Intuitive Music

After a research on album covers from the 60’s, I realized how many of them were illustrated with nudity and I wondered about how many excellent records are in the list. I have made my own list of what I consider the best albums showing nudity of all times. Some of them are so legendary that nobody thinks any more about how scandalous the were when they were first released. Please note that this is not a ranking of the best nudity cover designs but the best albums that show nudity. The albums are featured by chronological order.

---

Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland
Released in October 1968, “Electric Ladyland” has been considered the best album from Jimi Hendrix discography and one of the essential releases from the 60’s.

The album was first released in the US in September 1968 with it’s original cover sleeve by Karl Ferris, featuring a picture of Jimi Hendrix. Apparently, when the album was first released in UK a month later the record company didn’t have the original art sleeve ready for printing and they decided to feature this other version with a group of naked girls.

Of course, the release of the album in the UK was controversial and Hendrix hated this album cover himself. His family, who owns the album rights, decided that the original UK cover wouldn’t be used anymore, although in 1980 a rare CD re-issue featured it.

---

John Lennon & Yoko Ono - Two Virgins
This is without a doubt the most controversial and famous nudity album cover in the history of rock music. Can you imagine something more shocking for the media than a member from The Beatles and his wife naked in the cover of their album? “Two Virgins” was released in November 1968 and was the first collaborative work from Lennon and Ono. The album was a wonderful collection of electronic and elctro-acoustic avant-garde pieces that shown the most experimental side of Lennon ever.

In the same DIY philosophy that Lennon and Ono applied to the music, the album sleeve was completely “homemade”. The picture for the album was taken by Lennon himself in the couple’s home at Ringo Starr’s apartment in London, using a delay action shutter. The album was originally released with brown wrapping paper covering the nudity, except for the heads and the artists name. Apparently many record dealers refused to carry it in the UK and it was confiscated in some places as pornography. Ringo Starr said that when Lennon showed him the album, to avoid the embarrassing situation, he answered: “Oh, it even shows “The Times” pointing at the newspaper on the floor.

Lennon answered to the expected criticism with these words: “The main hangup in the world today is hypocrisy and insecurity. If people can’t face up to the fact of other people being naked or smoking pot, or whatever they want to do, then we’re never going to get anywhere. People have got to become aware that it’s none of their business and that being nude is not obscene. Being ourselves is what’s important. If everyone practiced being themselves instead of pretending to be what they aren’t, there would be peace.”

This was not the last time Lennon used nudity as form of expression. Later Lennon produced the experimental 42 minutes short movie “Self Portrait” where he featured his penis getting an erection in slow motion, which was premiered at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in September 1969.

---

Blind Faith - Blind Faith
One of the top albums from the sixties without a doubt. Released in 1969, Blind Faith was the brand new project of Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker after the split of the legendary Cream. As well as Cream, it was one of the first super-bands in the history of rock music, featuring Steve Windwood from Traffic and Ric Gretch from Family.

The cover of this album was designed by photographer Bob Seidemann: “To symbolize the achievement of human creativity and its expression through technology a space ship was the material object. To carry this new spore into the universe innocence would be the ideal bearer, a young girl, a girl as young as Shakespeare’s Juliet. The space ship would be the fruit of the tree of knowledge and the girl, the fruit of the tree of life.”

The space ship was custom made by jeweler Mick Milligan. The model was found by Seidemann at London’s subway. After an interview with her parents the girl was not sure about modeling naked for the picture, but her younger sister told her parents she wanted to and was finally chosen to become part of all-time pop music’s iconography. For the job, she was paid what she asked for: a young horse.

When the artwork was finished Blind Faith entitled it “Blind Faith” and later remained as the name for the band. The album was released in July 1969 provoking a big controversy. It was also the first album cover ever released that didn’t feature the name of the band on the cover. In later re-issues, the original cover was replaced by a picture of the band from the inner sleeve.

---

Yes - Time and a Word
Released in 1970, “Time and a Word” was the second album from Yes, which features the original band line-up and orchestra.

