True Blue was released in 1986 and to this day remains the best-selling Madonna album. I remember my older sister buying it and listening to it constantly. Shortly afterwards she got into The Smiths and informed me that Madonna “was shit”. True Blue spawned a bundle of top-ten hits and boasted the pop star’s first famous reinvention, from lace-covered “boy-toy” to a platinum blonde, toned man-eater. Sal Cinquemani from Slant Magazine called it “the supreme archetype for late ’80s and early ’90s pop music” and said that with this album “Madonna made the transition from pop tart to consummate artist, joining the ranks of ’80s icons like Michael Jackson and Prince.”

Of course, Madonna never had the musical talent to rival her 80’s contemporaries Michael Jackson and Prince. Her gift is in picking the right producer and tune for the moment and repackaging herself to suit the times. As Joni Mitchell would snarkily have it, she’s “hit talent out of the ballpark. She’s become the most famous person in the world by hiring the right people.”

One of those people was the late Herb Ritts, the photographer behind this cover. He began his career in the late 70’s and would eventually become the leading celebrity and fashion photographer of his time.

Ritts’ work became short code for high gloss, commercial photography. In the advertising industry there was a joke that lazy or desperate art directors would say: “I’ve got an idea, Herb Ritts!”, when they couldn’t come up with anything original. He was also an accomplished fine arts photographer and when his work was displayed in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1997, more than 250,000 attended the show.

As is so often the case with Madonna, she managed to spot him on the way up.

“I met Madonna in ‘83 or ‘84, when I was commissioned to do an ad for a movie called Desperately Seeking Susan” he recalled. “I remember that day. I was in New York City in an old factory loft with lots of windows. She arrived early and marched into the studio with all her “boy-toy” belts and black lace, very definite. She opened a cigar box with all of her jewelry, mainly little silver crosses. She said, “I’ve seen all your work in Lei magazine. You’re good.” She knew who I was, though I’d only been shooting for a couple of years.”

The True Blue cover is the most recognizable and sensual picture he took of her. The cassette tape and poster version is even sexier.

It’s a perfect example of what a post-modern operator she is - the hair Monroe’s, the jacket James Dean’s, the eyebrows Frida Kahlo’s. The images from the shoot are also a reminder that at her career zenith she was just, well, incredibly rootable.

Yet as Nathan Rabin - for my money the best writer on the web - points out in the AV Club, “there’s nothing particularly natural about Madonna’s sex appeal. It’s largely a matter of attitude and lighting, iconography and shrewd calculation, exhibitionism, and a finely honed gift for provocation. It’s telling that many of Madonna’s most fruitful artistic collaborations are with photographers and music video directors. Depending on the angle and the outfit, Madonna can look like Marilyn Monroe reborn or the boogeyman’s grandma.”

On this cover she gets the angle and the outfit just right.

Seminal British band The Stone Roses released their self titled debut album in 1989. The cover features artwork by band member John Squire, who was largely responsible for the band’s visual identity.

Squire is an accomplished visual artist who at the time was heavily influenced by Jackson Pollock.

The painting featured on the cover of The Stone Roses is titled Bye Bye Badman, as is one of the songs on the record. Both the song and the painting are about the May 1968 riots in Paris, which explains why the tri-colours of the French flag are featured on the cover.

“Ian (songwriting partner Ian Brown) had met this French man when he was hitching around Europe, this bloke had been in the riots, and he told Ian how lemons had been used as an antidote to tear gas” Squire told Q magazine. “Then there was the documentary - a great shot at the start of a guy throwing stones at the police. I really liked his attitude.”

The riots were the largest general strike to stop an advanced industrial country and it’s amazing how quickly their impact have faded from the public consciousness. Less than 50 years after revolutionaries overthrew the monarchy in Russia, students and workers looked for a moment as though they might overthrow the de Gaulle government. It was a revolt against the modern consumer society, with a utopian left-wing fervour that was as critical of Stalin as it was of capitalism.

