10 Amazing Stories Behind Famous Rock Album Music Covers
9. The White Night Riots (Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables - Dead Kennedys)
If you couldn't already tell from their name, punk outfit Dead Kennedys like to get political in their music.
Take their first album for example, 1980's Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. Songs on this delightfully-titled collection include the opener, Kill the Poor, and a track called Let's Lynch the Landlord. Not exactly prime radio material.
In keeping with these ideals, the band chose a image with very strong political connotations to introduce their debut record. It's a photo of a row of burning cars, taken on May 21st 1979, the day of the San Francisco White Night riots.
In November the previous year, former mayoral supervisor Dan White shot the then-mayor George Moscone and prominent gay rights activist Harvey Milk.
When it was revealed that White had only been convicted of manslaughter instead of murder, a crime that carried a significantly smaller jail term, the gay community in San Francisco erupted in anger, leading to the aforementioned unrest.
Sticking such a powerful (and recent) image on the front of their debut album was a strong statement from the group, and made sure that this miscarriage of justice would always be remembered.