by Geoff Bailie
In August 2025, the passing of Ronnie Rondell Jr. made worldwide headlines. Rondell had a long career across many movies and TV shows as a stunt man, which meant that, to preserve realism, he was pretending to be the actor he was replacing and was therefore invisible. It’s probably for that reason that the news story led with the fact that he was the man on fire on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here! That led me to think, what other prog album covers have a story to tell …
King Crimson: In The Court of the Crimson King (1969)
As well as being a musically defining album, the Crimson debut album is an early example of a gatefold album cover that is closely identified with the music. Barry Godber painted the album artwork, which has become linked to two tracks – the Schizoid Man being the cover and the Crimson King being the gatefold. The album was released October 1969, and Godber suffered a heart attack and died in February 1970 at 24 years old. The album cover was his only painting and is now owned by Robert Fripp.
Jethro Tull: Thick As a Brick (1972)
The St. Cleve Chronicle and Linwell Advertiser is perhaps the most famous newspaper in prog, a parody of 1970s British parochial reporting. The band fought the record label’s objections and convinced them to have not only the cover but an inserted 16 page newspaper which included the album lyrics along with all sorts of spoof news stories and classified adverts. Tull released their album in March 1972 and John Lennon’s Sometime in New York City followed with a similar cover in June 1972. But it could be that both took inspiration from The Four Seasons’ 1968 psychedelic concept album The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette which came complete with newspaper cover and colour supplement!
Yes: YesSongs (1973)
Roger Dean’s artwork and Yes’s music have been inextricably linked since Fragile in 1971. The (excess?) of a triple live album brought the need for triple artwork, given the large fold out sleeve configuration. What you may not know is that Dean intended the covers to imply a story. Fragile shows a planet breaking into pieces with a space craft leaving it. Close To The Edge’s inner sleeve contained a similar broken planet surface, with YesSongs imagery pulling together a narrative of Escape, Awakening and Pathways, the 3 main images. What many people don’t know is the impact of Roger Dean’s cat on this artwork! Having tried, and failed, to disguise the footprints left by his cat walking over the Pathways picture (look for it), after it had been photographed for the sleeve, said creature urinated on the painting. The job was complete and so to repair the liquid damage Dean repainted the relevant area, with the fixed image looking quite different from the one immortalised in the cover.
ELP: Brain Salad Surgery (1973)
Hans Ruedi Giger’s biomechanical art style is perhaps best known in popular culture for his creation of the Alien in the movie with that name. Giger was commissioned to design this album cover several years before that movie, after Emerson met the artist when they were playing in Zurich and subsequently visited his home. Inspired by the music, Giger created a 3 panelled triptych art work which was then developed into what became the eventual cover – and he also designed the ELP logo which became their standard logo from that point on. The subject of the painting was based on Giger’s then partner Li Tobler, with the addition of scars in the shape of an infinity symbol and representative of a frontal lobotomy! The outer cover of the original was actually two flaps which opened to reveal the image of Tobler and an item that was airbrushed out at the request of the record label!
Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here (1975)
There are many creative and allusional aspects to the Wish You Were Here album, many of which point to the broad theme of “unfulfilled presence” – for example, the album cover was “present” but came wrapped in a black shrink wrap sleeve, making it absent. The main cover image related to “getting burned”, a phrase in the music industry that meant an artist being denied royalty payments. The photo shoot was on the Warner Brothers Studio lot in California and stunt man Ronnie Rondell Jr. was the one who was set on fire. The first 14 takes were successful but the Hipgnosis team insisted on a fifteenth, at which point the wind changed direction and singed Rondell’s moustache! Rondell called it a day at that point, and the team were happy they had their shot. Later that evening, two of the Hipgnosis team were driving through the LA canyons and… their car suddenly caught fire and was burned to a cinder – thankfully they escaped unhurt, but perhaps that was karma?
Rush: 2112 (1976)
Hugh Syme is a massive name in prog album cover art and features twice in this list, and 2112 was his second collaboration with Rush. You may not know that he also created the spacey intro to 2112 and played keyboards on the track Tears – there can’t be many cover designers who also played on the album? The album came at a point where Rush were struggling commercially and they were expecting to be dropped by the label after 3 albums. That set them to record their most ambitious and uncompromising album perhaps as a last ditch attempt to get the attention they deserved. That applied equally to the album cover art, and the band insisted on a gatefold cover and a colour liner. Syme used the band’s lyrics as inspiration and “hold the red star proudly high in hand” led to one of the most iconic logos with the Starman in front of the Red Star of the Solar Federation lasting through Rush’s career. The Starman himself, Bob King, who was an assistant of Syme and modelled for this image, has arguably the most famous rear in prog! King ended up on many subsequent Rush album covers. He was: the man in the suit on Hemispheres (keeping his clothes on this time and letting a ballet dancer pose for the other figure), he carried the Joan of Arc picture on Moving Pictures, and of course the Starman appeared on All The World’s A Stage, Exit… Stage Left and Feedback as well as compilations Archives, The Spirit of Radio, Sectors and Retrospective, nevermind t shirts and even a Canadian stamp!
Styx: Pieces of Eight (1978)
Yes’s Going For The One, Pink Floyd’s Animals, Peter Gabriel’s “Car”, 10cc’s Bloody Tourists, Genesis’s And Then There Were Three and Richard Wright’s Wet Dream were just a sample of the album covers Hipgnosis produced in 1977 / 1978. Perhaps lesser known are the three ladies with earrings of Easter Island statues on Styx’s Pieces of Eight album, but they do have a memorable story. On a wave of commercial success, Styx went to what James Young described as “the high priests” of album cover art. Hipgnosis have said that the music always came first and presumably the closing track, Aku-Aku (referencing the Easter Islands) and the theme of not abandoning your dreams for the pursuit of “gold” inspired the image of four women with Aku-Aku earrings. With Styx being young men in their mid-twenties they were initially shocked when the artwork arrived, and it featured more mature females than they had expected – but with release schedules, it was too late! Young reflects that time has healed that initial surprise and that he considers the album cover to be the best of the band’s career.