It’s hard to imagine such a popular wave of discontent and civil disobedience today, which is probably why The Stone Roses sought to evoke the fury and defiance of that fleeting period. The rioters were not louts or thugs, rather Parisian students that found a poetry amid the aggression. As they ripped up paving stones to throw at police, they saw sand underneath, giving birth to a memorable chant that translates as: “Under The Paving Stones - The Beach”. You’ve got to hand it to French people.

The song Bye Bye Badman features incendiary lyrics.

I’m gonna make you bleed
Gonna bring you down to your knees
Bye bye badman
Ooh bye bye

Choke me smoke the air
In this citrus sucking sunshine
I don’t care you’re not all there

Ian Brown explained: “Imagine a protester singing in a policeman’s face during the Paris riots. Then you’ll get some idea what it’s about.” I really like the final verse.

I’ve got bad intention
I intend to knock you down
These stones I throw
Oh these French kisses
Are the only way I’ve found

It’s amazing how finding out the story and inspiration behind any piece of art or design can suddenly make you love it. When I first saw this I just assumed it was a playful and kind of unattractive pastiche - some lemons casually chucked on a post-modern artwork. Now I can see the way that Squire has once again found some poetry in the chaos and anger. “Under The Paving Stones - The Beach”.

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”, reads the inscription on a bronze plaque inside the Statue of Liberty. Dedicated in 1886, it welcomed immigrants as they arrived by ship and fast became a potent symbol for the ‘land of opportunity’.

Visitors arrived by air in 1979 and it’s through a plane window that we see Supertramps’ re-imagined New York. Manhattan is now a giant diner - it’s buildings replaced by ketchup bottles and egg cartons; its famous icon a matronly diner waitress who holds aloft a glass of orange juice.

Breakfast in America was the band’s first LP after moving to the US and it would go on to sell 11 million copies worldwide (4 million in the States alone). It also won the 1980 Grammy Award for Best Recording Package

Art Director Mike Doud took his inspiration from the title and worked up various sketches of surreal images and visual puns. One of the rejected concepts involved giant Cheerios rolling down Arizona’s Monument Valley in a flood of milk. Just imagine.

If Doud had the vision and ambition, cover designer Mike Haggerty had the chops to pull it off. He assembled the cornflake box, ashtray, cutlery, eggboxes, vinegar, ketchup and mustard bottles and spray painted them all white. Haggerty’s original instinct was to cast a busty young stunner as the waitress but the band preferred Kate Murtagh, whose bingo-wings and manic smile contribute so much to the cover.

It’s the first time I’ve thought about what an important American archetype the diner waitress is, almost as ubiquitous as the cowboy, the cheerleader and the policeman. Sometimes she’s beautiful and sometimes she’s motherly - but she’s always street smart and careworn.

While Kate Murtagh’s advancing years are key to the cover’s success, it was a strange and cautious kind of vanity that kept Supertramp off their own record covers. “We wanted to be around a long time, and we didn’t want people watching us getting older” says keyboardist Rick Davies. It’s an interesting concern and one that makes more sense when you realise that back then record covers were a band’s primary form of self promotion. As it is, fans could check the band out on the back cover, being served at “Bert’s Mad House.”

Photographer Aaron Rapoport captures the long-haired band in a relaxed moment, seemingly unaware of the time warp that has transported them back to the American fifties. It’s a nice touch that they all read newspapers from their home towns in Britain, even though they were never as popular in the UK as they were overseas. In many ways they are just another group of immigrants, finding rich inspiration and a warm welcome in the creative and popular culture of America.

Neko Case is an American singer songwriter famed for her contributions to the alt-country genre and her work with band The New Pornographers. Middle Cyclone is her 5th studio album and, belying her low profile, it entered the Billboard charts at #3 on release.

The cover art has attracted a lot of attention and its obvious why - it’s not everyday you see a striking redhead on top of a muscle car with a hardcore sword in her hand. The first thing I thought was that one of the pin up girls from a WWII fighter jet had come to life and decided to join the combat.

The car featured on the cover is a 1968 Mercury Cougar, a design and motoring icon of its era. By way of tribute to the recently departed Farrah Fawcett, here’s a 1975 TV advertisement for the Cougar featuring the foxy golden girl.

