10 Best Rock Album Music Covers Of The 2000s

2. Is This It - The Strokes

For the US release of their debut album Is This It in 2001, British band The Strokes issued a picture of a subatomic particle being tracked in a bubble chamber as its front cover.

The most famous (and significantly better) artwork for Is This It, is a photograph taken by Colin Lane of his then-girlfriend. The woman, whose identity has never been revealed, was getting out of the shower when Lane spied an opportunity for a suggestive snap.

A leather glove resting on her naked behind would become famous the world over on the front of one of the greatest indie rock albums of all time. The picture, which was tastefully converted to monochrome, is classy erotica done right. It's incredibly sexy and so nicely framed, lending an artistic edge to what could have been labelled as smut.

Not that this stopped some people from calling it smut, but that's just life.

Is This It would always have done well, but this renowned photo helped take it to the next level. No ifs, certainly some butts.

Contributor
Contributor

Jacob Simmons has a great many passions, including rock music, giving acclaimed films three-and-a-half stars, watching random clips from The Simpsons on YouTube at 3am, and writing about himself in the third person.