7 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 7 album covers documented under the "album artwork" design theme, spanning the 1970s, 1980s. These covers sit within the pop, soul, rock, punk, experimental, folk, jazz tradition and feature work by Sade, Pere Ubu, Kate Bush, Siouxsie and the Banshees and others. Each entry below includes the cover artwork, the designers and photographers behind it, and a short story about the visual choices that defined the release.
A restrained portrait of Sade Adu introduced the band's sophisticated debut, turning a single face into one of the defining visual signatures of 1980s pop.
Pere Ubu's 1978 debut used an unsettling, spare visual language to introduce one of American rock's strangest and most inventive bands, whose music transformed Cleveland's industrial atmosphere into art-rock.
Kate Bush's 1978 debut arrived with a fantastical sleeve that presented a striking new voice in British pop. The original UK cover's kite imagery was part of the album's introduction to the world.
An underwater photograph turned a London swimming pool into an uncanny scene for Siouxsie and the Banshees' debut. Photographer Paul Wakefield brought Siouxsie Sioux's unsettling idea to life for The Scream in 1978.
The black-and-white cover of Joni Mitchell's Hejira combines a portrait with a road landscape, turning the 1976 album's themes of travel, solitude and self-examination into a memorable visual composition.
Joni Mitchell's own cover art turns a manicured suburban lawn into a strange procession, echoing the album's fascination with privilege, confinement and hidden tensions.
A black sleeve, vivid green circular image and silhouetted hand introduce John Martyn's Solid Air, a record of extraordinary depth and shifting textures.