Nirvana’s Nevermind, Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors and more — the art that goes into an album cover is often as pivotal and iconic as the songs on the records themselves.
As such, Billboard has ranked the 100 Best Album Covers of All Time, spanning from the 1930s to the present day, in order to give flowers to the best album art concepts thought the decades. But which album do you think has the best cover?
Album cover art came to be in 1939 when Alex Steinweiss, a graphic designer who worked at Columbia Records, came to the realization that records have the potential to sell more copies if there was an interesting design on the cover. Steinweiss’ hypothesis was correct, and was put into practice in the years following. Smash Hits by Rodgers & Hart was the first to receive the treatment in 1939, and recording artists thereafter followed suit.
The 1970s is the most represented decade on Billboard‘s list, with inclusions from Janis Joplin (Pearl, 1971), Funkadelic (One Nation Under a Groove, 1978), Bob Marley & the Wailers (Rastaman Vibration, 1976), Pink Floyd (The Dark Side of the Moon, 1973) and more. By the 1980s, pop divas entered the mix, with entries from Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Madonna and Grace Jones on our ranking.
And yes, present-day albums earned their respective spots on the list, with Indigo from BTS’ RM, Japanese Breakfast’s Jubilee, SZA’s SOS and more representing for the 2020s. But which album cover is your all-time favorite? Vote in our poll below.
