24 Album Covers to Get You Ready For Spooky Season
Most notably this debut album features the song “Bad Guy” which reached #1 on the Billboard 200 chart. The album cover art was meant to reflect the themes of night terrors and lucid dreaming.
2. Rush - Permanent Waves
For those of you taking costume ideas from the revival of Fallout this year, Rush’s post-apocalyptic 50s-inspired cover for their album Permanent Waves may also strike your fancy
3. Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Altered States Of America/ANBRX II Delta 9
Notable Grindcore band Agoraphobic Nosebleed pulls no punches and releases a cover to match their genre with this absolutely disturbing colorscape of images worthy of any horror slasher movie
4. Berlin - Count Three And Pray
It’s the subtlety for us in this one. What looks like a very cute Cyndi Lauper-esque cover by the remarkable 80s Darkwave band makes you take a double-take when you realize — wait, what is that??
5. Fotomaker - Vis-á-Vis
Even though Fotomaker’s career as a band was short-lived, that didn’t stop them from releasing three albums in the year-long span that they held together. All of them feature unsettling faces such as this one.
6. Grace Slick - Dreams
This is Slick’s second solo album, recorded in between her stints as the lead singer for the band(s) Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship.
7. Harry Nilsson - Son of Schmilsson
Not only does this Harry Nilsson album feature former Beatles Ringo Starr and George Harrison on a few tracks, there’s a cameo on this spooky album cover too: the haunting photograph was taken inside George Harrison’s home.
8. Disco Hits Explosion, Vol. I
Let’s be honest, it’s not truly Halloween unless you get just a little campy with it. This Japanese-origin compilation album goes for it all the way, down to tracks like Soul Dracula
9. Entombed - Left Hand Path
It should be no shock that metal bands kind of take the cake when it comes to creepy Halloween covers, but death metal stalwarts Entombed’s admirable sense of detail on their album covers puts them a cut above the rest
10. Lene Lovich - Flex
This witch-inspired cover art released in the 80s sparked controversy - so much so that members of the baptist church attempted to push the album to be banned. And for fans of the avant-garde, there’s good news: the songs are just as edgy and experimental new wave as the artwork.
11. Family Curse - Twilight Language
Even the abstract can have a spooky vibe, and no one is going to understand that better than a Post-Punk band. Family Curse proves that in spades with this release
12. Ghostbusters (Original Soundtrack Album)
We’ll be honest, this entry sparked a huge debate amongst us as to whether a logo (especially from, technically, a movie) should count as album art, but in the end we decided that it would be a huge error not to include it
13. Jean-Michel Jarre - Oxygene
Ambient artist Jean Michel Jarre complements his beautiful electronic minimalist album with this haunting art to match
14. The Michael Schenker Group - The Michael Schenker Group
Released in 1980, this album art depicts Michael Schenker himself being tested on in a lab, a rather spooky scene worthy of your nightmares. And if that’s not enough, you may recognize Schenker from his more-popular bands that he was a part of, featuring equally spooky names: UFO, and Scorpions.
15. Ministry - ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ (Psalm 69)
Industrial band Ministry are no strangers to occult themes, and this album, inspired by a work of Aleister Crowley no less, kicks that up to 11
16. Ozzy Osbourne - Live Mr. Crowley
No Halloween-themed music list would be complete without the patriarch of goth rock and heavy metal, Ozzy Osbourne. This picture disc is ultra-spooky for featuring a live rendition of his solo hit Mr. Crowley, about (again!) occultist Aleister Crowley.
17. Parliament - The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein
The outrageously Funkadelic style is par for the course on any Parliament album, but this one in particular gets extra-spooky with a take on Frankenstein. You’d have a hard time beating these costumer out at a Halloween party.
18. Pat Benatar - Get Nervous
Complete with a straitjacket and padded room, Pat Benatar proves that she would still be the most stylish person even in the insane asylum.
19. The Rods - Wild Dogs
Wild Dogs shows a three-headed dog foaming by the mouth, looking to have broken its chain, feels something out of a Harry Potter movie. Who knew a three headed dog could look more terrifying than this?
20. Skinny Puppy - Censor
This single was initially coined ‘Dog Shit’ and was changed to ‘Censor’ to increase its’ marketability. Either way, this two-faced artwork is a little creepy.
21. Streetwalkers - Red Card
Nothing says halloween quite like this cover art, which shows a cloaked skeleton reading Tarot. This entry is also notable for having a band member featured twice on this list; Nicko McBrain would go on to lean even harder into metal, and play drums for Iron Maiden.
22. Thomas Dolby - Aliens Ate My Buick
For the lighter side of Halloween, Thomas Dolby pulls out all the stops and goes full-camp for this album cover. If Aliens Ate My Buick were actually a movie, you would best believe that it would be a hit feature on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
23. Uriah Heep - Very ‘Eavy Very ‘Umble
The album cover features band mate David Byron, who is near unrecognizable under cobwebs. This is a rarer look at this album state-side, as only European pressings were released with this specific artwork. U.S. releases were adorned with an almost-equally frightening drawing of a serpent-dragon.
24. Xiu Xiu - Fabulous Muscles
An experimental rock album exploring depression, mental and physical abuse — was meant show the extremity of these events in Jamie Stewart’s life, which perhaps is the black and white inspiration for this cover art.