Is it just me, or did they really know how to advertise cars back then? Cars and sexy women have always been inextricably linked, in that most men invest in the former to get the latter. It’s hard to believe that when Case formed the concept for this cover art she didn’t have in mind Tawny Kitaen’s sensational work in Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again video.

Of course, 80’s model Kitaen would go on to battle drug addiction and in 2002 she was charged with committing domestic violence against her then-husband, baseball player Chuck Finley. She beat him with a stiletto heel.

Case wields a sword instead and the stony determination on her face would surely instill fear in the most formidable of opponents. It’s a strong, memorable image that could date rather quickly due to the annoying indie typography. However, the unbeatable trinity of a muscle car, medieval weaponry and a redhead will probably ensure that most male viewers don’t even notice.

As one of the biggest-selling music artists of all time, Michael Jackson helped to set the template for contemporary cover art. This is the cover of his first solo EP, as he made the fateful decision to pursue a career away from The Jackson 5.

While the art direction and design have dated, what makes the cover so appealing is Michael’s sheer charisma and charm. He’s the very embodiment of youth - full of exuberance and casual optimism; his wide smile and cockiness all the more adorable because he appears to be wearing his big brother’s clothes.

Wikipedia defines tragedy as ‘a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure’. The cover of Got To Be There is most resonant today as a poignant ‘before photo’, given what a tragedy the artist’s life eventually became. He scaled a pedestal shared by only a handful of other entertainers, an achievement that only served to make his self-destruction more compelling.

Jackson album covers are no doubt being dusted off in households around the world, as people make an effort to remember him at his peak.

“We didn’t have video back then,” says Ry Cooder. “You had to suggest an alternative environment on the cover of your album. I used to think about ways to do this, mainly to please myself, and this one turned out pretty well.”

This is one of my favourite record covers for the very quality that Cooder pinpoints - the sense of storytelling and creation of an “alternate environment”. It’s a cinematic slice of pop culture that came about organically.

Cooder recorded Into the Purple Valley in a studio next door to a film lot that had fallen into disuse. He arranged for an old staff member to take him around the inactive lot and found his inspiration when he stumbled upon a pile of old painted sets. The now legendary guitarist, composer and producer proved to be a pretty resourceful guy, borrowing the car - a yellow 1939 Buick convertible - from his neighbor. He then cast his fetching wife Susan as the female talent.

It’s very DIY but Cooder is quick to credit the studio rain machine and seasoned lighting technicians for bringing it to life - “otherwise it just looks like nothing — a car and a flat painting of the sky.” If it perfectly evokes a pulpy old Hollywood movie, it’s probably because it was made during the industry’s dying gasps, when the equipment and know-how were yet to make way for special effects and new technologies.

The performance and outfits do a lot to further the story. Her summer hat, which she clutches nervously, immediately tells us that this was meant to be a different road trip entirely. And while she does little to conceal her nervousness, her husband makes a lame attempt to appear calm and in control. But if his posture doesn’t tip you off that he’s struggling to keep it together, his eyes certainly do. I can just hear him telling her that it’ll all be fine and to calm down in a slightly hysterical voice.

The inside cover shows the couple enjoying a more joyous moment.

I’m not sure if this is the happy ending after their harrowing car journey or a glimpse of the lovely couple in more innocent times, before they found themselves under the dark clouds of the Purple Valley.

This record cover from 1981 is a homage to Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (“The Lunch on the Grass”).

The large scale oil on canvas painting by Edouard Manet was finished in 1863 and caused instant controversy, due to the scandalous combination of a naked women next to two fully dressed men. Their casual, relaxed demeanor underscores the pervading sense of weirdness the canvas exudes - particularly for its era. While today it looks like a relatively tame juxtaposition, at the time it was a provocation to say the least. Of course, Le déjeuner sur l’herbe can now be found in the venerable Musée d’Orsay in Paris and is an important part of any syllabus discussing the modern art period.

