Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica (1969)

So said Cal Schenkel, the designer at Frank Zappa‘s Straight and Bizarre imprints, who was tasked with coming up with the cover of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band‘s 1970 set, Trout Mask Replica.
“We went to the farmer’s market and got this actual fish, a real fish,” he’s quoted as saying. “We rigged it up for a prop, and it was just an amazing session.”

Captain Beefheart himself (a.k.a. Don Van Vliet) wore the fish on his face, made better only by the green velvet smoking jacket and blue neo-’70′s cravat.

Filmmaker David Lynch has called Trout Mask Replica his favorite album of all time, and John Lydon has also listed the album as one of his favourites, noting, "The first time I played that album, I laughed all the way through."

Radiohead - OK Computer (1997)

The album's artwork is a collage of images and text created by Stanley Donwood and Yorke, credited under the pseudonym "The White Chocolate Farm". Donwood was commissioned by Yorke to work on a visual diary alongside the recording sessions. Yorke explained, "If I'm shown some kind of visual representation of the music, only then do I feel confident. Up until that point, I'm a bit of a whirlwind." The colour palette is predominantly white and blue, according to Donwood, the result of "trying to make something the color of bleached bone." Used twice on the artwork, once in the booklet and once on the compact disc itself, is the image of two stick figures shaking hands. Yorke explained the image as emblematic of exploitation, saying, "Someone's being sold something they don't really want, and someone's being friendly because they're trying to sell something. That's what it means to me." Explaining the artwork's themes, Yorke said, "It's quite sad, and quite funny as well. All the artwork and so on ... It was all the things that I hadn't said in the songs."

Primal Scream - Screamadelica (1991)

The album cover for Screamadelica was painted by Creation Records' in-house artist Paul Cannell, who died in 2005. Screamadelica was among ten album covers chosen by the Royal Mail for a set of "Classic Album Cover" postage stamps issued in January 2010.

WWW - Neurobeat (2006)

The Residents - Eskimo (1979)

THE RESIDENTS Eskimo (1979 US 6-track vinyl LP inspired by the sounds recorded and photographs taken by the Residents friend, the mysterious N. Senada while he was in the North Pole, gatefold picture sleeve & original inner. The sleeve shows minor signs of general shelfwear, but the vinyl is flawless! ESK7906).

The Prodigy . Music For The Jilted Generation (1994)

The album is largely a response to the corruption of the rave scene in Britain by its mainstream status as well as Great Britain's Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which criminalised raves and parts of rave culture. The cover of the inner artwork of the record was analyzed in an article published in 2008 in the techno underground Magazine Datacide. The author compares the picture with a persiflage which was published in 2003 on the Kid606 album Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You. The article not only describes the representation of raves in graphic artwork but also describes the marketing strategy of the band with the album and criticizes it:

"With the picture The Prodigy are taking a stance in the conflict of ravers versus the police in those days. At the same time this statement is used to market a rebellious attitude. The picture is part of the artwork of a record - which is of course a commodity. The teenage (and male) consumer ought to identify himself with the presented rebellion. With the help of the artwork a certain image of The Prodigy is established: They should be seen as anti-stars, who define themselves through refusal and opposition [...]."

The Who - Who's Next (1971)

Cover artwork shows a photograph, taken at Easington Colliery, of the band apparently having just urinated on a large concrete piling protruding from a slag heap. According to photographer Ethan Russell, most of the members were unable to urinate, so rainwater was tipped from an empty film canister to achieve the desired effect. The striking, partially cloudy sky seen above the site was also composited from a separate image. The photograph is often seen to be a reference to the monolith discovered on the moon in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which had been released only about three years earlier.

FORMA / EAROTIKON (CZ) 2011
FORMA
http://forma.bandcamp.com/

Cover design by Ondřej Zita

Patti Smith - Horses (1975)

The cover photo was taken by Robert Mapplethorpe using natural light in a penthouse in Greenwich Village. The triangle of light on the wall (too blurry to discern as a geometric figure on the above low resolution image) was the product of the afternoon sun. The record company wanted to make various changes to the photo, but Smith overruled such attempts.
Feminist professor Camille Paglia described the album's cover as "one of the greatest pictures ever taken of a woman." N.B.: The jacket Smith has trapped around her shoulder actually has a horse pin.

asi nejpovedenější obal co jsem letos viděl (a zároveň jedna z nejlepších desek)

Laurel Halo - Quarantine (Hyperdub 2012)

Rush - moving Pictures (1981)

The album cover art is a visual pun of movers physically carrying paintings, while several songs from the album are connected to motion pictures, with "moving pictures" meaning movies.
This second meaning is explicitly shown on the back of the album, where a movie crew is seen filming the scene from the front cover.
A third meaning is taken from bystanders who are watching the movers and are visibly emotionally moved by the paintings, making them "moving pictures".

The Beatles - Abbey Road (1969)

8 August 1969: The Abbey Road cover photography session | The Beatles Bible
http://www.beatlesbible.com/1969/08/08/the-abbey-road-cover-photography-session/

The Abbey Habit: How Beatles' most famous album cover inspired dozens of imitations | Mail Online
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1203117/The-Abbey-Habit-How-Beatles-famous-album-cover-inspired-dozens-imitations.html

King Crimson - Larks Tongues In Aspic (1973)
Cover Design: Tantra Designs, London

Ying-yang ze slunce a srpu měsíce symbolizuje doplňujícího se principu mužství a ženství

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures (1979)

The front cover image comes from an edition of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy, and was originally drawn with black lines on a white background. It presents successive pulses from the first pulsar (a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation) discovered, PSR B1919+21—often referred to in the context of this album by its older name, CP 1919. The image was suggested by Bernard Sumner.

Thom Yorke - The Eraser (2006)

The album's cover, a linocut by Stanley Donwood, depicts a figure in black hat and trenchcoat standing in imitation of King Canute, trying and failing to command the ocean. Around him are iconic London buildings that have been swept away by the Thames, including the Tower of London, the Houses of Parliament and the Thames Barrier. The images were inspired by a large flood Donwood and Yorke both witnessed in Cornwall in 2004.
The CD packaging of The Eraser is made of cardboard but unlike a digipak, it does not contain any plastic. Yorke said this was for environmental reasons; he also said in an interview that he did not have his CDs certified as carbon neutral as he did not believe carbon offsets were a constructive solution to climate issues.