The cover was designed by Lawrence Sackman but it was only used in the UK release. In the US, it was replaced by a promo picture of the band which doesn’t even show the original line up from the album since guitarist Peter Banks quit and had been replaced by Steve Howe. Two years later, Yes started a long term relationship with artist Roger Dean, who helped to project a defined and popular image for the band.

In 1975, Dean used the illustration of the naked woman by Sackman for the design of the early material compilation album “Yesterdays”, merging the woman’s figure with a landscape.

The album cover nudity in the history of Yes doesn’t stop here. In 1977, the record company decided to quit working with Roger Dean in order to project a more modern image for the band for the album “Going For the One”. The design was commissioned to the reputed design studio Hipgnosis. The album cover, which shows a photograph on a naked man facing skyscrapers, was rejected by Yes fans who found ridiculous to show a butt on a Yes album and missed the trade-mark of Roger Dean. In 1978, Hipgnosis designed the cover for the album “Tormato” with big disapproval from the band.

---

Santana - Abraxas
Released in 1970, “Abraxas” was Santana’s second album and is considered as the masterpiece from the guitarist and his band.

Carlos Santana decided he wanted to work with artist Mati Klarwein for the cover of this album. When the guitarist visited him at his studio he happened to be out of the country, apparently hanging out in Tangier with Timothy Leary. Santana liked so much this particular painting called “The Annunciation” that he decided to use it for the cover and the arrangements were made without the two ever meeting. Klarwein’s original work was painted back in 1961, referring to the biblical scene of the annunciation of Jesus birth to Mary by archangel Gabriel. The nude black character that represents Virgin Mary was from a girlfriend of Klarwein from Guadaloupe and the image of Joseph is a self-portrait of the artist.

---

Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy
Released in 1973, “Houses of the Holy” was the fifth album from the legendary rock band Led Zeppelin. It was the first time that the band featured a tittle in an album, inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “Childhood’s End”.

The art cover, as well as in former works for the band, was designed by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell from the reputed album cover design studio Hypgnosis. The two children featured in the album cover are Robert Plant’s children Carmen and her brother Karac who died of an viral infection four years later. Aubrey Powell did the photo session taken at Giant’s Causeway rock formation in Northern Ireland.

Powell said about it:“It promptly rained for ten days straight. I shot the whole thing in black and white on a totally miserable morning pouring with rain. Originally, I’d intended the children to be gold and silver. Because I shot in black and white and it was a gray day, the children turned out very white. So when we hand-tinted it, the airbrush artist, by accident, put a kind of purple tinge onto them. When I first saw it, I said, ‘Oh, my God.’ Then we looked at it, and I said, ‘Hang on a minute, this has an otherworldly quality.’ So we left it as it was. Everybody was so cold, and so freaked out because it wasn’t working, that the only thing I could keep everybody together with was a bottle of Mandrax and a lot of whiskey.”

When the album was initially released, it included a paper wrapping collar printed with the album name that was intended to cover up the children’s bottoms. Even so, the album was banned in Spain and some parts of the Southern United States.

---

Roxy Music - Country Life
Released in 1974, “Country Life” was the fourth album by Roxy Music. The former albums from the band also featured sexy girls in their cover art, under the influence of pop-art painter and designer Richard Hamilton, who claimed that “a product must aim to project an image of desirability as strong as any Hollywood star”.

The album cover was designed by Bob Bowkett and Nicholas Deville upon Brian Ferry’s idea to do a parody of the popular “Country Life” magazine. During his stay in Portugal to write the album lyrics, he suggested doing an improvised half-nude photo session on the beach with the collaboration of two German fans, Constanze Karoli and Eveline Grunwald, who posed as models. These two women also helped Ferry translate the lyrics of the song “Bitter-Sweet” into German.

Although this album cover doesn’t feature full nudity, many retailers refused to stock the album for the provocative look of the models. Atlantic Records ended up disguising the album with green shrink-wrap and even pressed an alternative cover were the girls were replaced by foliage.

---

Other reputed nude cover albums:

---

Here is a comprehensive list of album covers with nudity.
Some of them are really hilarious and grotesque.