Marillion: Misplaced Childhood (1984)
Mark Wilkinson created all of the Marillion art (and much of Fish’s subsequent art) until the singer left the band. For their third, and most commercially successful album, Wilkinson linked both album lyrics and references to previous sleeve art in a way that rewarded the 1980s prog fan with the detailed study and interpretation of album art prevalent in the 1970s, just before CD changed everything! At this time, Fish was having a difficult period with a relationship ending and record sales figures that had been disappointing. In a psychedelic trip he experienced at this time, he saw a magpie steal a wedding ring, and the ending involved a guardian angel saving him, that angel being a boy in an English soldier’s costume. The Jester who featured on the previous two album covers is seen leaving by a window on the back sleeve and perhaps there are several Beatle references on the front – the Sgt Pepper-like uniform and the boy being barefooted as Paul was on Abbey Road? All speculation – but that’s the fun, right? The boy, Robert Mead also featured on the cover of Return To Childhood, a live 20th anniversary performance of the album by Fish, once again drawn by Wilkinson, featuring him as a young man.
Symphony X: V – The New Mythology Suite / Spock’s Beard: V (2000)
What are the chances? Spock’s Beard release their fifth album, V on Inside Out Music on August 22, 2000 and 49 days later Symphony X release their fifth album V on Inside Out Music on October 10, 2000. OK so the Symphony X album is really V: The New Mythology Suite but what about the album covers? Well they both feature exactly the same background image and no one appears to have noticed or know why! Kazuo Hakamada made the Symphony X cover and Spock’s was by Thomas Ewerhard. The only official quote I can locate is a Facebook comment from Alan Morse of Spock’s Beard which says “Yeah, that was a total fluke! We didn’t even find out until much later”. Does it matter? Not really, particularly when you’re dealing with two of the finest albums made by the respective bands!
Dream Theater: Octavarium (2005)
I already mentioned Hugh Syme and of course his more recent long term prog association has been with Dream Theater. While not a narrative album Octavarium had a relatively unique concept based around the musical octave – so each song was written in a different key. The lyrics and song titles from the “Root” of Root of All Evil onwards. The cover was also part of the deal, with multiple references to 8 and to 5, the 5 accidentals in an octave. So there are 8 Newton’s Cradle balls and 5 birds; the booklet contains an octagonal maze, a spider, an octopus; there are dominoes that total 5 and 8… no more spoilers! Go have a look yourself! Dream Theater truly embraced the concept of an immersive listening experience, back when that meant devouring the details on the album sleeve. Syme has continued working closely with the band in subsequent years including the recent Parasomnia album.
Spinal Tap: Smell The Glove (1984)
The cover of this album is a central part of the defining rockumentary. The band’s cover suggestions were shot down by artist relations manager Bobbi Flekman as being sexist, ahead of the band embarking on a tour, leaving the matter unresolved. It’s not entirely clear why an all-black album cover was the image selected, but when manager Ian Faith arrived at soundcheck with the finished product he seemed satisfied – an all black cover: simple, beautiful, classic. The reaction of band members was mixed – some saw it as black leather, or a black mirror. Others wondered whether it was a test pressing. Either way even with the might of Polymer Records promo man, Artie Fufkin (Polymer Records) behind it, the album met with a muted reaction at in-stores, particularly when band members signed copies with a Sharpie and the cover rendered the autographs invisible. To some it was a joke; to others, an inspiration: Metallica, Weezer, Marilyn Manson, Prince and Jay-Z all took the cover and made it their own – and even The Beatles merely flipped the idea on its head when they ripped it off, 15 years early with the so-called White Album.
Steven Wilson: Hand.Cannot.Erase (2015)
Part of the experience of the greatest Steven Wilson album (yes, I can say that because it’s my article!!!) is the cover and album packaging! So we’ve had gatefolds; we’ve have shrink wrap; we’ve had triple gatefolds.. but the super deluxe edition of Hand.Cannot.Erase is basically an entire world within an album package. This is not just a book to skim through but a collection of items which it would take the entire length of the album to look through. You have a birth certificate, a postcard, a sketch book, a diary, a newspaper cutting, a mixtape inlay card… even an envelope which contains the hand written letter which forms the lyrics of Happy Returns. The photographs and artwork in the book by Lasse Holle are just incredible and capture the bleakness of the narrative. The text in the book has narrative which includes most of the lyrics but also weaves the items in the book into the story. As you might expect, it was a limited edition and so very hard to get now – but if you have it, and haven’t looked for a while, go and get it, play the music and explore.
Haken: Fauna (2023)
Of all the relatively recent prog bands, Haken are perhaps the most “art aware” of them all. Drawing on that 1970s tradition, but making it their own, with many of the band members being involved in the creative arts outside of music. This has been expressed through many means not least some of the most creative rock t-shirts that you’ve ever seen! The well dressed, monocled monkey on the cover and his animal companions make Fauna an album cover that really stands out in this decade. And of course… it’s much more than pictures! The images link to many aspects of the music, lyrics and the band members themselves, and this has spawned multiple threads and chats as people have searched them out… and probably made connections that even the band didn’t intend! Dan Goldsworthy is the artist who created this look, as well as the Jungle Book inspired tour poster, and the live album from that tour, Liveforms – and it’s all incredible.
