It may not have been the first, but Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy album cover ushered in a brave era of airbrushed barbarians, dragons, wizards, and crawling chicks... a kind of wicked-awesome sword-and-sorcery shorthand to let consumers know that the album they held in their sweaty, resin-stained teenage hands would probably rock in a vaguely medieval manner, and would at the very least feature some very long solos. As a rule, albums with cover art resembling the side of your older brother's van were heavy. Take Molly Hatchet, for example:
As all things must, this hard-rockin', hand-and-airbrush-painted, Frank Frazetta cover-art fetish eventually came to an end. However, it was not the rise of disco or its Continental stepchild, new wave, that sounded the death knell. Nor was it the increasing emphasis on speed and streamlining, both musical and graphic, typified by such metal acts as Judas Priest. No, this proud artform fell out of favor thanks mainly to this:
Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell, in spite of its cover art and mildly Satanic title, is mostly famous for rocking very little, preferring instead to camp very hard. (And obviously the verb "to camp" is being used with some license here. Try not to think of tents or roasted marshmallows.) Thanks to Meatloaf's Kiss-on-Broadway "rock 'n' roll" histrionics, the truly wicked fantasy album covers went the way of the dinosaur, save only the most pathetic exceptions:
Luckily trends are, for the most part, cyclical. (A Postmodern theorist would probably argue that this is more accurately a reflection of the "death of the author" and the utter meaninglessness of "original" artistic production. A Poststructuralist, meanwhile, would probably argue something in French that only the most pretentious grad-school douchebag would even pretend to understand.) Inevitably, the "van" album-art style was rejuvinated, but at first it was employed in the service of what we'll call (very cheritably) "irony":
But the album-cover majesty of van rock has again risen, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of time. Eschewing irony and outright pastiche in favor of a more "genuine" stylistic homage, Australia's Wolfmother sings about unicorns and alternate dimensions atop LedSabbath guitars and massive, orgiastic organ solos. And behold the awesome chick-and-dragon action on the cover of their new album:
It is in the face of such rock 'n' redemption, however, that an old enemy has arisen. Much like the evil and otherworldly behemoths that once graced the covers of the heaviest albums (obscured though they usually were by seeds, stems, and wayward rolling papers), a monstrous beast threatens to undermine this second blossoming of van-glorious rock art. And the beast comes cloaked in a guise of deception:
Be forewarned, lover of heavy music. Be not deceived by the dragon, the sword, or the chick. For this righteous-looking album bears also the mark of the beast: It says "Meatloaf" plain as day right there on the cover. Fool us once, Meatloaf, shame on you. Fool us twice... well Meatloaf didn't really "fool" anyone with Bat Out of Hell II... but fool us with the soon-to-be-released Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, shame on us. We cannot allow what will surely be a profoundly non-rocking piece of shit album to poison the fields so recently sowed by Wolfmother. The time has come for the heaviest bands and the sweetest rockers to resume the mantle of warriors... this is nothing short of a call to arms. Bitchin' side-of-van, sword-and-sorcery album covers must live again! The unholy Gods of rock demand it.
**UPDATE** Check out this list of album covers that were banned or forcibly altered in order to satisfy standards of common decency. Apparently toilets were verboten right through the 1960s. Poo is dirty!!
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