David Bowie Album Covers: All 28 Studio Album Artworks Ranked

28: ‘Black Tie White Noise’ (1993)

Inspired by the difference between Bowie’s eyes (a fight with schoolfriend George Underwood had left his left eye with a permanently dilated pupil), fashion photographer Nick Knight had originally planned to create an album cover in which the right-hand side of Bowie’s face was mirrored to form one portrait on the front, and the left-hand side of his face was mirrored to form a second portrait on the back. Eventually, Bowie settled for an extreme close-up shot of his face as it was, reflecting his return to solo work after four years with Tin Machine.

Photographer: Nick Knight

27: ‘Tin Machine II’ (1993)

A charcoal sketch of an ancient Greek statue, the Kroisos Kouros, drawn by Edward Bell and repeated four times, like a pop-art screen print, should have made for a relatively benign album cover. In the US, however, the genitalia on Tin Machine II’s sleeve had to be airbrushed out. A number of David Bowie album covers have caused controversy over the years (and this wasn’t even the first one to feature censors-baiting genitalia; see No.2 in this list). Bowie briefly considered giving fans the opportunity to write to the group’s record label in order to ask for the censored images to be mailed to them, so “they could paste them back on”, he told Creem magazine. But the label “freaked out at the idea. Sending genitals through the mail is a serious offence.”

Illustrator: Edward Bell

26: ‘Tin Machine’ (1989)

Even when bolstered by The Spiders From Mars, Bowie never posed with his band for an album cover; he was more likely to be seen with mutant hounds (Diamond Dogs) or 60s supermodel Twiggy (Pin Ups). Tin Machine, however, were conceived as a back-to-basics rock band run along democratic lines. Bowie provided vocals and guitar alongside lead guitarist Reeves Gabrels and sibling duo Tony Fox Sales (bass) and Hunt Sales (drums). A wry visual gag, however, saw the most famous band member relegated to the background on their debut album’s CD cover (the vinyl and cassette editions pictured alternative arrangements), while the group’s suited-and-booted look complemented their apparent democracy, as if all four bandmates had equal shares in a business.

Designer: Roger Gorman

25: ‘The Buddha Of Suburbia’ (1993; artwork, 1995)

Originally released in the UK in 1993, The Buddha Of Suburbia soundtrack album featured a montage of characters from the TV adaption of Hanif Kureishi’s novel of the same name. When the soundtrack was issued in the US in 1995, however, it was given a new design featuring a 1. Outside-era photo of Bowie, taken by photographer Frank Ockenfels III. The stark, dreamlike shot was a fitting replacement for one of Bowie’s more ambient-sounding albums, and has since officially taken its place among the David Bowie album covers.

Photographer: Frank Ockenfels III

24: ‘Never Let Me Down’ (1987)

The circus-style set (with surreal interpolations of a skyscraper and a digitally hand-drawn ladder) that served as a backdrop for the Never Let Me Down artwork wasn’t a million miles away from the prop-heavy stage design Bowie would take on his Glass Spider tour, staged in support of the album. He later called the title of his 17th record “pompous”, but added: “in the context of the song, and songs on the album, I think it’s rather tongue-in-cheek to use it as the title”. Noting there was also “a vaudevillian thing about the cover”, Bowie felt the title and artwork combined were “kind of comical”.

Photographer: Greg Gorman | Designer: Mick Haggarty

23: ‘David Bowie’ (1969)

Not to be confused with David Bowie’s self-titled debut album of 1967, this self-titled album is the one that featured a hit: Space Oddity. The shaggy-haired 22-year-old psychedelic folk-rocker had yet to perfect his own alien image, but the blue-and-green design, by op-art figurehead Victor Vasarely, provided a suitably space-age backdrop for Bowie’s disembodied head to beam onto. It started a trend among many best David Bowie album covers, which would see him work with modern designers to ensure his record sleeves were as cutting-edge as the music inside.

Photographer: Vernon Dewhurst | Designer: Victor Vasarely

22: ‘Reality’ (2003)

Rex Ray had been working with Bowie since the mid-90s, when he began designing posters for the US leg of the Outside Tour. Asked if he knew any illustrators who could come up with a Japanese anime-style illustration for Reality, he proposed that he draw the artwork himself. “While keeping the anime style in mind, I also used the paintings of Margaret Keane as a reference and worked endlessly developing a face and hairstyle for the figure,” Ray recalled. Where did it stand among other David Bowie album covers? The results divided fans, but Bowie had always sought “a fakeness to the cover that undermines” the concept of reality. “It’s the old chestnut,” he added: “What is real and what isn’t? It’s actually about who’s stolen this world.”

