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They perched on a cherry picker over Sunset Boulevard at rush hour, chasing a sliver of dying daylight to photograph a hotel you weren’t even supposed to see from the street. That alone should tell you Hotel California was never going to be just another album cover.

The Beverly Hills Hotel looks warm and welcoming—until you learn why Don Henley wanted it shot in the gloaming, that eerie nowhere-hour between day and night when glamour curdles into something darker. The Eagles wanted “faded glory, loss of innocence, and decadence,” and boy, did they get it.

There’s the neon sign that isn’t neon, the lawsuit that vanished when everyone realized business was booming, and—of course—the mysterious woman in the second-story window who has fueled fan theories ranging from witchy woman to accidental ghost. Was she an omen, a metaphor, or just an extra with very good timing?

Check out any time you like—but you may never look at this cover the same way again.

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Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com.

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A sun that eats planets. A hippie demigod on a moon throne. Winged dogs chasing nursery-rhyme fugitives. And yes—two cupcake bottoms staring straight back at you. Dr. John’s In the Right Place isn’t just an album cover; it’s a psychedelic scavenger hunt through the swampy subconscious of New Orleans. Artist James Flournoy Holmes built a whole universe around the Night Tripper—equal parts voodoo magic, cosmic mischief, and bayou funk—and somehow it all makes sense once the music starts spinning. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We’d love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

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What happens when a band known for raw, straight-ahead rock hands a surrealist design outfit a title borrowed from a cartoon villain? You get a cover that looks like a crime scene assembled by people who weren’t entirely sure what crimes actually look like. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap is equal parts menace, mischief, and make-believe — a stitched-together fever dream that shouldn’t work, but absolutely does.

Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations?
We’d love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com
or check our Spotify Song List with a song from each album we’ve covered:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2NrDU39yE9CJcHU6YJT8jj?si=Y1JAE4LWTDmKEDE9QGlB2A&pi=ly2xwE-ERRu-2

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What do you get when four Wyoming college kids mix Moog synthesizers, LSD blotter paper, a vending machine that hasn’t stocked Pom Poms since 1959, and a design studio they made up on the spot? You get the only album in history that sparked campus “lick parties,” triggered health-department warnings, and shipped with a tongueprint no one can agree on. This is Absolutely Do Not Lick This Album—the psychedelic hoax that tasted like freedom and regret at the same time. Grab a copy—just don’t lick it—and listen along with us.
Questions, comments, recommendations? We’d love to hear from you at AlbumArtTheCoverStories@gmail.com

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A scribbled phrase. A wooden crate. A shy kid from Jersey and a sax man with a fedora. In two hours and just 600 photographs, they created one of the most recognizable images in rock history—Bruce leaning into Clarence, the sound and soul of Born to Run frozen in time. It’s the story of a chance meeting, a hustling photographer, and a shot that defined the American dream. Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We’d love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com or check our Spotify Song List with a song from each album we’ve covered: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2NrDU39yE9CJcHU6YJT8jj?si=Y1JAE4LWTDmKEDE9QGlB2A

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It’s part cathedral, part nightmare—a human face trapped in alien machinery, born from the mind of the man who would create Alien. Emerson, Lake & Palmer wanted shock value; H.R. Giger gave them something eternal. What began as a joke about a sexual euphemism turned into a biomechanical love letter—and a curse. Their artist’s muse would die by her own hand, his paintings would vanish into myth, and what’s left is a gatefold to the underworld of 1970s prog rock.
Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We’d love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com

or check out our

Spotify Song List with a track from every album we’ve covered:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2NrDU39yE9CJcHU6YJT8jj

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The Scorpions’ Virgin Killer didn’t just cross the line—it set it on fire. A ten-year-old model, a cracked-glass cover, and a title that dared you to look away. The band said it was “about time as the killer of innocence.” Critics called it exploitation. The label called it good publicity. The fallout spanned decades—from banned pressings and FBI inquiries to a Wikipedia blackout. What happens when “art” becomes evidence in a cultural trial? Grab a copy and listen along with us.

Questions, comments, recommendations? We’d love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com or check our Spotify Song List with a song from each album we’ve covered: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2NrDU39yE9CJcHU6YJT8jj?si=Y1JAE4LWTDmKEDE9QGlB2A&pi=ly2xwE-ERRu-2

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When you name your band The Slits, you’ve already kicked the door in.
But when you strip down, smear on mud, and glare into the camera for your debut album Cut, you’ve declared war on the male gaze itself. The Slits said it was art, defiance, and freedom. A lot of men just saw boobs. Was it a feminist triumph—or a message lost in translation? Grab a copy and listen along with us. Questions, comments, recommendations? We’d love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com or check our Spotify Song List with a song from each album we’ve covered: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2NrDU39yE9CJcHU6YJT8jj?si=Y1JAE4LWTDmKEDE9QGlB2A&pi=ly2xwE-ERRu-2