8 Mind-Bending Album Covers And What They Really Mean

8. David Bowie €“ Diamond Dogs

Like many of the album covers on this list will be, this one is difficult to describe, but it's incredibly striking regardless. Diamond Dogs is the eighth studio album recorded by David Bowie. It features what appears to be Bowie himself lying in front of a picture of two deformed females, who are hunched over like dogs (the titular Diamond Dogs, presumably). Though it can't be seen just by looking at the front cover, the art extends to show Bowie himself is half-dog, specifically the lower half of his torso. Famously, the album cover was censored by RCA Records. Why? Because originally, the lower half of Bowie's body displayed a massive canine penis. As many copies as possible were withdrawn and censored, but of course there's still a bunch of them floating around out there. But what does it all mean? Well, the cover itself was painted by the Belgian artist Guy Peelhart, who was heavily influenced by psychedelic art and Pop Art. This went well with the album, as it was Bowie's final major experimentation with glam-rock, which is primarily about outlandish, striking style. On top of that, the album itself is a concept album, depicting Bowie's glam-tinged vision of a post-apocalyptic world. The deformed figures on the cover, then, represent the result of this post-apocalyptic scenario (note that the deformed dogs are advertised as part of a sort of freak show, "The Strangest Living Curiosities"). This is somewhat ironic given the state of Bowie lying in front of the poster.