2 album covers in our archive
Black Sabbath is featured in Behind the Covers' archive with 2 album covers from the 1970s. Released across Vertigo Records and Vertigo / Warner Bros. labels, the artwork sits in the metal, rock tradition. Each cover is documented in our archive with design notes covering photography, controversial, iconic, band photo, infrared, gothic. Below you'll find the full story behind each Black Sabbath cover — designers, photographers, label history, and the visual choices that defined the release.
Keith Macmillan's War Pigs concept became iconic mismatch when label changed album title to Paranoid last-minute. Roger Brown posed as the fluorescent warrior in Black Park for heavy metal's most confusing cover.
A mysterious cloaked figure before a 15th-century watermill, photographed with color-inverted film that transforms a picturesque English countryside into something genuinely evil — released on Friday the 13th, the album essentially invented heavy metal.
