique rough mixes. I was knocked out, this stuff sounded really good. The cover won plenty of recognition and even a few awards. The cover photo was credited to Nathanial Hornblower, the collective nom de plume of the Beastie Boys. Matt Cohen, the guy I hired, and I were listed as ‘photo assistants.’ It didn’t really bother me as it really was their idea. At least they spelled my name right.” I’ve always wondered about the sign. The band made it and brought it along.

97. Diana Ross - Baby It’s Me

Fashion photographer Victor Skrebneski shot this cover, an early example of subverting tradition by including the trappings of production within the finished frame. He did it in an effort to show how little it takes to create a striking portrait of the beautiful Diana Ross. As lovely as the cover is, the verso may be even better.

96. Foals - Life Is Yours

Photographer Kasia made this image during the 2020 pandemic lockdown. Shot on the classic Pentax K1000 SLR with expired Fuji Superia 100 film.

95. The Doors - Morrison Hotel

Henry Diltz deserves his own category, having shot covers for the likes of The Doors, America, Eagles, James Taylor, Crosby Stills and Nash and many more. This Morrison Hotel image is so iconic, Diltz opened a photography gallery named after it. The shoot was clandestine and the band had to sneak into the lobby for a quick shot.

94. Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti

The East Village tenement building at 96 and 98 St. Mark’s Place is also home to another rock ‘n roll moment: it’s the stoop on which Rolling Stone Mick Jagger was famously waiting on a friend. Shot by the preeminent Elliott Erwitt, who also has several other covers on his resume. Perhaps the kissing lovers in the mirror is a more striking photograph, but because it’s on a few different covers it’s not really identified with a single album.

93. Prince - Lovesexy

French fashion photographer Jean Baptiste Mondino made this revealing portrait, as well as other famous album cover portraits for artists such as Bjork and Madonna.

92. George Michael - Listen Without Prejudice

Weegee, nee Arthur Fellig, was better known for seedier images of New York after dark, often in a criminal mode. But he made this 1942 image of a crowded Coney Island beach on a hot summer day by climbing atop a lifeguard tower and dancing erratically until the crowd turned to look.

91. Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin Bob Dylan

Don Hunstein photographed Bob Dylan and his girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, walking down the street in Greenwich Village. The image has become the quintessential distillation of New York’s folk scene in the 1960s, to the point that its composition is referenced throughout popular culture, in everything from comic books to movies.

90. George Benson - Body Talk

If you can’t make it good, make it big. If you can’t make it big, make it red. That’s what master of color Pete Turner did here, and it works! Turner was the record label’s unofficial photographer, and has another entry farther down this list. Along with being red, of course, this simple image is also quite good.

89. Pearl Jam - No Code

Not only does this album feature dozens of Polaroids on a foldout cover, it shipped with replica Polaroids inside (with lyrics on the back) for each song. The cover features extreme closeups of various items and animals, including friend of the band (which was formerly named for another NBA player) Dennis Rodman.

88. Madonna - Ray of Light

Apparently Madonna was growing tired and told photographer Mario Testino the portrait session was over. “You’re working for me,” she said, “and I say we’re done.” The photographer persevered, and created a seemingly offhand, casual but intimate portrait of the larger than life pop star.

87. Billy Joel - Glass Houses

Photographer Jim Houghton is responsible for many notable album portraits (including the delightful Funky Situation from Wilson Pickett) but it’s this one that captivated me at age six. I stared at this LP for hours. It seemed so strange — they make houses out of glass? — and so dangerous! What if he throws that rock and the whole thing collapses! Sentimental reasons aside, what a great shot.

86. Queen - Queen II

The band were relative unknowns when they recruited Mick Rock to shoot this cover. He took inspiration from a 1932 portrait of Marlene Dietrich. The other members were concerned that this dramatic image would come off as too pretentious, especially since they were not yet famous, but bandleader Freddie Mercury, confident obscurity wouldn’t last, pushed for this image to be the cover. It worked, as this would be the album that brought the band mainstream success. The following year they would recreate this pose in the video for their biggest hit, “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

85. Boz Scaggs - Middle Man

A slick encapsulation of early 80s ideas about glamour, this portrait was made by the fashionable Guy Bourdin. The album makes great use of the 12-inch LP format by continuing the image onto the back cover in dramatic, maybe even tasteless, fashion. For those who want the ultimate collectible, this cover photograph is available as a 1 of 1 NFT directly from Mr. Bourdin himself.

