Though finding bands that didn't appear on their own album covers was a pretty difficult task back in the '50s and '60s, bands have explored many different styles of album artwork as time progressed. Here are eight bands that have never appeared on their album covers.
1. Radiohead
Other than the fact that Radiohead isn't the best-looking bunch of guys (with the exception of the undeniably dreamy Ed O'Brien), the band's visual aesthetic is so singular and bizarre that throwing a band photo on one of its covers would be like using Comic Sans for the subtitles of a Bergman film.
2. The Strokes
All of the Strokes' NYC rock heroes, including the Velvet Underground, the Ramones, and Television, had appeared on their album covers back in the '60s and '70s, so it's surprising that a band with such a carefully calculated look never wanted to show it off on an album cover.
3. The Smiths
The only cover that any member of the Smiths appeared on during its career was the single for "What Difference Does It Make?" which on some very rare editions features an image of Morrissey instead of actor Terence Stamp. Other than this one exception however, all of the Smiths cover artwork features images of actors, musicians, and other pop culture figures, but never the band itself.
4. Of Montreal
Though Of Montreal is one of the most theatrical and bizarrely attired bands currently working in indie rock, no image of the band has ever been used for an album cover. In fact, the first time an Of Montreal cover featured a photograph instead of an illustration was last year's relatively mellow Lousy With Sylvianbriar, so maybe the band is working towards an album cover with its own image.
5. Iron Maiden
If you had a mascot as cool as Eddie to stick on every album cover, would you want to put your boring face on them? I didn't think so.
6. Metallica
When Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach saw the band photo on the back of Metallica's album Kill 'Em All, he recalled that he had to buy it because they were the ugliest humans he'd ever seen. Metallica hasn't gotten any prettier, which is probably a big reason why they've been absent from all of their album covers.
7. Blur
The closest the members of Blur ever came to appearing on one of their album covers was on 2000's Blur: The Best Of compilation, which features illustrated images of the band. It's a shame their actual faces never appeared on an album cover, because they were by far the handsomest band of the Britpop era.
8. Belle & Sebastian
Since there are about 27 members of Belle & Sebastian at any given moment, you'd probably need a quadruple gatefold sleeve to fit them all on an album cover. Instead, the band just takes the Smiths' duotone photograph aesthetic for its album covers, but uses original photos of unknown people instead of celebrities.
What other bands never appear on album covers? Let us know in the comments section!
