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John Lennon made a lot of records. But only one got seized by authorities, hidden inside plain brown paper bags, and featured him and Yoko Ono standing completely naked on the cover.

Was it a publicity stunt? A love letter? A piece of avant-garde art? Or the sound of a Beatle blowing up his old life in real time?

One night in 1968, while Cynthia Lennon was away, John invited Yoko Ono to his home. They spent the night making strange tape-loop music, finished an album before dawn, and began a relationship that would change rock history forever. A few months later they stripped naked in Ringo Starr's basement, set a camera timer, and created one of the most controversial album covers ever released.

The music baffled critics. The cover outraged authorities. The public mostly ignored it. Yet this strange little record marked the beginning of John-and-Yoko—the most famous, argued-over, and mythologized love story in rock and roll.

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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She was a Texas teenager discovered sunbathing on the French Riviera. Within a few years she was sharing an apartment with Grace Jones, dating Bryan Ferry, inspiring "Miss You," and on her way to becoming Mrs. Mick Jagger—well, almost. But before all that, she spent a miserable day being painted blue, battered by cold waves, and crawling across jagged rocks in Wales. The result became one of the most recognized album covers of the 1970s.

How did a fashion model become a mythological siren? Why did Bryan Ferry insist on a remote rocky coastline for the shoot? What did a Marvel comic book character have to do with the costume? And how did a Roxy Music album cover change the course of Jerry Hall's life forever?

Grab a copy and listen along with us as we dive into the making of Roxy Music's Siren. Questions, comments, recommendations? We'd love to hear from you at Albumartthecoverstories@gmail.com.

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U2 called their third album War because, as Bono said, “war seemed to be the motif for 1982.” But the cover contains no tanks, no bombs, no soldiers. Instead, it shows the face of a child. Peter Rowen had already appeared on U2's Boy, but this time his stare is different, it is harder, haunted, almost accusatory. The photo shoot involved gas masks, Nazi imagery, and an improvised coal scuttle backdrop as U2 tried to capture what war does to innocence. Outside the studio, Lebanon burned, Northern Ireland exploded, and the Cold War threatened the planet. U2 wanted the title itself to be “a slap in the face.” 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