Top Best Album Covers

Now that you can easily create your Top Best Album of All Times, let's have a look at the covers. Rolling Stones Magazine has created a list of their Best album covers of all time. It dates back a little bit as it was published in the 90's : you should probably add a few more recent covers. However, what can we learn from that ranking?

When you're good, you're good!

Sergeant Pepper is the #1, the cover is fabulous. But Sergeant Pepper is also ranked best Rock album of all times. Obviously, there was a incredible gathering of talents around that album. The very well known cover was created by Peter Blake and his wife Jan Hawortt. It is a big collage of life size models including more than 70 famous people of all kind : Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Oscar Wilde, Simon Burroughs, Jesus, Gandhi, etc...

This cover won a Grammy award in 1967, the year the album was released. According to the legend, Paul Mc Cartney selected another cover and the final choice was only due to the insistance of his friend the Art dealer Robert Fraser.

Once again, with the "white album" ranking #3,  two albums f the Beatles are among the Top 10. The rule is : whatever the ranking concerning music may be, The Beatles are several times in the Top 10!

1967/1977 : The glorious decade.

Most of the best covers are ranging from 1967 to 1977 : the Top 13 is only made of album released during this decade. To be fair, it is easier to reach a beautiful result with a vinyl size cover than with a CD size. Moreover a lot of the selected covers are covers of great albums which also appear in the Top Rock album of all times.

What to put on a cover?

The best thing to do is to avoid the classic picture of the performers. Out of the Top 20, 16 covers are pure work of art, wether graphic (#2, "Never mind the bollocks", no picture or drawing at all, just the title), wether paintings ( #10, "The Velvet Underground ands Nico" a painting by Andy Warhol!), wether pictures of totally unexpected things (#19, "Nothing's shocking", two naked ladies with their hair in fire!), wether nothing at all ( #3, "The white album").

What is your ranking? Create it easily and share it with friends!