Can You Guess the Iconic Album From the Cover Art?

Long before Napster and LimeWire, before YouTube and Spotify, music was only available to purchase in physical form. Generations of teens spent their weekends perusing aisle after aisle of music, picking up any and every cover that caught their eye. You could hear the gentle whoosh of air as their fingers flipped from one record to another, searching for the right artists to knock their socks off or the right album that would change their lives. The record store is where many listeners found their favorites. It was the place to discover, in part, themselves through the music they resonated with and through the lyrics that stuck to their bones.

In a world of stream counts, followers, and algorithms, the album cover can now feel like a lost art. The fall of the traditional music industry model has changed how music lovers consume music—and, therefore, the art attached to it. Today, there exists a space where music can be mass-produced as nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, and one-minute content reels are the way into the social media feeds of the masses.

The artists’ music on this list reminds you why album art can be so important. How just a simple image can tell a story, spark controversy, or mark the end of a veritable era—all in one single frame captured for the cover. It reminds you decades and decades later that these album covers are still something to remember.

With that feeling of wistful nostalgia in mind and using various online music industry sources, Stacker compiled a list of 25 albums, in no particular order, from a range of musical artists and genres to see if you can guess the album from just a portion of its cover art.

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