Raymond Pettibon's stark black-and-white ink illustration — based on a photograph of witnesses from the Moors Murders case — features a speech bubble about stealing, killing, and hitting the road. The confrontational art was a statement: no aesthetic sanitizing for a major label.
The cover features a stark, black-and-white ink illustration by artist Raymond Pettibon (born Raymond Ginn, brother of Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn). The drawing depicts a man and woman wearing sunglasses in a style that evokes 1960s film noir or comic book panels. A speech bubble emerging from the woman reads: "I stole my sister's boyfriend. It was all whirlwind, heat, and flash. Within a week we killed my parents and hit the road."
The image was based on a real photograph — specifically, a news photograph of Maureen Hindley and David Smith, who were key witnesses in the Moors Murders case in Manchester, England, during the mid-1960s. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley tortured and murdered five children between 1963 and 1965 in one of Britain's most horrifying criminal cases. Pettibon's use of the witnesses' image — rather than the killers themselves — added a layer of complexity: the people depicted are not the murderers but people adjacent to the horror, complicit observers.
Pettibon's style — bold, expressive ink drawings with sardonic, literary text — had been central to Southern California punk aesthetics since the late 1970s. He created iconic flyers and album covers for Black Flag (his brother's band), the Minutemen, and other SST Records acts. His work draws from a vast range of sources: baseball, surfing, American literature, pornography, religion, and true crime. He has been described as the most important visual artist to emerge from the punk movement.
Goo was Sonic Youth's major label debut (they moved from SST to DGC/Geffen), and the choice to use Pettibon's confrontational artwork was a statement of intent — the band would not sanitize their aesthetic for a major label audience. The album's themes of violence, celebrity obsession, and American darkness are perfectly reflected in Pettibon's unsettling image.
The cover helped introduce Pettibon's work to a wider audience beyond the punk underground. He went on to become one of the most celebrated American artists of his generation, with major exhibitions at the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and galleries worldwide. His work has sold for millions at auction. The Goo cover remains one of the most striking examples of fine art applied to a commercial music release and helped establish Sonic Youth's visual identity as intellectually rigorous and confrontational.