84. Gordon Lightfoot - Sit Down Young Stranger

The Canadian crooner’s biggest selling album, it was renamed when the single “If You Could Read My Mind” became a hit. And as far as I’m concerned, if you want a recipe for an interesting portrait, shoot your subject through glass. Barry Feinstein shot this cover and many other big releases of the era, including Janis Joplin’s Pearl, The Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet, and George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass.

83. Marlena Shaw - Who Is This Bitch, Anyway?

Amazing album title aside, this is a beautifully diffused portrait by the master, Albert Watson. He photographed more than 100 album covers in his career... Including number 66 on this list.

82. Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison

The beads of sweat. The steely gaze. The midsong swagger. A perfect concert closeup by one of the most renowned rock ‘n roll photographers ever, Jim Marshall.

81. Wilco - Summerteeth

Jack Moebes was a newspaper photographer in Greensboro, North Carolina, primarily known for his work documenting the civil rights movement. This image of his is deceptively simple — a girl blowing a bubble with chewing gum. While he didn’t shoot them, other Wilco albums have wonderful photographs on their covers too. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has a cover by Sam Jones. Sky Blue Sky’s cover is by Manuel Presti. And Cousin features a beautiful artwork by Shiinoki Shunsuke.

80. Tirez Tirez - Etudes

Brian Griffin was a wonderfully imaginative photographer with a distinctive surrealist streak. As such, his work appears on many album covers. More on him in a moment.

79. Soft Cell - Non Stop Erotic Cabaret

Peter Ashworth was responsible for a lot of nuwave covers, not only for Soft Cell but also Eurythmics, Thompson Twins, Tears for Fears and even the dramatic red closeup of Phil Collins on the cover of No Jacket Required. Could any image better encapsulate the neon glow of a 1981 night club vibe?

78. N.W.A. - Straight Outta Compton

An image from the perspective of the victim of Eazy E’s gun, perhaps? This album seemed scary to me in my youth, and I couldn’t relate. Only in the last decade have I finally come to meaningfully understand what it was all about.

77. Depeche Mode - A Broken Frame

Our #80 photographer is back again. Brian Griffin shot this and other Depeche Mode covers, as well as an oft-cited weird and wonderful cover for Graham Parker and the Rumour, The Parkerilla.

76. Head East - Flat as a Pancake

Don’t @ me, this one’s personal for a couple of reasons. First, it’s got a pancake on the cover. Delightful. But more importantly is, two, the back cover. I sat down one day at The Olivette Diner, about a half mile from my studio, and noticed this album propped on a shelf by the door. “Why?” I inquired. Because the band photo on the back was shot right here. And three, the reason I knew about the album in the first place is because my aunt went on a doubledate with a guy from the band. I think he was the bass player. True story. Great album art.

75. Adele - 21

Photographer Lauren Dukoff has some real bangers, but I’m a fan of the simplicity of this one. A quintessentially beautiful portrait of an artist on the verge of greatness.

74. Rosanne Cash - Kings Record Shop

Sometimes what makes for a great photograph is simply being in the right place at the right time. In this case, the record store itself is doing much of the heavy lifting, bringing enough charm on its own that photographer Hank Devito just needed to position the talent and press the button. That’s obviously an understatement, especially given that he hand tinted the image to give it that charming, painterly look.

73. John Coltrane - Blue Train

Many classic jazz records have gorgeous duotone covers, often portraits photographed by the same photographer, Francis Wolff. Interestingly, he wasn’t just the photographer but also the record producer who cofounded the immensely influential Blue Note jazz label. He photographed candidly during recording sessions and rehearsals, which became publicity photos and, in many cases, iconic album covers.

72. First Aid Kit - Ruins

Lauren Dukoff shot this one too. I love not only the simplicity of the graphic composition and high contrast, but also the fact that it’s a throwback style that could make this cover at home on any album made from 1968 to today.

71. The Beatles - Meet the Beatles

It’s not fair that the Beatles have all the best albums and all the best album covers, but facts are facts. (I’m not even a Beatlemaniac. Game recognizes game.) This shot is not only textbook split lighting like you used to learn in my studio photography class, it’s a deliberate contrast to the goofball image the band cultivated in its earliest days. Photographer Robert Freeman shot this cover as well as portraits of the Fab 4 for the covers of Help!, Rubber Soul and A Hard Day’s Night.

