Five album covers that contain hidden messages
There’s always a certain amount of love and care that should be put into every iconic album cover. Although many have tried and failed to make something look deep and meaningful whenever they pick out the cover art, others have unique approaches to visual design that still make for striking images to this day. After having stared at some of them for hours on end, you start to notice little intricacies from artists like Rush that you never would have guessed before.
On the surface, making an album cover should be one of the easiest things in the world. There might just be a design someone thinks is interesting or just feature a stock photo of the band members, but the best covers of all time are where people actually take a couple of risks, either throwing things into the mix no one had ever seen before or didn’t pick up on until years after the fact.
While some of the Easter Eggs on the cover stick out like a sore thumb, there’s usually a beauty behind hiding them in plain sight. It’s not always easy to get people to spot these nods to other bands or hidden messages, but once you actually see them for what they are, it’s hard to reconnect your brain and try to see them how you used to.
Then again, that’s just a case of the album cover doing for your eyes what the music is doing for your ears. Every good album is supposed to reward you on every listen with a few new surprises, so if you’re making something that serves as the visual statement for your album, why not do the same thing?
Five easter eggs hidden on classic albums:
Clockwork Angels – Rush
For as long as they were in the game, it was nice to see Rush close up shop on their own terms on Clockwork Angels. Since they had little to prove to anyone anymore, this was their first fully-fleshed-out concept album revolving around a steampunk dystopia. It wasn’t all that different from the concept record that first got their foot in the door, and the band weren’t exactly shy about it when you look at where the clock hands are positioned.
The design of the clock hands is beautifully done, but when you look at what time it is, you see 21:12, a cute callback to the band’s first conceptual outing about another young kid who tries to find his own individuality in a future that already has life decided for him. They may have just been jacking their old ideas, but this isn’t a case of Rush being a one-trick pony. This was them coming full circle and celebrating the same ideals that brought them into prog-rock Valhalla in the first place.
Dookie – Green Day
When they first burst onto the scene, Green Day seemed like the kind of guys that anyone could be friends with. They may have been singing about the wonders of masturbation half the time, but that kind of childlike innocence in their early days made them endearing, almost like you wanted to hang out with them because you knew you’d get into some trouble. Only a band that young could get away with naming their magnum opus Dookie, but the band left a few of their influences on the cover a bit too directly.
Outside of looking through the foreground and seeing everything from the explosion to a monkey contemplating whether to throw his own shit, there are homages to different album covers hidden in the background. At first glance, one can see the mysterious cloaked figure from Black Sabbath’s debut album, Angus Young rocking out on one of the buildings, and Patti Smith from the cover of the album Easter in one of the windows. Green Day were only playing what they heard in their record collections, so why not give them some space on the cover too?
Aerial – Kate Bush
Kate Bush has never taken the traditional route with any of her albums. Whether it’s the strange noises that she produced on Never For Ever or turning in some of her most ambitious projects in the 1980s, Bush was looking to make something different every time she went into the studio. Although she seemed to pivot closer to world music when Aerial arrived, those scenic landscapes aren’t really what you think.
When you see it in passing, it just looks like the kind of glorious mountain range that you would see on any other new-age CD in a bargain bin. But those aren’t mountains…they’re waveforms. Yep, as it turns out, the range on the cover is actually the sound of blackbirds that had been recorded during the album sessions. All album covers should give you a clue as to what lies within, but not many cut to the point as well as this.
Be Here Now – Oasis
Throughout their time together, Oasis was more than happy to put themselves up with the best musicians to walk the Earth. They weren’t looking to get to Mozart’s levels of brilliance, but Noel Gallagher would gladly say that he could have competed with the likes of The Rolling Stones any day of the week when the Brit rockers were in their prime. And at the height of their popularity and ego, the Gallagher brothers snuck in another easter egg to the true greatest band in the world.
Most of Be Here Now’s cover is about making the most lavish photoshoot ever created, but the homage to Keith Moon driving a car into a swimming pool actually has a point. If you look at the license plate number on the Rolls Royce, it’s actually the same number as one of the cars that’s featured on the cover of The Beatles’ Abbey Road. See, now you have a better reason to return to an album like Be Here Now outside of mile-long songs and maybe a few migraine headaches.
Their Satanic Majesties Request – The Rolling Stones
Speaking of The Beatles, why not take a look at one of their favourite sparring partners? That’s not really fair, though. The Rolling Stones and the Fab Four were always very cordial with each other, despite Keith Richards being insanely direct when he said that Sgt Pepper was a load of rubbish. That didn’t stop the group from jacking that style on their next album and even including The Beatles’ likenesses, no less.
Since Sgt Pepper featured the iconic doll in the corner welcoming The Rolling Stones, their rivals included cutouts of their faces hidden among the album cover. It’s hard to spot them, but when looking at the flowers at the band’s feet, you can see certain pictures of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, which may have been taken from the gatefold inside the original record. Many people have already seen The Stones as a musical inverse of The Beatles, so having the Fab Four reflected in their own album cover makes a lot more sense than it probably should.
