3 album covers in our archive
Behind the Covers currently documents 3 The Who album covers from 1967 to 1971. Read together, the entries show how the artwork changed from release to release, with each story identifying the designers, photographers, source material, and design decisions behind the sleeve.
Cover evolution
A grey concrete slab juts out of a coal slag heap, and four young men stand around it like primates confronting a mystery. The truth behind that pillar involves Stanley Kubrick, empty film canisters, and the fact that only one member of The Who could actually pee.
Mike McInnerney designed and painted The Who's Tommy sleeve as a blue, diamond-cut sphere meant to suggest confinement and release. His original artwork did not include the band; small photographs were added after the record company asked that The Who appear on the cover.
The Who turned an album about pirate radio and pop commerce into a record sleeve that behaved like advertising itself: Pete Townshend sold deodorant, Roger Daltrey sat in a bath of cold Heinz beans, and the joke became one of rock's sharpest pieces of Pop Art.
