Best CD covers of all time.

There are several iconic CD covers that always stick in your head for one reason or another. I want to explore the different meanings and interpretations on some famous album covers to identify why they were such a significant importance in the art work of CD covers.

The first CD cover I will look at is Van Halen's album 1984. This was quite popular as it shows something you wouldn't expect, something that would shock an audience and spark up conversation. It's of a baby/toddler with angel wings smoking a cigarette. Obviously, this isn't what we expect a young child to be doing, we expect them to be immature and playing with toys etc. This obviously made the band and album popular as it touched on some boundaries for e.g. religion and parenting.



The next album cover I will look at it is ACDC's Back in Black album. This was the first album released after Bon Scott's death (the lead singer of the band). They decided to go simple by having the album black and the name of the band and album faintly outlined on the top and the middle of the cover. This implies darkness or stereotypically rock/heavy metal music is often seen with the colour black. The album nicely fits the genre of music that the band creates.




This album cover caused a lot of debating within the band as it took them from being Blondie to just Debbie Harry and her band. The title was even written in what looks like pink lipstick, she's the only one wearing something different to the rest of the band, almost isolating herself from the band trying to show her dominance. In the end the band parted from their manager as he was the one who suggested the idea for the album cover.





The last album cover I am going to look at is Rammstein's Mutter (mother). This could easily be linked because it is unborn foetus (inside the mother) and it could be implied that the title is from the babies voice. It was kind of a turning point for the band as before this they were not taken as a 'serious' band and they wanted people to understand the messages they were giving out and the importance of some of their songs. It's pretty difficult as a English person to understand their messages unless they've been translated for you because all their songs are sung in German. However, this has not stopped the popularity of the band in fact the amount of people who like and support the band in the UK is growing each year. The music on the album is known to be haunting so they wanted a picture to match their theme and as awful as that sounds because it's only a baby the fact it's an actual picture of an unborn child is quite haunting so I feel this album hit all the targets they set out to do.