70. Taylor Swift - 1989

The updated “Taylor’s version” also features a beautiful portrait of the artist, but I’m a sucker for a snapshot-style Polaroid and this one has become a fan favorite. Shot by the team of Sarah Barlow and Stephen Schofield.

69. Dick Katz - Piano & Pen

Lee Friedlander was not famous for photographing album covers, but he has several to his name. For my money, this one may be the best.

68. Kenny Rogers - The Gambler

Reid Miles is typically a designer, but in this instance he’s the photographer responsible for this work of art — and a few other top-ranked covers on this list, too. Kenny Rogers was a bit of a photographer himself.

67. Loverboy - Get Lucky

Photographer David Kennedy shot the cover, and when the only pair of red leather pants available didn’t fit anyone in the band, they improvised. The model in the red leather pants was the photographer’s teenage daughter, Tymara.

66. Mac Miller - Watching Movies With the Sound Off

As stated previously, red always works. Pair it with a humorously placed Parental Advisory sticker and you’ve got a winner. The cover was designed by Miller’s big brother, and photographed by his mother.

65. Ryuichi Sakamoto - Beauty

Another Albert Watson. Simply gorgeous. On the occasion of the composer’s passing two years ago, Watson shared a contact sheet from this session.

64. Townes Van Zandt - Townes Van Zandt

This 1969 cover was photographed by Sol Mednick in the kitchen of the album’s designer, one of the most prominent figures in the history of American design, Milton Glaser.

63. Jimmy Smith - The Cat

This seems like a controversial pick, given how basic the low-fi image appears to be. But it’s also kind of captivating, don’t you think? I’d love a mural-sized print of it in my living room. Photographer Ken Whitmore has dozens of covers under his belt, but this one’s my favorite.

62. Hiroshi Fukumura Quintet - Morning Flight

An engaging portrait of the Japanese trombonist — one of two in his quintet. Based solely on the picture it’s got to be great music.

61. The Police - Synchronicity

Duane Michals shot this cover for the final Police album. Depending on who you ask, it was issued in something between three dozen and 131 variations — which, somehow, I never realized — all containing the same photographs in different arrangements and with different stripes. One picture shows Sting reading a book: Carl Jung’s Synchronicity.

60. Thelonious Monk - Underground

Photographed in the New York studio of Steve Horn and Norman Griner. An argument could be made that this should be much higher on the list, and while I don’t disagree (the cover did win a Grammy, after all), there’s something I find too preposterous about this deliberately preposterous image. Personally, I appreciate it more than I love it. It does, however, come with a great “making of” story involving a bovine. (Trust me, click that link.)

59. Gregory Alan Isakov - Evening Machines

Photographic artist Blue Gabor made this painterly cover. That’s not a stock image of some pensive stranger, that’s Isakov himself.

58. Simon and Garfunkel - Bookends

If you were releasing an album in 1968 you could do worse than Richard Avedon for the cover. He actually has more than 100 album covers to his name, and obviously they’re all tremendous. This one is a particular favorite in part because I know how difficult it is to create a compelling portrait of two people.

57. Janet Jackson - Janet

Shot by fashion great Patrick Demarchelier, this gorgeous black and white portrait of Janet Jackson garnered controversy months later when it appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone in its full, more risqué form.

56. SZA - SOS

Another personal favorite, not only because my daughter adores SZA but also because she’s paying homage to the town of her birth by donning a St. Louis Blues hockey sweater. The image is a reference to a paparazzo shot of Princess Diana. Photographed by the uber talented Daniel Sannwald, who has another entry coming up much later (!) in this list.

55. Steve Winwood - Junction 7

Annie’s back with a beautiful portrait of Steve Winwood, printed somewhat uncharacteristically for her as a lovely blue duotone. I think it’s pretty timeless.

54. Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City

This aerial image of a smog-choked New York skyline made by New York Times photographer Neal Boenzi. “On Nov. 24, 1966 a stagnant mass parked itself over the city for four days. This glimpse south from the Empire State Building showed a city shrouded in acrid, sour-smelling air.” Prints of the image are available here.

53. Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman

Matt Mahurin made this and several other great painterly cover portraits, several in particular for Tom Waits. He has a very distinctive visual style — much like the musical artists for whom he works — which I think is particularly difficult to achieve and certainly deserving of attention.

52. Ned Sublette and the Southwesterners - Western Classics II

Robert Mapplethorpe photographing a country cover might seem strange until you learn of the fascinating character that is renaissance man Ned Sublette. His biggest hit is a song made famous by Willie Nelson — “Cowboys are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other” — which contains the lyric, “A cowboy may brag about things that he’s done with his women, but the ones who brag loudest are the ones that are most likely queer.” A Guggenheim Fellow and Knight-Luce Fellow for reporting on global religion, Sublette is also a leading scholar of Cuban music as well as a historian and author. His most recent book is The American Slave Coast, a history of the slave trade in the American South.

51. Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher

Photographer Olof Grind found the location in the desert, and Bridgers donned a skeleton onesie that would become a recurring theme throughout her tour.

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50. The Clash - London Calling

Pennie Smith photographed Paul Simonon smashing his bass during a show, and the cover’s text pays faithful homage to another album on this list (#41). “When the Elvis record came out,” Simonon told Rolling Stone, rock ‘n roll was pretty dangerous. And I supposed when we brought out our record, it was dangerous stuff, too.”

49. Thelonious Monk - Monk

W. Eugene Smith — yes that W. Eugene Smith — made this portrait of Monk and a couple dozen other album covers. If “cool” were a picture, this would be it.

48. Sonny Clark - Cool Struttin

Jazz producer and the unofficial father of jazz photography Francis Wolff shot this cover. He may be the photographer most represented on this list. This one is a little different from most of his portraits, but it shows his range beyond studio candids.

47. Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul

I mean, just look at it. Can you imagine a better cover for an Isaac Hayes album called Hot Buttered Soul? I can’t. And neither, apparently, could photographer Bob Smith, who photographed several great funk and soul covers along with this one.

46. Sade - Love Deluxe

If it wasn’t Sade and it wasn’t an album cover, you’d still want this gorgeous portrait on your wall, no? So it’s no surprise, then, to discover it was shot by Albert Watson.

45. Madonna - True Blue

Another one from the “As a kid I had it on vinyl and stared at it endlessly” bin. No wonder. It’s a gorgeous, high-fashion portrait shot by the inimitable Herb Ritts. He also shot Madonna’s Like A Prayer and You Can Dance album covers, and directed the video for her song “Cherish.”

44. Bruce Springsteen - Letter to You

I find this portrait to be both very arresting and very current feeling. At the same time it’s mildly reminiscent of another top cover on this list. (No spoilers!) Made by Danny Clinch, who is a name familiar to music photography fans for a few decades now. According to my research, Clinch had more album credits (often for liner portraits) than anyone else. Nearly 800 in total.

43. Serge Gainsbourg - Love On The Beat

Gainsbourg gave up alcohol for two weeks prior to the shoot in order to look his best. Another master photographer, William Klein, shot this and many other Gainsbourg portraits. What is becoming particularly interesting to me is that I didn’t start this list looking for great photographers and the covers they’ve done. It just so happens that the best photographs seem to be shot by, surprise surprise, some of the greatest photographers of the last 75 years.

42. Laurie Anderson - Big Science

Greg Shifrin does not have a long list of album cover credits, but the ones he does have a 100% hit rate. All bangers.

41. Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley

Did you know this is what Elvis’s first album looked like? I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I didn’t before I began this research. It’s certainly a winner. In the context of announcing his emergence in full bloom, I can’t imagine a better shot. Made by a photographer I’m also embarrassed to say I was unaware of, William “PoPsie” Randolph, who was there to document the birth of rock ‘n roll and several important moments in mid-century popular music. This is the earliest album on this list, released in 1954.

40. David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust

Should this be Aladdin Sane instead? Maybe. Especially if we’re measuring notoriety. But as photographs go, that lightning-bolt Ziggy Stardust studio portrait isn’t quite as interesting as this, the actual album named for the artist’s alter ego. It’s a moody shot that sets the tone for the album. Some folks think it’s a painting, but it’s a photograph by Brian Ward.

39. Joe Jackson - Look Sharp

Brian Griffin, whose work earned him honors above, shot this simple, stylish cover for Joe Jackson’s debut. While he may not be the most famous photographer here, he might be the one most worthy of his own “amazing album covers” list.

38. Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising

Some covers are ambitious. Others unbelievable. Enter this, the most unusual of them all. Shot on a set created in a pool, in two hours start to finish so the set wouldn’t disintegrate. Natalie Mering recruited underwater photographer Brett Stanley who I would say nailed the assignment. To my eye it’s reminiscent of an upcoming shot on this list by the artist Sandy Skoglund.

37. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly

Much like Lamar’s recent Superbowl halftime performance, this cover is densely layered with meaning. It’s a Sgt. Pepper-esque tableau featuring a group of mostly shirtless black men (as well as one baby, held by Lamar) and a bound judge (representing the authority figure most often directly impacting their lives, according to Lamar). He says everyone on the cover is a personal friend.

36. Bill Evans and Jim Hall - Undercurrent

The next few are tough, because they’re essentially photographs licensed as stock, with a more prominent life outside the context of these album covers. (Should they go into this hall of fame with a proverbial asterisk?) In the case of this image by Toni Frissell, some are even used on multiple albums. But goodness, what an evocative photograph. Believe it or not it’s a documentary photo, not a styled commercial shoot, and the earliest photograph on this list, dating to 1947.

35. Inspiral Carpets - Revenge of the Goldfish

It’s an image famous beyond its life as this album cover, but how can you not love it? The artist Sandy Skoglund makes whimsical, strange, colorful installations, and this one was first exhibited, coincidentally, at my hometown Saint Louis Art Museum. (“Dedicated to art and free to all!”) The band named their album after the piece.

34. Big Star - Radio City

One of the more famous photographs by William Eggleston. Almost too famous to qualify as an “album cover photo.” You either love this photo or you can’t understand the appeal. I’m in the former camp (because red, remember). Other Eggleston photos have been used by other bands as well, including The Black Keys, Spoon, Cat Power and David Byrne.

33. The Maccabees - Given to the Wild

This cover provides me the opportunity to mention my favorite living artist, Andy Goldsworthy. (The band itself said they were fans and that’s why they chose his image for the cover.) The land is his medium, and after creating sculptures of ice, stone, leaves and other natural elements, he uses photography to document these ephemeral works. If you’ve never seen the film Rivers and Tides, remedy that now.

32. U2 - No Line on the Horizon

The last in this run of licensed images from world-class artists, this one’s especially interesting. First of all, it’s from the Time Exposed series by one of the world’s most interesting contemporary photographers, Hiroshi Sugimoto. It’s a seascape photographed over the course of hours. Second of all, there was a hint of controversy as some design elements of the cover were quite similar to others. When a Sugimoto image is your cover, you’re gonna turn some heads.

31. Andrew Hill - Point of Departure

Reid Miles both photographed and designed this cover, which features some of his design hallmarks including the clustering of text. I’m simply a fan of the way the illusion of depth pulls the viewer into the frame. The blurry object in the foreground is thought to be the artist’s own hand.

30. Nicki Minaj - The Pinkprint

Art director Joe Perez (working for Kanye West’s DONDA creative agency) came up with the idea for using makeup on the cover, recruited Jenna Marsh to photograph it, and completed the project in 24 hours. Who the fingerprint belongs to remains a mystery. This is the most recent album on the list, released less than three months ago.

29. Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A.

If I’m honest, I struggled to determine where this image should fall on this list. In the end I think it may be the one that benefitted most from its high-profile place in popular culture. But even without that it’s still a bold, graphic image. There’s a lot of great photos of the Boss out there, but this one by Annie Leibovitz is one of the most famous music photos of the 1980s. I also love her portrait of him in profile, on stage, footlights glaring, on the live album 1975-1985.

28. Patti Smith - Horses

Robert Mapplethorpe famously shot this cover, which received pushback from record execs who didn’t care for Smith’s “androgynous” look. A simple, natural light session that Smith says only took eight frames before the photographer announced, “I have it.” He finished the roll anyway.

27. Cyndi Lauper - She’s So Unusual

I’ve owned this record for years but I never stopped to really look at it. What a fantastic image! Shot on the Coney Island boardwalk, it’s a cacophony of color captured by Annie Leibovitz, with Lauper a frenzy of energy in her vintage red prom dress (purchased from the thrift store “Screaming Mimi’s”) at the center. Arguably deserving of an even higher position on this list.

