Few things are more memorable than an iconic album cover.
Think of the bright yellow banana on the cover of The Velvet Underground and Nico, the eccentric layered cake on the front of the Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed, or the mind-bending glass prism that dons the cover of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. These are images that are both instantly recognizable to rock fans, and even a bit familiar to those who don’t know the music.
If, as an artist, you hit the sweet spot with a cover image that sticks in people’s minds, you may find years down the line that other acts borrow from it in all sorts of ways. In the below gallery, we’re taking a look at dozens of albums in which the cover gently parodies, pays tribute to, or in some other way nods to a previous rock ‘n’ roll release (album, EP or single).
READ MORE: 50 Rock Album Covers You Can Visit in Real Life
For the purposes of this list, we’ve omitted tributes to the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road — we have dedicated galleries for each of those, available here and here, respectively — though there are plenty of other Fab Four references. And to be transparent: in some of the below cases, it’s not clear exactly how purposeful the tribute artwork was, and some are more blatant acknowledgments than others, but in each there’s a compelling visual connection.
72 Album Cover Tributes and Parodies
Classic covers reimagined and repurposed by artists from all walks of life.
Gallery Credit: Allison Rapp
