The 18 Greatest Album Covers of All Time

Pop-art collages, a working zip, a pulsar plot and a baby underwater. Some of these sleeves outlived the records inside them. Which will win?

1

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Peter Blake's 1967 collage of 57 photographed faces around the Beatles in satin uniforms, and the most imitated sleeve ever made.

1000pts

2

The Dark Side of the Moon

Storm Thorgerson's prism refracting a white beam, with no band name and no title anywhere on the front.

912pts

3

London Calling

Pennie Smith's blurred shot of Paul Simonon destroying his bass, in Elvis-pastiche pink and green lettering.

699pts

4

Unknown Pleasures

Peter Saville's white radio-pulse plot on black, with no text at all on either side of the sleeve.

643pts

5

Sticky Fingers

Andy Warhol's 1971 Rolling Stones sleeve with a working zip, which scratched every copy stacked behind it.

577pts

6

The Velvet Underground & Nico

Warhol's 1967 banana, originally a peel-off sticker with pink fruit underneath, rated the greatest sleeve of all time by Billboard.

500pts

7

Aladdin Sane

Brian Duffy's 1973 portrait of Bowie with the red-and-blue lightning bolt across his face.

500pts

8

Wish You Were Here

Two businessmen shaking hands while one of them burns, shot with a real stuntman on fire.

500pts

9

Bitches Brew

Mati Klarwein's 1970 double-portrait painting for Miles Davis, jazz's most striking sleeve.

409pts

10

Abbey Road

Six frames shot in ten minutes on a north London crossing that is now a listed tourist site.

300pts

11

Nevermind

A four-month-old baby underwater chasing a dollar bill on a fish hook, 1991.

300pts

12

To Pimp a Butterfly

Kendrick Lamar's 2015 black-and-white crowd shot on the White House lawn.

300pts

13

Led Zeppelin

The 1969 debut's black-and-white photograph of the Hindenburg burning, with the band name in thin type.

300pts

14

Parallel Lines

Blondie in black and white stripes with Debbie Harry in white, 1978.

300pts

15

Rumours

Herbert Worthington's 1977 shot of Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood mid-pose, in full Fleetwood Mac costume.

300pts

16

Born to Run

Eric Meola's 1975 shot of Springsteen leaning on Clarence Clemons, split across the gatefold.

300pts

17

Are You Experienced

Karl Ferris's fisheye photograph of the Jimi Hendrix Experience in yellow and orange, 1967.

167pts

18

Never Mind the Bollocks

Jamie Reid's ransom-note yellow and pink, designed to look like it was cut out of a newspaper.

167pts