26. Gustavo Dudamel - Rite

The only classical cover on the list is a perfect shot by Christina Körte. Unfortunately there’s not a lot of information available about it, or her.

25. The Beatles - Abbey Road

The Beatles sure appreciated good album cover photography. This one was famously made by Ian McMillan in just a few minutes outside the band’s Abbey Road studio. Looking closely, I suspect the blue sky was added in post. Would it be quite so perfect without that VW bug? At the time of its release, the cover was deemed to be filled with symbolism covering up the fact that Paul, still kicking today at the age of 82, was secretly dead.

24. Bad Religion - Age of Unreason

I have a message for the photographer responsible for this cover: Alice Baxley, wherever you are… Congratulations! This is such a phenomenal photograph. I came across this image and thought it note perfect. But I initially dismissed it because how can such a recent shot, of such a strange subject, in such a casual fashion, by such a relative unknown (not compared to me but to the masters of 20th century photography scattered throughout this list) be one of the top album cover photographs of all time? But I couldn’t stop thinking about it! Until I finally realized what a travesty it would be to leave it off the top quarter of the list. It’s simply fantastic. A straightforward image (something I am increasingly appreciating) that feels like something William Eggleston might have made. A work of art about a work of art, yet somehow an offhand snapshot at the same time. I adore it.

23. Larry Young - Into Something

Another Francis Wolff cover, coincidently designed by the creator of some other entries on this list (Reid Miles). A pretty talented team, wouldn’t you say? I adore the use of shape, space and color in this image, which was shot during the artist’s time working in Paris.

22. Joy Division - Closer

Joy Division recruited art director Peter Saville to design the cover for what would become their final record. He showed them an issue of Zoom magazine that contained a series of Bernard Pierre Wolff photographs of Italian tombs. The group collectively chose this somber image of the Appiani family tomb in Genoa, which would become even more poignant when lead singer Ian Curtis took his own life just weeks before the album’s release.

21. Wayne Shorter - Night Dreamer

I can find very little information about the making of this cover, but I do know it was shot by none other than Francis Wolff himself. I love how subversive it is, how unlike most other Blue Note covers, and how the blurred lights look like birds in flight.

20. Hank Mobley - No Room for Squares

Back to back Francis Wolff classics. Seeking inspiration for the cover, he and Mobley went into a subway station near the Blue Note office and focused on the circles in a railing for the cover of No Room for Squares. Check out the contact sheet!

19. Wes Montgomery - Road Song

Surprise surprise, another all-time great photographer is responsible for an all-time great album cover. This one is by color master Pete Turner, and it’s just a shot of a fence outside the Kansas City airport. It’s reversed from its original perspective, which can be seen on the cover of the 1978 first issue of Omni magazine.

18. Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter

Photographer Blair Caldwell made headlines for his use of AI on this cover. In truth it appears he used tools such as Tome AI to brainstorm, storyboard and plan the shoot, but did not use generative AI on the visuals. (Which makes sense, considering the album’s thematic opposition to AI in art.) Caldwell had been photographing for Beyoncé since 2018, but this was the first time she’d asked him to shoot an album cover. The composition has been compared to the 1805 Jacques-Louis David painting, “Napoleon Crossing the Alps.”

17. Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (Car)

Such a beautiful, simple cover. The texture of the rain drops, the mystery of the reflections. A near perfect photograph. Surprising to learn such a straight image was made by the masters of surreality, Hipgnosis. “I was sitting in a cab in a traffic jam in Trafalgar Square in the rain,” Storm Thorgerson said, “with little to do but watch the cab next to me. On the bonnet of this vehicle were myriad drops that were being shaken by the vibrating cab. Each drop seemed to have a quality and a life of its own. I thought, ‘That looks cool, can I duplicate that one day?’ Which is how Peter Gabriel came to be sitting, looking furtive, in the front seat of my beloved Lancia Flavia which had been heavily doused with a garden hose. The car, not Peter, I hasten to add.”

