Growing up in the 70s and 80s as I did, I came to appreciate album covers. Of course, the music on the record mattered, but often my first impression of an album or a band came from the album cover. I think any Gen Xer can related to this perspective. Of course, oftentimes the music didn’t meet the expectation of greatness created by the cover. However, every once and a while a great cover introduced a great album’s worth of music. As I have gotten older, certain album covers create a sense of nostalgia for me, bringing forth the period of my life when that album got a lot of playing time. In those days, we listened to albums, not songs.

Here are a few album covers that I still love that are also great albums.

I started listening to Steely Dan in college and haven’t stopped. During my junior year abroad, when I lived in a tiny dorm room in Tapton Hall in Sheffield, England, I listened a lot to this album along with their Katy Lied album. Seeing the cover brings me back without fail to being 20 years old again. If I could have this cover hanging on my wall, I’d have it. Hard to pick a favorite track, but Your Gold Teeth is up there. Hat tip to Phish for playing Showbiz Kids as walk out music after the show I was lucky to see in 2023 at the Hollywood Bowl.

This album cover was shocking to me when I first saw it in elementary school. It is risque and has a lot going on beyond the obvious. The music on this record is sublime. My favorite track growing up was Freewill, but after seeing Rush live, Natural Science is the new number one in my book.

I love the red framing of this cover image. I also love the dancing terrapins. It is unique and its pure Grateful Dead. My favorite track is the first Dead song I fell in love with, Estimated Prophet.