3 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 3 album covers documented under the "found photograph" design theme, spanning the 1950s, 1970s. These covers sit within the punk, rock, metal, folk tradition and feature work by Ramones, Led Zeppelin, Elvis Presley. 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.
Four guys, one brick wall, and a $125 photograph that rewrote what an album cover could be. The Ramones barely sold a copy in 1976, yet the picture they posed for has been copied more than almost any other in rock. Here is how blank stares and ripped jeans became the look of punk.
A picture frame holding a stooped old man bears no band name, no title, nothing, just a record so confident it dared customers to recognize it. For fifty years everyone called the image a Victorian oil painting. In 2023, the truth turned out to be stranger, and far more human.
A young man caught mid-howl, mouth wide, eyes shut, hammering an acoustic guitar in pink and green block letters. For nearly fifty years the wrong photographer got the credit for one of rock's most copied covers. Here's who really shot it, and why The Clash stole it.