Bow Wow Wow, meanwhile, are now little more than a footnote of the 1980’s New Wave movement. They were founded by Malcolm McLaren, former manager of the Sex Pistols and New York Dolls, to promote the New Romantic fashion lines he released with partner Vivienne Westwood. McLaren must be one of the great post-modern operators of the last fifty years, an artist and promoter that combined aggressive opportunism with a sharp eye for the next big thing. To put together this band he stole most of the lineup from Adam Ant and then auditioned vocalists to join as the lead singer. After many fruitless months he eventually discovered his vocalist in 14 year old Annabella Lwin, who was working behind the counter at a dry-cleaning shop. The band would go on to create an eccentric and noisy combination of 80’s pop and world music and today they are most remembered for their amazing cover version of “I Want Candy”.

Note Lwin’s nudity in the single cover above, because it was McLaren’s enthusiasm for showing his lead singer in the buff that would land the band in trouble. She was only 15 years old when the photography for the cover of See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over! Go Ape Crazy. was taken. Her outraged mother cried exploitation and involved Scotland Yard in an attempt to keep her daughter from leaving the country with McLaren. After all, who would let their underage child be sexualised just to sell records?

McLaren’s powers of persuasion resulted in a compromise, with Lwin able to remain in the band on the condition that she was not marketed as a “sex kitten”. An alternate cover was issued in the US and UK (while the offending cover art was still released in many major European markets).

Bow Wow Wow would attract further controversy for “referencing” African music a little too closely - with many suggesting that it came closer to plagiarism. And in more than one case you could accuse them of unoriginiality.

But the cover for See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang, Yeah. City All Over! Go Ape Crazy. is still considered a classic today. The composition and photography are beautiful and the performances and fashion perfectly update Manet’s iconic image. It also neatly encapsulates McLaren particular genius - in updating a once reviled but now canonised painting, he succeeds in refreshing its controversy. The viewer is again shocked at the woman’s presence in the picture, only this time because of her age.

Is it creepy? Brilliant? Both? Would it even raise eyebrows today?

The first time I saw this t-shirt it was being worn by one of the cool guys in school. I didn’t know anything about Sonic Youth but I did really want the shirt. Unfortunately there was an unwritten rule that if someone from school wore a band shirt first, that was it - it just wasn’t done to go buy your own copy and wear it around.

But I would be sorely tempted only a couple of months later. I was on a family trip overseas when I saw the exact same t-shirt for only six dollars at a garage sale in San Francisco. After guiltily purchasing it, the first thing I decided to do was familiarise myself with Sonic Youth, as it was another unwritten rule that you couldn’t wear a band shirt unless you were a fan of the band. So I purchased a second-hand copy of Dirty two days later and listened to it on high rotation on my discman. And then a funny thing happened - I got into the music.

Actually maybe it wasn’t that funny, as I was kind of determined. Having familiarised myself with the band, I wore my new Sonic Youth shirt shortly after my return to Sydney. The first three friends I saw immediately announced the same thing: “Coby’s got that shirt”. The inference was inescapable. I feigned surprised the first two times and then finally gave up. So the shirt was forever consigned to the dustbin of history, while the Dirty CD stayed on heavy rotation. It’s a perfect example of band promotional material doing exactly what it’s supposed to. It’s also a perfect example of why I didn’t get much action in high school.

But perhaps we should focus on Washing Machine, the 1995 release from Sonic Youth.

The polaroid photo featured on the cover was taken after the April 28, 1995 Lollapaloozas show at Amherst College in Amherst, MA. The boy’s shirts had been signed by the support act, Come. The polaroid was found on the floor and then presented to the band, who instantly recognised its potential but had no idea who was featured in the picture or who took it. They enlisted the help of MTV, who ran a news bulletin asking the boys’ permission for the image to be used as the next album cover.

The boys were never identified, so the band cropped off their faces and used the photo anyway. The fact that their identity remains a mystery poses some intriguing questions. As they are wearing Sonic Youth t-shirts, one would assume that they were pretty big Sonic Youth fans. So when Washing Machine came out, why didn’t they instantly recognise themselves as the talent gracing the cover? Did they know it was them but not think it important to come forward? Or were they Amish boys on a seditious, wild night out that can never own up for fear of being expunged from their community?

