35 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 35 album covers documented under the "controversial" design theme, spanning the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s. These covers sit within the alternative, indie, metal, country, r&b, pop, rock, hip-hop, punk, electronic, jazz, funk tradition and feature work by Pixies, Danzig, Morgan Wallen, SZA 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 topless flamenco dancer arches against a crumbling wall, a crucifix glinting beside her, a torn movie poster behind. Pixies' debut buries Catholic imagery, a broken guitar neck, and a strange tonal reversal into one sepia frame. The story of how it was built above a London pub in a single day is stranger than the photo.
The demonic skull adorning Danzig's debut was drawn by Glenn Danzig himself, but lifted from Marvel comic artist Michael Golden's cover for Crystar #8. The minimalist white skull on black background became one of metal's most iconic covers without any text or band identification.
Morgan Wallen's courtroom sketch-inspired cover transforms legal trouble into art, creating an unprecedented album aesthetic that toes the line between accountability and artistic statement.
SZA transforms into a shimmering insect creature for this deluxe reissue cover, shot by Cassidy Meyers. The bug persona originated from her Hot Ones appearance where she quipped about being 'tired of not being a bug.'
Carpenter's sixth studio album cover sparked controversy for its resemblance to a 2015 French magazine photo featuring model Tiffany Collier photographed by Bruno Juminer.
A striking black-and-white portrait shows Swift with newspaper-style text covering half her face, embodying her transformation from country sweetheart to defiant pop star after public controversies.
Ozzy's solo debut cover features the Prince of Darkness clutching crosses in a dramatic studio portrait that launched his post-Sabbath reinvention. Shot by Fin Costello at Metropolitan Wharf in London's Wapping district, the theatrical imagery perfectly captured the album's dark comic book aesthetic.
The stark close-up of Cash's intense gaze captured the raw authenticity of his legendary prison performance. Jim Marshall was the only official photographer present at the historic January 13, 1968 concert.
Lady Gaga's polarizing motorcycle-fusion cover sparked immediate controversy with fans calling it a "cheap Photoshop job." Shot by Nick Knight with the Haus of Gaga team, the image merged Gaga's head and arms with a custom motorcycle called "Predator."
The Rolling Stones' return to their blues roots sparked a six-month delay when both UK and US record labels rejected Barry Feinstein's original toilet cover art, forcing a controversial compromise.
One of the most infamous album covers ever created, featuring a 12-foot plywood Satan cutout designed by Ira Louvin and burning kerosene-soaked tires in a rock quarry. The brothers nearly got burned during the photo shoot when kerosene-soaked rocks exploded.
George Hardie transformed Sam Shere's iconic 1937 Hindenburg disaster photograph into a haunting stipple illustration using a technical pen, creating one of rock's most powerful visual statements for just £60.
The photograph hiding behind Jay-Z's iconic Black Album cover was actually taken two years earlier for The Blueprint, showing the rapper in a New York Jets jersey before being heavily edited into the ghostly, fading-to-black image that became one of hip-hop's most recognizable covers.
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 provocative fisheye-lens photograph taken spontaneously at a Seattle condo during the album's recording sessions. The image of Lisa Hughes in a jacuzzi became one of the most iconic alternative metal covers of the 1990s.
A stark black pentagram on matte cover sparked Christian outrage and landed Motley Crue on ABC News. Photographer Barry Levine conceived the controversial design that defined 1980s metal rebellion.
Revolutionary spray-painted graffiti silhouette by LA street artist Joey Krebs creates one of rap-metal's most iconic covers. The raised-fist figure embodies Rage's political defiance through raw urban art.
Lil Nas X floats nude in this heavenly digital dreamscape shot by Charlotte Rutherford and designed by Pilar Zeta. The psychedelic cover transforms John Stephens' Genesis II artwork into a queer-coded Garden of Eden, sparking the rapper's bold artistic transformation and becoming one of 2021's most talked-about album covers.
Dutch tattoo artist Henk Schiffmacher designed the tribal artwork while filmmaker Gus Van Sant shot the band portraits for this iconic alternative rock cover. The stylized tongues reaching toward a single rose merged body art culture with grunge aesthetics.
East Bay artist Richie Bucher created this chaos-filled cartoon depicting dogs and monkeys flinging excrement from Berkeley rooftops, working only from the album title and his childhood associations with the word 'dookie.'
Death Grips' breakthrough album features a stark black-and-white photograph of drummer Zach Hill's erect penis, creating one of the most controversial and confrontational cover images in hip-hop history.
Jimi Hendrix's double album sparked international controversy with its provocative cover featuring 19 nude women photographed by David Montgomery. The image was so scandalous that many countries banned it, forcing alternative covers to be created for different markets.
Nirvana's final studio album features anatomical collages by artist Robert Fisher that Walmart and Kmart refused to stock, forcing the band to create sanitized alternate covers for major retailers while the original became a statement of artistic integrity.
The Prodigy's breakthrough album cover featured a controversial crab design that record stores initially refused to stock. Designer Alex Jenkins created the unsettling crustacean imagery that perfectly matched the band's aggressive electronic sound.
The cross of skulls you know was never the first choice. Guns N' Roses wanted a robot rapist on the front of their debut, until America's record stores said no. The replacement began as a tattoo on Axl Rose's right arm.
A man in a woman's sequinned thrift-store jacket, eyes closed, lost in music he was listening to as the shutter clicked. Columbia's bosses hated it, thinking he looked like a lounge singer. Jeff Buckley overruled them all.
Sam Jones shot hundreds of photos of Chicago before Lawrence Azerrad found the perfect Marina City image. Azerrad removed neighboring buildings to focus on the twin towers, creating an iconic cover that fans now call the Wilco Towers.
Kanye West sold one of 2013's most talked-about albums in a clear plastic case with a single piece of red tape slapped on it. There was no cover, on purpose. One collaborator called it an 'open casket' for the dying CD. Behind that emptiness sat a discarded George Condo painting, a scrapped title, and a charge of theft.
Artist Divya Srinivasan created the intricate illustrated cover depicting Illinois themes including Lincoln, Al Capone, the Sears Tower, and originally Superman—until copyright concerns led to multiple versions with balloons and eventually an empty sky.
Two businessmen shake hands on a sun-baked studio backlot, and one of them is on fire. Pink Floyd asked Storm Thorgerson how to picture people who hide their true feelings, and he answered: 'Set a man on fire.' A real stuntman, fifteen takes, and a singed moustache later, here's the result.
A bare-skinned baby with a towering afro sits alone on white, and for 17 years nobody knew who he was. The mystery child on The Notorious B.I.G.'s 1994 debut was paid $150 for a two-hour shoot, and his face became one of hip-hop's most argued-over images.
A blazing red square hides a secret behind a wall of pixels: George Condo's phoenix painting, deliberately built by Kanye West to get banned. The story of how a nude monster with a polka-dot tail and no arms sparked a retail war and a Nirvana comparison.
A black-and-white house party erupts on the White House lawn, dollar bills fanned in fists, a baby cradled in the crowd, and a dead judge sprawled at everyone's feet. Kendrick Lamar's 2015 photograph turned the seat of American power into a stage for the kids he grew up with in Compton.
A single yellow banana on white, with an instruction to peel it. Andy Warhol's design for The Velvet Underground's 1967 debut sold poorly, sparked lawsuits decades later, and was once called the best album cover ever made.
A four-month-old baby swims naked toward a dollar bill on a fishhook, and decades later that baby would sue the band. The story behind Nirvana's 1991 cover runs from a TV program on water births to a censorship fight Kurt Cobain won with a single outrageous sentence.