3 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 3 album covers documented under the "pre existing artwork" design theme, spanning the 1970s, 1980s. These covers sit within the rock, metal, alternative, folk tradition and feature work by Guns N' Roses, Joy Division, Led Zeppelin. 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.
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 blizzard of white lines on a black field, this 1979 debut carries no band name, no title, nothing. The shape is actually a stack of radio pulses from the first pulsar ever found, and the man who plotted them had no idea his data had become one of rock's most copied images.
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.