16. U2 - The Joshua Tree

As the unofficial fifth member of the band, Anton Corbijn is the photographer most responsible for the visual branding of U2. While the Rattle and Hum cover features another beautiful black and white image of his, it’s The Joshua Tree that is most notable. On the last day of shooting for the album, they stopped at an abandoned shack on the side of the road to Palm Springs. “Bono flew into a rage,” Corbijn said, “for him it was a big waste of time. I replied that capturing the details is as important as taking great scenic views.” Corbijn was reportedly also responsible for the title of the album, after telling Bono about the biblical name given to the peculiar desert trees.

15. Donald Byrd - A New Perspective

Reid Miles makes another appearance here, showing yet again how he can make fantastic, dynamic photographs that are, ultimately, simple arrangements of shapes and lines and empty space. He once said this was his favorite of all the covers he designed. He was a car aficionado, not a jazz fan, so it should be no surprise that the Jaguar features so prominently in the frame. He was reportedly paid just $50 for each of the nearly 500 album covers he designed. I wonder if he got a bonus for the covers he photographed too?

14. The Pixies - Surfer Rosa

Simon Larbalestier, who shot three other Pixies covers, made this beautiful image on Polaroid Type 55 peel apart film, which is perhaps the greatest loss of the digital revolution. “Everything about the Pixies imagery was constructed,” Larbalestier said, “often built as a small set as in the Doolittle series or a life size collage set for the Surfer Rosa series. Everything was sourced and built from scratch in front of the camera lens. The vision was a constructed one, not a document of real life.”

13. Kelela - Raven

There is surprisingly little information available about the making of such a striking cover, but I do know that it’s the result of a collaboration between Kelela’s artistic director, Mischa Notcutt, and London based photographer Hendrik Schneider, who first created a 3D scan of the artist’s head before printing a bust from which further photographs were made.

12. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

“The man is really on fire,” said Hipgnosis photographer Storm Thorgerson. “He wore an asbestos suit under the cloth suit, which extends over the head, where a wig was attached. The first attempts at setting him alight were in the wrong wind direction. The flames were blown back and ignited his mustache for an instant. A close shave, one might say.” Hipgnosis is the artistic pairing of Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell. The duo is responsible for many amazing covers but most famously the surreal, absurdist album covers for Pink Floyd (including equally amazing covers for the albums Animals, Delicate Sound of Thunder and the fantastic Mono Lake image that graces the back of Wish You Were Here. But how can you not give the nod to an image of a man literally aflame — a hallmark of Hipgnosis projects. Practical effects, I mean, not immolating humans. Watch the documentary about their partnership (produced and directed by fellow genius music photographer Anton Corbijn) here.

11. Herbie Hancock - Inventions and Dimensions

A great photo on its own, but then as a bright yellow duotone? Fantastic. Francis Wolff brought Hancock to the corner of Madison Avenue and East 41st in Manhattan for the photo shoot. Hancock himself has shared a few outtakes from the session.

10. Tame Impala - Slow Rush

Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker and photographer Neil Krug travelled halfway round the world, to a ghost town in the Namibian desert, to create photographs for the album. The images were digitally modified to enhance the surreal vibes that set the tone for the album.

9. Teyana Taylor - The Album

German photographer Daniel Sannwald made this exaggerated, elongated portrait of the artist by starting with an exaggerated studio portrait and manipulating it further in post. It’s a combination of contrasty specular light, wide angle lens from a low perspective, styling fully on point and mostly a pair of creative artists firing on all cylinders. A nod to a couple of top images on this list, perhaps? Stay tuned.

8. The Rolling Stones - Goats Head Soup

A backup plan of a cover, photographed by David Bailey in his home, inspired by the image of Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen. My personal preference would put this cover in the top three, but I recognize that might be a stretch given some of the other artwork in the vicinty. This album makes great use of its gatefold packaging by continuing the gauzy imagery through the middle and onto the back cover. It’s a simple photograph, which earns it more points in my book.

7. Marvin Gaye - What’s Goin On

Motown photographer Jim Henden photographed Gaye in his backyard. The themes of the Vietnam-era album are heavy, and the cover image matches the tone. A rain soaked Marvin Gaye, collar turned up against the weather, eyes raised to the horizon and perhaps a slight expression of hope in his eyes. One of the most acclaimed album cover portraits across genres and decades. The perfect cover for an important album.

6. Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food

David Byrne famously met his bandmates in art school. A talented photographer in his own right, he is the creative mind responsible for this distinctive cover, but he recruited photographer Jimmy De Sana to shoot the 529 close up Polaroids that make up this mosaic reminiscent of a David Hockney artwork — at least that’s what I had always assumed. In truth, Hockney didn’t make his first Polaroid collage until nearly five years later. Bandmates said Byrne had clearly been inspired by the work of former girlfriend, Andrea Kovacs, and they should have credited her for it.

5. The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Is there a more famous album cover? Photographer Michael Cooper and art director Peter Blake wrangled life size cardboard stand-ins for some of the most famous writers, artists, entertainers and politicians of the 20th century — including earlier, moptopped versions of John, Paul, George and Ringo — each chosen by the members of the band themselves. Some of the faces are instantly recognizable while others provided fodder for curiosity and investigation years after the album’s release.

4. Miles Davis - Tutu

One of the greats, photographed by one of the greats. Irving Penn photographed Miles Davis (born in East St. Louis, I should add) in 1986 and agreed to the record label’s contract stipulation that he would not release any of the images for five years. “At the end, I said, ‘Thank you very much,’” Penn said. “He got up, came over to me, and kissed me on the mouth. I didn’t know what to say. We shook hands and he left. Later, I got the chance to know his music and it struck me as being visual art of a most profound kind. How terrible I couldn’t share that with him then. This is one of the heartbreaks of the profession, I have only the kiss to remember.”

3. Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (Melt)

“What we did at Hipgnosis was to take tons of Polaroids and push and pummel them as they developed,” said Storm Thorgerson. “We all did it, including Peter Gabriel... and gathered a vast pile of distorted faces, finally finding one for the front cover, which we then photocopied, enlarged and made black and white so as to distance it from being a typical Polaroid. It was all great fun, and involves only an ordinary Polaroid and a blunt pencil or some such. Anybody can do it.”

2. (TIE) Grace Jones - Nightclubbing and Island Life

My list, my rules. I say there can be a tie. After 600 hours of research, I can’t decide which one I like better. And since they’re equally striking images of a one-of-a-kind artist made by the same brilliant photographer, Jean-Paul Goude (who would go on to become Grace Jones’s romantic partner and father of her child) they can share the coveted #2 spot on this prestigious list. The Nightclubbing cover is perhaps the most famous portrait of Jones, while the image for Island Life was composited from multiple frames of the lithe artist contorting her body in superhuman positions. (A handmade composite in 1977, I might add.) “I photographed her in a variety of positions,” Goude wrote in his autobiography, “which I combined into a montage that made it possible to show her simultaneously full frontal and in profile, like an Egyptian bas-relief. Then, having transferred the montage to photographic paper, I used it as the preliminary sketch for a painting meant to give the photographic illusion that she alone, like a contortionist, could assume the pose. Though on closer look you can see that from a strictly anatomical point of view the pose is impossible to achieve.” Jones wrote in her autobiography, “Jean-Paul would say, later… that he had created me. I knew that wasn’t the case, that I was creating myself before I met him.” Goude would go on to create another singular image of a famous woman, when he broke the internet with his portrait of a nude Kim Kardashian for Paper magazine.

1. Yoko Ono - Season of Glass

The image is interesting enough on its own, but the context makes it heartbreaking. Yoko made the cover herself. “I used a photo I took of John’s blood-stained glasses on the record cover,” she said. “The record company called me and said the record shops would not stock the record unless I changed the cover. I didn’t understand it. Why? They said it was in bad taste. I felt like a person soaked in blood coming into a living room full of people and reporting that my husband was dead, his body was taken away, and the pair of glasses were the only thing I had managed to salvage — and people looking at me saying it was in bad taste to show the glasses to them. ‘I’m not changing the cover. This is what John is now,’ I said.” If that’s not a powerful work of art, I don’t know what is.

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There you have it. A completely unassailable ranking — definitive, even — of the greatest album cover photographs of all time. It’s doubtful there could ever be any errors or omissions, but if you insist… Let me know in the comments. (After first subscribing, of course.)

Which reminds me. Before we go, allow me to throw myself on the mercy of the court once more and ask you, dear reader, to please consider financially supporting this endeavor. Yes, you! Every subscription is an immense help. Once you subscribe, you’re welcome to roast me and my list in the comments. Thank you for reading!

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1. The scientific method is simple: which photographs would I want on my wall, even if they were not associated with the artists on either side of the camera. And for real, I spent so much time on this it’s preposterous.