"I buy it if I like the album cover"

"I do a lot of curiosity buying; I buy it if I like the album cover, I buy it if I like the name of the band, anything that sparks my imagination. I still like to go to record stores, I like to just wander around and I'll buy whatever catches my attention." - Bruce Springsteen

London Calling (1979) The Clash

Design by Ray Lowrie and Pennie Smith

Designer Ray Lowry acknowledge the design’s inspiration when he said, “It was intended as a genuine homage to the original unknown genius who created Elvis Presley’s first rock ‘n’ roll record.”

As for the photo, Simonon said, “The show had gone quite well that night, but for me, inside, it just wasn’t working well, so I took it out on the bass. If I’d been really smart I would have got the spare bass out, as it wasn’t as good as the one I smashed up. When I look at it now I wish I’d lifted my face up a bit more.”

Licensed to Ill (1986)

Beastie Boys
Design by Steve Byram and World B. Omes

Producer Rick Rubin said the idea came from reading about Led Zeppelin’s luxurious private jet. “The Beastie Boys were just a bunch of little guys and I wanted us to have a Beastie Boys’ jet. I wanted to embrace and somehow distinguish, in a sarcastic way, the larger-than-life rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, the excesses and the destruction.”

Collage artist World B. Omes assembled the Beastie Boys jet from photographic elements (American Airlines later complained that it looked like one of theirs), then drew over and hand-colored it with water soluble crayons.

Trivia: The plane’s identification number on the tail – 3MTA3 – reads “Eat Me” if you hold the cover up to a mirror.

Nevermind (1991)

Nirvana
Design by Robert Fisher and Kirk Weddle

“I showed Kurt the baby picture,” designer Robert Fisher said, “and he liked it but felt it needed something more. We threw all kinds of ideas around and Kurt jokingly suggested a fish hook. We spent the day thinking of all the things you could put on a fish hook. Although Kurt never gave me a rational for the design, I must assume that the naked baby symbolized his own innocence, the water an alien environment and the hook and dollar bill his creative life entering into the corporate world of rock music.”