It’s an enigma wrapped in a mildly interesting riddle. In today’s online age the band would have identified the duo within a day at the most. So perhaps this tale should be treated as a telling reminder of how much things have changed.

But for me, this album cover will always have a different message. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a glimpse of an alternate teenage reality, where two guys can own and wear the same t-shirt with pride.

The gun featured on the cover for Foo Fighters self titled debut is the “XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol,” which was released in 1935 as a tie-in toy for the Buck Rogers comic strip and radio show.

The photo was taken by Grohl’s then wife, talented photographer Jennifer Youngblood, who is responsible for some iconic images of Grohl’s former band Nirvana.

Grohl has, or had, a fanboy-ish obsession with all things sci-fi. “Foo Fighter” is a term that was used by American fighter pilots in WWII to describe UFOs or mysterious ariel phenomena. This album was released by Capitol Records in association with his own label,  Roswell Records.

It’s all very mid-90’s and takes me back to a time when Scully was the sexiest woman in the world and the truth was almost certainly out there. After the considerable success of this album, in the next two years the Foo Fighters would record “Walking After You” for the The X-Files soundtrack and “A320″ for the Godzilla soundtrack. How endearingly geeky!

What I like about this cover is the treatment of the ray-gun. It doesn’t cash in on the object’s kitsch-value but instead presents the ray-gun as an artifact - a weapon from some bygone era now that only lives on in scratchy sepia-toned memories.

And for someone who still remembers reading about Cobain’s death in the newspapers and then putting up a couple of extra Nirvana posters on the wall, there’s also something meaningful about Grohl’s decision to put a toy gun on the cover. If only Kurt had been content with goofy plastic guns like Dave.

When Johnny Cash signed with Rick Rubin’s American Recordings label in 1992, it would mark the beginning of one of the most celebrated artistic resurrections in popular music. The resulting album, released in 1994, consists of spare, dark cover versions taken from a wildly eclectic American songbook.

When I look at the cover, the first word that comes to mind is biblical. Everything about the image is ominous and powerful, with Cash cast as both preacher and sinner. He would be perfect as the harbinger of doom in some spooky film.

For all its powerful evocation of dark Americana, the cover photography was taken in Australia during Cash’s 1992 tour with Kris Kristofferson. Photographer Andy Earl had intended to shoot Cash at a railway track but when the lighting wasn’t working he moved to an adjacent wheat field. The eerie dogs, with their inverse black and white colouring, just happened to run into frame and position themselves. Perhaps the wry look on Cash’s face is inspired by this series of serendipitous events - a hunch that things were finally looking up.

The one element of this cover that is no accident - the bold typography - would help to define Cash’s new brand moving forward.

On American III Cash is backstage, still going about the life of a gigging musician:

Until American IV sees the singer-songwriter being swallowed by the colour that defined him. Having earned his redemption the hard way, the man in black seems resigned to a meeting with his maker.

As the American Recordings series continued, Cash’s personal mythology and impending death would resonate powerfully, most famously in the video clip for his cover of Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt:

Cash wrote so much important music and for so long. So it seems only fitting that he would eventually be given the collaborators he needed to write the perfect farewell.

Holy god. The first thing that I thought when I saw this cover was: “what a fearsome thoroughbred.”

Photographer Jean Paul Goude took this photo in 1978 for a New York Magazine profile of model Grace Jones. The article (and the accompanying photographs) would help to transform her into a pop singer and gay icon. When Island Life - the punnily-titled compilation of her biggest singles for Island Records - was released in 1986, this image was pulled out of the bottom draw and dusted off to create a classic album cover.

Some more background on the original image has emerged with the release (the puns continue) of So Far So Goude, by Jean-Paul Goude with Patrick Mouries. At the time of the photo Goude was Jones’ lover and she was his muse. Before they fell out, they furthered each other’s career in a way neither could have imagined.

“Initially, she was flattered by all of my attention,” says Goude. “And she’s no dope - Grace is an opportunist and she knew my vision was good for her career. Initially, she let herself be taken over, but then she suspected that I had only fallen in love with her image.”

