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What is your favorite album cover of all time?

May 08, 2013

Dark Side of the Moon
Storm Thorgerson's iconic sleeve for Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.
Courtesy of Capitol Records

Storm Thorgerson, the artist behind countless famous album covers including Pink Floyd's iconic Dark Side of the Moon, recently passed away. When we heard the news here at The Current, we got to thinking—what are our favorite album covers? Here are some picks from several Current hosts and staffers. Peruse their choices, and let us know your faves in the comments below!

Andrea Swensson, Local Current Blogger


Ok, this is kind of a weird story, but that's also why I like it. My dad is a big Todd Rundgren fan. His favorite LP to marvel over has always been the A Wizard, A True Star release, which has psychedelic and bizarre graphic design on both the cover and the gatefold, and he especially loved pondering this weird floating sandwich that appeared inside the gatefold, hovering over Todd's head as he stared into a mirror. The rest of the image is reflected in the mirror, but not the sandwich. How could that be? What did it mean? Well, almost 30 years after the album was first released, I got the chance to take my dad to see Todd at the State Theater. We were able to meet him afterward, and my dad had only one question for him: "Can you explain the sandwich?" Todd happily did. It was one of the most surreal and satisfying experiences I've ever shared with my father, and because of that I'll treasure this crazy album artwork forever.

"I wanted the art work to look really different. I wanted it to represent the East Bay and where we come from, because there's a lot of artists in the East Bay scene that are just as important as the music. So we talked to Richie Bucher. He did a 7-inch cover for this band called Raooul that I really liked. He's also been playing in bands in the East Bay for years. There's pieces of us buried on the album cover. There's one guy with his camera up in the air taking a picture with a beard. He took pictures of bands every weekend at Gilman's. The robed character that looks like the Mona Lisa is the woman on the cover of the first Black Sabbath album. Angus Young is in there somewhere too. The graffiti reading "Twisted Dog Sisters" refers to these two girls from Berkeley. I think the guy saying "The fritter, fat boy" was a reference to a local cop."

So now that you've checked out our selections... what are your favorite album covers?