I'll start with Marvin Gaye's "Whats Going On"



This always seemed to me unsual for a 1971 album cover...

Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967

^^Sonny Liston (left of the suit & tie Beatles) was in the Monkees movie Head. The Beatles took some photos with Cassius Clay in 1964 right before he fought Liston.

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Not an album cover, but one for a single. This came out in 1985. Notice Jesse is wearing a clock on a chain, which is a few years before Public Enemy released their debut.

MickyDolenz said:

Not an album cover, but one for a single. This came out in 1985. Notice Jesse is wearing a clock on a chain, which is a few years before Public Enemy released their debut.

good call

[img:$uid]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3e/Ohio_Players_Honey.jpg[/img:$uid]

[img:$uid]http://www.musicfancam.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/hony-in.jpg[/img:$uid]

Model Ester Cordet

[img:$uid]http://iv1.lisimg.com/image/1988847/600full-ester-cordet.jpg[/img:$uid]

chewymusic said:

MickyDolenz said:

Not an album cover, but one for a single. This came out in 1985. Notice Jesse is wearing a clock on a chain, which is a few years before Public Enemy released their debut.

good call

Maybe but the outfit screams early 70s pimp to me. Sorry thats a gross cover, but I love the grooves inside.

Not sure why many of the covers posted so far would be so unusual for their own time. Weird angles for photos have existed long before Myspace and Facebook.

"Quiet Nights" (1964) has always looked like a 90s / 00s "electronica" album cover to me:

[img:$uid]http://losslessjazz.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Miles-Davis-Quiet-Nights-1997-APE.jpg[/img:$uid]

Shawy89 said:

I'll start with Marvin Gaye's "Whats Going On"



This always seemed to me unsual for a 1971 album cover...

A fairly simple portrait. I don't see anything avant garde about the album cover. The music was revolutionary though.

HuMpThAnG said:

[img:$uid]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3e/Ohio_Players_Honey.jpg[/img:$uid]

[img:$uid]http://www.musicfancam.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/hony-in.jpg[/img:$uid]

Model Ester Cordet

[img:$uid]http://iv1.lisimg.com/image/1988847/600full-ester-cordet.jpg[/img:$uid]

Apart from not knowing her name until now, I had no idea she posed for Playboy a full year before the Honey album came out. A sweet sticky thang, indeed.

I always thought this album was way ahead of it's time. It's modern, yet classic on so many levels to me.

MickyDolenz said:

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This is probably the most copied cover of all time. Even Paul McCartney redid it on one of his live albums.

I don't know if it's ahead of it's time but this album art is awesome to me

Shawy89 said:

I'll start with Marvin Gaye's "Whats Going On"



This always seemed to me unsual for a 1971 album cover...

chriss said:

I don't know if it's ahead of it's time but this album art is awesome to me

Shawy89 said:

I'll start with Marvin Gaye's "Whats Going On"



This always seemed to me unsual for a 1971 album cover...

this one is awesome too!

[img:$uid]http://eil.com/images/main/Parliament+-+Mothership+Connection+-+LP+RECORD-441258.jpg[/img:$uid]

Describing the album, George Clinton said "We had put black people in situations nobody ever thought they would be in, like the White House. I figured another place you wouldn't think black people would be was in outer space. I was a big fan of Star Trek, so we did a thing with a pimp sitting in a spaceship shaped like a Cadillac, and we did all these James Brown-type grooves, but with street talk and ghetto slang.

1977 & 1978

novabrkr said:

Not sure why many of the covers posted so far would be so unusual for their own time. Weird angles for photos have existed long before Myspace and Facebook.

"Quiet Nights" (1964) has always looked like a 90s / 00s "electronica" album cover to me:

[img:$uid]http://losslessjazz.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Miles-Davis-Quiet-Nights-1997-APE.jpg[/img:$uid]

I've always loved this album cover. There's something so ethereal about it.

Interesting that it seemed before its time to you. To me, it always takes me back to the liquid light shows of the '60s.

[Edited 7/7/14 19:43pm]

MickyDolenz said:

1977 & 1978

Pre-Daft Punk!

Lammastide said:

novabrkr said:

Not sure why many of the covers posted so far would be so unusual for their own time. Weird angles for photos have existed long before Myspace and Facebook.

"Quiet Nights" (1964) has always looked like a 90s / 00s "electronica" album cover to me:

[img:$uid]http://losslessjazz.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Miles-Davis-Quiet-Nights-1997-APE.jpg[/img:$uid]

I've always loved this album cover. There's something so ethereal about it.

Interesting that it seemed before its time to you. To me, it always takes me back to the liquid light shows of the '60s.

[Edited 7/7/14 19:43pm]

Yeah, I know what you mean. But it definitely reminds me of some 1990s stuff from the era when the first widely available graphic manipulation ("drawing") programs were starting to get used on album covers. All that gradient stuff that was finally available for people with smaller budgets as well. Or just think of some of the visuals Prince was favouring during The Beautiful Experience / The Undertaker era, the early digital video art etc.

MickyDolenz said:

1977 & 1978

Yeah, definitely Daft Punk and Deadmau5 territory.

Interesting placement of fashion as the foreground and not the artist full faces, as well as the title as the background.