Musicians steal from each other all the times, whether it comes to lyrics, riffs, fashion, or in this case, album covers. Here are seven album covers that are homages (or rip-offs) to other albums.
1. The Clash - London Calling (1979)
One of the most famous examples of an album cover homage is the cover to the Clash's third album, London Calling. Though the cover photograph, featuring bassist Paul Simonon smashing his bass on stage, isn't based on anything, the pink and green font for the album title is taken directly from Elvis Presley's debut album. Tom Waits would do a similar homage with his 1985 album Rain Dogs, but with blue and yellow text instead.
2. Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album) (1994)
The cover of Weezer's debut album is one of the simplest yet most iconic images in alternative rock, but they weren't the first to create artwork in this style. The album cover for Crazy Rhythms, the 1980 debut from New Jersey post-punk band the Feelies, also features all four band members standing in front of a bright blue background.
3. The Residents - Meet the Residents (1974)
The Residents are probably the weirdest band to have ever existed, like Frank Zappa but with less humanity or musical virtuosity. Like its title implies, the cover of the band's debut album Meet the Residents is based on Meet the Beatles, complete with Dadaist doodling over the Beatles' faces. When EMI and Capitol records threatened to sue the Residents, they reissued the album with another cover, but one that still played with the Beatles' image, replacing their heads with crawfish (or a starfish, in Ringo's case).
4. Mötley Crüe - Too Fast for Love (1981)
The cover to the Rolling Stone's Sticky Fingers is pretty risqué, so much so that even the notoriously debauched Mötley Crüe toned it down slightly when it paid tribute to the cover for its debut album Too Fast for Love in 1981.
5. Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out (1997)
Though it started off in Washington's riot grrrl punk scene, Sleater-Kinney eventually expanded its sound beyond its punk roots, even finding inspiration in classic rock. The cover to Sleater-Kinney's third album Dig Me Out subtly cites these influences, with photographs arranged in a similar fashion to the photos on the cover of the Kinks album The Kink Kontroversy.
6. The Dukes of Stratosphear - 25 O'Clock (1985)
As I wrote about in a recent article for Music Times, the Dukes of Stratosphear was a side project of British new wave band XTC inspired by '60s psychedelic music. The wildly colorful cover to the band's debut 25 O'Clock, designed by frontman Andy Partridge, should make its psychedelic influence abundantly clear, particularly since it features the same color scheme and dense use of imagery as Cream's 1967 album Disraeli Gears.
7. Boris - Akuma no Uta (2003)
Though Japanese metal band Boris constantly shifts its style and cites many disparate influences to its music, one of the last musicians you would expect it to be influenced by is English folk singer Nick Drake. However, the band created a direct homage to Drake with the cover to its 2003 album Akuma no Uta, which looks remarkably like the cover to Drake's second album Bryter Layter.
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