Album Art-The Stories Behind Music's Iconic Album Covers

Charlie and Adam Yoe
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Album Art-The  Stories Behind Music's Iconic Album Covers-takes a deep dive into the history of iconic album cover art. Images and additional information on Rolling Stones albums may be found at https://iorr.org/albums/. Find album art images at discogs.com by searching the album title. Look for a new episode each Friday.

  1. On the Beach--Neil Young | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    5D AGO

    On the Beach--Neil Young | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    Send a text Want to make your family happy?  Take them to the beach. So why does this beach have a buried Cadillac, empty lawn chairs, warm Coors, and a man staring at the ocean like he’s already lost the future? This album cover looks relaxed.  It isn’t. It was staged piece by piece on Santa Monica sand by Neil Young and designer Gary Burden at the exact moment success stopped working and grief caught up. Yet both named it as tehir favorite cover. Grab a copy and listen along with us.  Questions, comments, recommendations?  We’d love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com .

    36 min
  2. Balance--Van Halen | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    FEB 13

    Balance--Van Halen | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    Send a text  What does a medieval chess match with Death, a Bible verse about divine silence, and a pair of naked conjoined twins on a seesaw have to do with Van Halen? This album started life as The Seventh Seal—inspired by Bergman, Revelation, and Eddie Van Halen’s search for meaning—before becoming Balance, one of the band’s most unsettling and revealing statements. Glenn Wexler takes us inside the abandoned concepts, the androgynous child model, and the image that perfectly captured a band joined at the hip and pulling each other apart. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We’d love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com .

    38 min
  3. Golliwog--billy woods | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    FEB 6

    Golliwog--billy woods | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    Send a text This album cover drops a deeply racist caricature into a quiet patch of woods and dares you to look away. It’s not playful. It’s not ironic. It’s a confrontation—one rooted in Victorian children’s books, minstrel imagery, and a slur that drifted from nursery rhyme to cultural wound. When billy woods resurrects the Golliwog, he isn’t reclaiming it—he’s freezing it in place and forcing us to reckon with what it has always been. The doll on this cover looks at you as you look at it. And it sees you. refuses to look away. This is a photograph that feels more like evidence than art and we have the story.Grab a copy and listen along with us as we trace the long, disturbing journey of the Golliwog—from toy store to public domain to abandoned railroad tracks—and unpack one of the most unsettling album covers of the last decade. Questions, comments, recommendations? We’d love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com  or check our Spotify Song List with a song from each album we’ve covered.

    41 min
  4. Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely--Frank Sinatra | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    JAN 30

    Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely--Frank Sinatra | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    Send a text This album won the first Grammy for best album cover--a painted face, half in shadow.  A red clown’s nose. One restrained tear. This episode is about how Frank Sinatra turned private devastation into controlled art. We unpack the sad-clown imagery and the way shadow splits the performer from the man who feels. This album isn’t about heartbreak in progress, its about its aftermath—about resignation, memory, and carrying loss with dignity. Sinatra is the curator, conductor, and a conceptual artist who understood that sadness doesn’t need to be explained, only framed. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We’d love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

    41 min
  5. Hotel California--The Eagles | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    JAN 23

    Hotel California--The Eagles | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    Send a text They perched on a cherry picker over Sunset Boulevard at rush hour, chasing a sliver of dying daylight to photograph a hotel you weren’t even supposed to see from the street. That alone should tell you Hotel California was never going to be just another album cover. The Beverly Hills Hotel looks warm and welcoming—until you learn why Don Henley wanted it shot in the gloaming, that eerie nowhere-hour between day and night when glamour curdles into something darker. The Eagles wanted “faded glory, loss of innocence, and decadence,” and boy, did they get it. There’s the neon sign that isn’t neon, the lawsuit that vanished when everyone realized business was booming, and—of course—the mysterious woman in the second-story window who has fueled fan theories ranging from witchy woman to accidental ghost. Was she an omen, a metaphor, or just an extra with very good timing? Check out any time you like—but you may never look at this cover the same way again. Grab a copy and listen along with us.  Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com.

    40 min
  6. In the Right Place--Dr. John | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    JAN 16

    In the Right Place--Dr. John | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    Send a text  A sun that eats planets. A hippie demigod on a moon throne. Winged dogs chasing nursery-rhyme fugitives. And yes—two cupcake bottoms staring straight back at you. Dr. John’s In the Right Place isn’t just an album cover; it’s a psychedelic scavenger hunt through the swampy subconscious of New Orleans. Artist James Flournoy Holmes built a whole universe around the Night Tripper—equal parts voodoo magic, cosmic mischief, and bayou funk—and somehow it all makes sense once the music starts spinning. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We’d love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com .

    32 min
  7. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap--AC/DC | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    JAN 9

    Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap--AC/DC | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    Send a text What happens when a band known for raw, straight-ahead rock hands a surrealist design outfit a title borrowed from a cartoon villain? You get a cover that looks like a crime scene assembled by people who weren’t entirely sure what crimes actually look like. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap is equal parts menace, mischief, and make-believe — a stitched-together fever dream that shouldn’t work, but absolutely does. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations?  We’d love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com  or check our Spotify Song List with a song from each album we’ve covered: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2NrDU39yE9CJcHU6YJT8jj?si=Y1JAE4LWTDmKEDE9QGlB2A&pi=ly2xwE-ERRu-2

    33 min
  8. Absolutely Do Not Lick This Album-The Pom Poms | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    JAN 2

    Absolutely Do Not Lick This Album-The Pom Poms | The Story Behind the Album Cover Art

    Send a text What do you get when four Wyoming college kids mix Moog synthesizers, LSD blotter paper, a vending machine that hasn’t stocked Pom Poms since 1959, and a design studio they made up on the spot? You get the only album in history that sparked campus “lick parties,” triggered health-department warnings, and shipped with a tongueprint no one can agree on. This is Absolutely Do Not Lick This Album—the psychedelic hoax that tasted like freedom and regret at the same time. Grab a copy—just don’t lick it—and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We’d love to hear from you at AlbumArtTheCoverStories@gmail.com .

    44 min
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Album Art-The  Stories Behind Music's Iconic Album Covers-takes a deep dive into the history of iconic album cover art. Images and additional information on Rolling Stones albums may be found at https://iorr.org/albums/. Find album art images at discogs.com by searching the album title. Look for a new episode each Friday.

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