My Top 10 Favourite Album Covers - Part 3

This is it! The end of my list! I have really enjoyed creating this list and writing about all these albums that I love so much. Read on to find out which album is my #1! If you haven't read Part 1 or Part 2 be sure to check those out first!

4. Pink Floyd - Animals

Pink Floyd’s Animals is my favourite of all their records. It showcases the mellow acoustic side of Pink Floyd. The concept for the album cover was originally done by Hipgnosis, the design group behind the previous Pink Floyd album covers. The concept for the original cover was of a child walking in on his parents having “animal like” sex. Bassist, Roger Waters came up with an alternative cover idea and decided to showcase the Battersea Power Station near Clapham Common. This was a building he frequently drove by and felt was appropriate for the cover.  The first few sessions photographing the building with the iconic flying pig were unsuccessful and in the final product, a pig was superimposed into the shot. On a funny side note, as a kid, not knowing what this album was, I was convinced it was the Willy Wonka’s factory from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I don’t know how that idea got into my head!

3. Cream - Disraeli Gears

This album ties into the same psychedelic rock category that The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Are You Experienced (#8 on my list) album fit into. In fact, I was surprised to find out that this album wasn’t designed by Karl Ferris, but in fact, Australian artist, Martin Sharp. Not only did he design the cover art, but he even wrote music with Eric Clapton, one of the songs being Tales of Brave Ulysses which was featured on Disraeli Gears! He and Eric Clapton even lived in the same building! The only way to describe this album cover is that it looks like what you would assume an acid trip looks like. I love it (the album cover, not acid)!

2. Dave Matthews Band - Big Whiskey & The GrooGrux King

This album cover is awesome. It was even drawn by Dave Matthews himself! The scene on the cover is of a Mardi Gras style parade in New Orleans. The reason this cover is so high on my list is because when I found out Dave made it himself, it really inspired me to get into drawing a lot more and playing with ink and lines. It has been a huge influence in the canvases I create today. This album was my introduction to The Dave Matthews Band, and since I discovered it, I have become a huge fan! Dave also created the cover for his latest album Away From The World. This cover is just as neat to look at as Big Whiskey & The GrooGrux King and flaunts how Dave has many talents other than his signature guitar playing and voice. I watched an interview with Dave earlier this year and in it, he said that he did not add nipples to the naked women on Away From The World, but whenever he signs a fan’s copy he adds them in! I thought that was pretty funny! Give this album a listen, you won’t regret it!

1. Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

What do Bob Dylan, Lewis Carroll, Edgar Allen Poe, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, Carl Gustav Jung, Diana Dors, W.C. Fields, Issy Bonn, Marilyn Monroe, Aldous Huxley, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Aleister Crowley, Sigmund Freud, Oscar Wilde, Karl Marx, Sir Robert Peel, H.G. Wells, Stan Laurel, Marlon Brando, Lenny Bruce and Oliver Hardy have in common? They were all featured on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, my all time favourite album cover! Are you even surprised? This is everyone’s favourite! An interesting fact about this album is that John Lennon wanted to include Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler as members of The Lonely Hearts Club Band, but this idea was rejected for very obvious reasons. If you haven’t heard this album, stop what you are doing and go listen to it. Thanks for reading, now go take a trip on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Bandwagon!