If you’re wondering how Jones’ body can do this pose, the simple answer is that it can’t. Goude employs what is technically referred to as “visual trickery”. Here’s how it was done:

Here’s a picture of somebody else trying the pose:

Describing the concept, Goude says “…unless you are extraordinarily supple, you cannot do this arabesque” (the ballet pose in the picture). “The main point is that Grace couldn’t do it, and that’s the basis of my entire work: creating a credible illusion.”

Apart from this album cover the only thing I previously knew about Jones was that she was good friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 80’s. It kind of makes sense – they both look as if they have emerged from an alternate reality where infants are breastfed steroids and the puny are used as toothpicks. 25 years later he’s the conservative Governor of California while she’s still drunkenly touring the world and releasing albums with cover art like this (2008’s Hurricane):

When it comes to being creative, most of us settle for a signature talent – say, drawing or juggling or composing dirty limericks. But Sam Beam (aka Iron and Wine) is one of those vexing all-rounders.

Not only did he record The Shephard’s Dog, which has introduced his music to a wider audience and received much acclaim, he’s also responsible for the striking cover art.

“I went to art school, wanting to be a painter,” he says, “and then I got into photography. Then it was movies, and I liked the images. One of the things that interested me in film was that I was communicating in images. That was something I did intuitively and could not even talk about until I started having to do interviews.”

He was content teaching college filmmaking when Sub Pop decided that his music should become much more than a hobby. Beam would go on to successfully escaped the “freak-folk” ghetto as his music matured and became at once more adventurous and accessible. This is the kind of album you can’t put on without someone asking who’s playing.

I really like the dog on the cover. There’s something about the pose that seems to perfectly capture the movement and gestures of a canine. We all love cool album covers but unless we live in a dorm, most of us don’t want them on our wall. But take the (solid) typography off this picture and I’d hang it in a second.

Here’s another painting from the same series:

This is “The Shepherd” that owns the dog. They both have those same creepy yellow round-eyes, probably because most people end up resembling their pets.

And while we’re on the subject, what is it about folk singers painting their own album covers anyway? As a singer, Bob Dylan makes a very good songwriter. As a painter, he makes a very good singer. Here’s the cover from his 10th (and some say worst) studio album, Self Portrait:

Hmmmmmm. Much handier with a paintbrush is serial offender Joni Mitchell:

Alright, art appreciation is over for the day. Time for group discussion - can anyone think of some other examples of musicians painting their own album covers?

For Bob Evans’ (aka Kevin Mitchell) third album, he took a decidedly different approach to the artwork. Goodnight, Bull Creek! alludes to his native suburb outside of Perth and his departure for new terrain. The artwork is a departure as well from his first two albums: Suburban Kid and Suburban Songbook.
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This striking piece of action photography heralds the third studio release from New York based post-punk act Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The new album It’s Blitz is a departure from their previous work, with more polish and dark hints of disco. Lead singer Karen O’s distinctive vocals are still the band’s signature and this cover art succeeds in capturing the tensions that make her so electric. As sexy as she as she is scary, you want to get her into bed even though you know she’ll eat you’ll alive.

Apart from the sheer beauty of the photography, this cover appears destined for iconic status because it conveys so much with so little. The aggressive fury in the fist plays in stark contrast to the sensuous colours and textures of the egg.

You could see this as a kind of boring feminist/female empowerment image but I don’t think that would be doing it justice. I think this image speaks more about destructive impulses and given the essentially feminine and fertile connotations of eggs, perhaps self-destruction. The chipped, unkept nails say sexy and screw-loose at the same time (once again echoing Karen O’s vocals).

If you want to make a cake, you’ve got to break some eggs. When I look at this cover I think of so many women I know – the one’s that revel in life’s messiness and extremes; that sometimes break things just to see if they can. I’m also reminded that I need more protein in my diet.

While we’re at it, here’s the cover for the album’s first single:

How do you take an album cover and distill it down to a single simple image. As Heath from Illumination Ink explains

“It’s basically a set of modernist re-workings of classic album covers, where the album title has been distilled into a simple little black and white pictogram which acts as the artwork.
So far the collection has 25 hits and misses. “

Below are the 25 albums in their full glory.
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