17) The Roots – Things Fall Apart
For a limited time, The Roots’ Grammy-nominated album Things Fall Apart was available with five different covers, which reflected each of the world’s “greatest turmoils”. The most enduring was a photograph taken during a Civil Rights Movement-era riot – a stark black and white image showing riot police as they chase two terrified black teenagers. “This became the main artwork for a few reasons,” art director Kenny Gravillis told Complex magazine. “The cover felt like the urban community could really relate to it. Seeing real fear in the woman's face is very affecting. It feels unflinching and aggressive in its commentary on society. I remember going to Tower Records and seeing it huge; it was just so impactful. I'm not sure that it would work today. I give MCA respect for pushing it out at the time.”

16) Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
Yes, Dark Side of the Moon, with Storm Thorgerson's geometric design, is the most iconic of Pink Floyd covers. But the shot he conceived for Wish You Were Here – taken by Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell – is by far the more visceral. It shows two businessmen shaking hands, with one of them on fire, and to the band it represented the fear of revealing your true feelings for fear of “getting burnt”. Two stuntmen were involved, with one (Ronnie Rondell Jr) dressed in a fire-retardant outfit covered by a business suit, and his head protected by a hood, covered beneath a wig. Unfortunately, high winds meant he lost his moustache and eyebrows to the flames. Hopefully he felt the resulting shot was worth it. Fans definitely think so.

15) Fleetwood Mac – Rumours
Just two of Fleetwood Mac’s then-five members appear on the cover of their best-selling and arguably greatest album. Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood’s legs are entwined, which serves as a pretty good metaphor for the entanglement between band members that resulted in so many of the record’s lyrical back-and-forths. And really it’s just a gorgeous, classic image, photographed and conceived by Herbert W Worthington with the band, and designed by Desmond Strobel.

14) Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!
The instantly iconic cover of It’s Blitz! shows little but says a lot. There’s a sense of female defiance in showing the woman’s hand, nails in red polish, crushing the egg, a symbol of fertility. It also embodies what the Yeah Yeah Yeahs did on this album, which is take traditional sounds, equipment and ideas and scramble them into something completely subversive.

13) Madonna – True Blue
This shot was taken by celebrated photographer Herb Ritts, who later teamed up with Madonna for the “Like a Prayer” and “You Can Dance” covers. It is one of her most recognisable images, inspired in part by Andy Warhol’s pop art and also by the iconography of Madonna’s idol Marilyn Monroe. Here, she invites fans to make the immediate connection between pop art and commercial value, making her the first to exploit the late Eighties concept of pop artist as brand.

12) The Clash – London Calling
The Clash paid tribute to Elvis Presley by mimicking the pink and green lettering from his 1956 self-titled album. Yet the image, one of the most iconic in rock history, blows that version of rock and roll to kingdom come: everything “safe” that the King had offered was replaced by Pennie Smith’s photograph of “the ultimate rock’n’roll moment – total loss of control”. Bassist Paul Simonon later told Fender that he’d smashed his guitar out of frustration with bouncers for not letting fans stand up from their seats at the Palladium in New York City. The captured moment is visceral, dangerous and anti-establishment – just like The Clash.

11) Elvis Presley – Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley appears mid-belt on the cover of his self-titled album, clearly performing one of those iconic vocal whoops. It’s a visual introduction to rock’n’roll for his unsuspecting American audience, done 20 years before The Clash would replicate that classic pink and green lettering to do the same for their British fans.

10) NWA – Straight Outta Compton
Six guys stare down toward the ground, one pointing a handgun right at the viewer. This is the cover art for Straight Outta Compton, the pioneering debut by NWA. The photographer was a 28-year-old white guy, Eric Poppleton, who was struggling to make ends meet after graduating from art school. He and his art director Kevin Hosman spent a day following the guys around alleys in LA, until Poppleton found a spot where he got on the ground and asked NWA’s members to stand over him, with one holding “what was hopefully an unloaded” gun. He had no idea the photograph would become one of the most iconic images in gangsta rap. Poppleton would go on to shoot four other NWA album covers.

9) Bruce Springsteen – Born in the USA
The Boss tells you everything you need to know about him with one image. An epitome of the blue collar American, Springsteen’s seventh album cover was shot by Annie Leibowitz and shows the artist’s from behind, dressed in worn blue jeans and a simple white t-shirt, with a red cap hanging out of the back pocket after a long day’s grind. “We took a lot of different types of pictures,” said Springsteen, “and in the end, the picture of my ass looked better than the picture of my face.” Combined with the American flag in the background, the cover parallels the themes of Springsteen’s music.

7) The Beatles – Abbey Road
Few album covers can profess to have literally stopped traffic, and it’s testament to the iconic status of Abbey Road’s artwork that thousands of fans have attempted to recreate it. The band, and photographer Iain McMillan, had just 10 minutes to get the shot, which was taken from a step-ladder while a police officer held up traffic behind the scenes. Six photos were taken, which McCartney later examined with a magnifying glass before making his decision.

6) Grace Jones – Island Life
Before he tried to “break the internet” with a nude Kim Kardashian on the cover of Paper magazine, Jean-Paul Goude took some of the most memorable images of the Eighties for Grace Jones’s album Island Life. She appears on the cover in what looks like an impossible pose; it is, in fact, a composite of her in different positions, cut and pasted together for one of the most striking images in music history.

5) The Velvet Underground and Nico – The Velvet Underground and Nico
Like the working zipper of The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers, early versions of The Velvet Underground and Nico asked the owner to “Peel slowly and see”, upon which they’d peel the banana skin to reveal a flesh-coloured banana beneath. MGM was happy to fork out for the additional costs of manufacturing the vinyl, with the assumption that its ties to Warhol would help boost sales. It’s one of very few albums where the person behind the album art, rather than the band themselves or the album title, are named on the cover.

4) Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures
The cover art for Joy Division’s debut album was designed by Peter Saville, who had previously created posters for Manchester’s Factor Club in the late Seventies. The chosen image, which was picked by Bernard Sumner, is based on radio waves from pulsar CP 1919 – from the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Astronomy. “The duochrome Peter Saville cover of this first Joy Division album speaks volumes,” Susie Goldring said in a review for BBC Online. “Its white on black lines reflect a pulse of power, a surge of bass, and raw angst. If the cover doesn't draw you in, the music will.

2) The Beatles – Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
With its star-studded cast and bold colour scheme, the cover of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band came to define artist Peter Blake and also The Beatles themselves. There are 88 figures in all, including the band themselves, on a set photographed by Michael Cooper. Blake collected a list of names from three of the four Beatles. The list included Tony Curtis, Marilyn Monroe, Aubrey Beardsley, Oscar Wilde, and even Adolf Hitler (requested by John Lennon, and hidden behind other figures). If you bought the record, Blake later said, “you also bought a piece of art on exactly the level that I was aiming for”.

1) Patti Smith – Horses
Critic Camille Paglia once suggested that Robert Mapplethorpe’s photo of his former lover, friend and collaborator Patti Smith is the greatest ever taken of a woman, and seeing it, you feel inclined to agree. The godmother of punk herself said she thought she looked like Frank Sinatra, dressed in a crisp white shirt with a black ribbon around her neck. A black jacket with a horse brooch on the lapel is slung casually over her shoulder. “The only rule we had was, Robert told me if I wore a white shirt, not to wear a dirty one,” Smith told NPR in 2010. “I got my favourite ribbon and my favourite jacket, and he took about 12 pictures. By the eighth one he said, 'I got it'.”