The Beverly Hills Hotel
The Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles is one of the most photographed, thanks to its appearance on the cover of The Eagles’ Hotel California album.
The Eagles’ Hotel California
Don Henley, the band’s founding member, wanted the album cover to symbolise ‘faded glory, loss of innocence and decadence’ and the hotel was the perfect choice. Built in 1912, John Lennon, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe are just some of the celebrities to grace its rooms. When Hotel California was released, many claimed ancient symbols were concealed within the artwork. While the band denied this, John Kosh, the art director who worked on the cover, admitted an unexplained figure can be seen on the balcony. ‘I assume he’s a friendly spirit, because we got the picture and it worked,’ he says.
Battersea Power Station
Pink Floyd’s Animals
Battersea Power Station may not seem like an obvious tourist attraction but, because of its appearance on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals album, the iconic building is a popular stop-off for visitors to London. The album cover depicts a giant inflatable pig hovering over the power station but while the image certainly put Battersea Power Station on the map – the building’s guestbook is filled with entries from Pink Floyd fans – the giant porker originally hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. During the photoshoot, which lasted for several days, the band had arranged for a marksman to be present so that the pig, which was designed by the band’s founding member, Roger Waters, could be shot down if it broke free from its moorings. However, on the fourth day, a breakdown in communication meant the marksman didn’t show up and it was on this day that the pig made its break for freedom. ‘The pig broke free of its moorings and rose into the flight path of Heathrow Airport,’ says a spokesman for Battersea Power Station. ‘The runaway pig was tracked by police helicopters before coming to ground in Kent.’
Abbey Road
The Beatles’ famous album cover was based on a design – four stick men crossing a road – sketched by Paul McCartney.
The Beatles’ Abbey Road
Photographer Iain Macmillan had ten minutes to get his shot on a warm summer morning in August 1969. In fact, a policeman held up traffic while Macmillan took the photo from a stepladder. The cover put the Abbey Road pedestrian crossing on the map. Shortly after the album was released, the number plate of the Volkswagen Beatle in the background – owned by a resident who lived opposite the recording studio – was stolen. In 1986, the car itself was sold at auction, only to reappear in a German museum in 2001. The man standing to the right of the crossing is Paul Cole, a tourist who only realised he’d been caught on camera when his wife bought the album a year later.
Abbey Road for sale: Top 5 albums ever recorded at the studios
The Giant’s Causeway
Houses Of The Holy by Led Zeppelin is widely thought of as one of the best rock albums of all time.
Houses Of The Holy by Led Zeppelin
The cover artwork features children crawling over the rocks of Northern Ireland’s Giant’s Causeway, a World Heritage site. It was inspired by Arthur C Clarke’s novel Childhood’s End, whose closing chapters describe millions of naked, alien-like children running towards the end of the world. The shoot took place over ten days but was severely hampered by bad weather, leaving the band unhappy with the results. However, during post-production, accidental tinting gave the photos a strange, orange hue. The band loved it. ‘The look and style of this cover is still copied by rock and psych acts to this day, from The Mars Volta to The Darkness,’ says Keith Marnoch of Da Fino Design.
Death Valley
Death Valley in California appears on the album cover of U2’s fifth album, The Joshua Tree.
U2’s fifth album, The Joshua Tree
Photographer Anton Corbijn and the band spent three days driving around the Mojave Desert looking for a location that represented the point at which the desert met civilisation – the album’s provisional title was Desert Songs. Corbijn mentioned the presence of Joshua trees and, after doing some research, Bono discovered the Mormons called them ‘praying trees’, saying the outstretched branches represented Joshua, the Biblical prophet, raising his hands in prayer. Bono renamed the album The Joshua Tree.
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