Illustrator: Rex Ray | Designer: Jonathan Barnbrook

21: ‘David Bowie’ (1967)

Bowie’s time as a mod was a bit blink-and-you’ll miss it; sonically, it is best captured on his 1966 singles Can’t Help Thinking About Me (with The Lower Third) and I Dig Everything. The artwork for his self-titled debut album sees him sporting his short-lived, proto-Paul Weller feathered Modfather ’do, in a photo taken by Gerald Fearnley, brother of Dek Fearnley, who had played bass and written the album’s orchestral arrangements. But even at this early stage, the restless young Bowie had already moved on from mod: music-hall, mime and messianic delusions (in the shape of We Are Hungry Men) characterise the David Bowie album, which came out on 1 June 1967, the same day as The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band lit the touch paper for the Summer Of Love.

Photographer: Gerald Fearnley

20: ‘Heathen’ (2002)

Having overtly referenced Christian imagery on Heathen’s predecessor, ‘hours…’, Bowie again turned to religious symbolism, but in an altogether more sacrilegious-seeming way. His digitally-enhanced opaque eyes were, he revealed, a nod to the fishes’ eyes of early Christian iconography, while the upside-down title spoke for itself. Photographer Markus Klinko and designer Jonathan Barnbrook had been hired to create the album cover following their work on I Am Iman, the autobiography of Bowie’s wife, Iman. “We took the theme of Heathen as someone who goes against the popular pre-conceived or ‘sacred’ notions, as Bowie has been for the majority of his career,” Barnbrook wrote on his website in 2002, adding that they “wanted to have the absolute minimum number of elements on the cover”.

Photographer: Markus Klinko | Designer: Jonathan Barnbrook

19: ‘Earthling’ (1997)

Designed by Bowie, in collaboration with the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen, Bowie’s Union Jack frock coat (inspired by Gavin Turk’s 1995 artwork Indoor Flag) chimed perfectly with a UK in thrall to Britpop. However, the drum’n’bass-fuelled Earthling couldn’t have been any further from the guitar-based rock the likes of Blur and Suede had created while inspired by Bowie’s classic 70s albums. Nor was Bowie even in the UK when the photo was taken. “I was in New York when I shot that,” Bowie later revealed. “Frank Ockenfels took the photograph, and then Dave De Angelis, who’s a really good computer designer in England, squeezed a bit of England in front me.”

Photographer: Frank Ockenfels III | Designer: Dave De Angelis

18: ‘hours…’ (1999)

Bowie’s dabble with drum’n’bass had been invigorating but also intense, so it was no surprise to see an Earthling-era Bowie looking spent on the cover of his follow-up album, ‘hours…’. Picturing his past self cradled in the arms of a youthful-looking, longer-haired Bowie revitalised by yet another artistic rebirth, the album cover’s Christian symbolism nodded to Michelangelo’s late 15th-century sculpture La Pietà, and also reflected the themes of loss and mortality that Bowie, then in his 50s, explored on the record. “We came up with a few different concepts, all with a religious motif,” photographer Tim Bret-Day told Mojo of what became one of the best David Bowie album covers of the 90s, adding. “Deep down, he doesn’t particularly want to talk about the past or hear his own records. He’s not interested in anything prior to what he’s doing today.”

Photographers: Tim Bret-Day, Frank Ockenfels III | Designer: Rex Ray

17: ‘Pin Ups’ (1973)

Most David Bowie album covers seemed more like fashion shoots than record sleeves. Having himself become a pin-up in the early 70s, Bowie posed with 60s supermodel Twiggy (whom he’d sung about as “Twig the wonder kid” on the Aladdin Sane cut Drive-In Saturday) for Vogue magazine, and then decided he’d rather use the shot himself for a covers album that saw him record glammed-up versions of Swinging 60s classics by Pink Floyd (See Emily Play), Them (Here Comes The Night), Pretty Things (Rosalyn) and more.

Photographer: Justin De Villeneuve.

16: ‘Let’s Dance’ (1983)

After a three-year gap that had, until that point, been his longest break between albums, the Let’s Dance album cover saw Bowie quite literally come out fighting. Having pushed himself – and the concept of rock music – to breaking point throughout the 70s, here was a healthier-looking Bowie who had reportedly signed to EMI for a record-breaking $17.5 million, proving he was capable of holding his own among the slick 80s pop stars that had snuck in on the back of his earlier innovations. A boxing fan himself, Bowie actually took lessons in the sport in order to ensure he was match-fit for tours.

Photographer: Greg Gorman | Designer: Mick Haggerty

15: ‘1. Outside’ (1995)

For an album based around the concept of “Art Crimes” (in which people were murdered and their bodies mutilated as part of an underground art scene), Bowie delivered a suitably mangled self-portrait – one of a series of five he painted in 1995, and which was referred to as either The Dhead – Outside, or Head Of DB. An avid art collector, Bowie periodically sketched or painted himself, particularly through the 90s; much of his extensive private collection was sold by Sotheby’s in November 2016, as part of the Bowie/Collector auction, in three parts: two collections were listed under the Modern And Contemporary Art banner, with the third listed under Design: Ettore Sottsass And The Memphis Group. Together, the lots sold for a total of £33 million.

Illustrator: David Bowie

14: ‘Tonight’ (1984)

High-concept art duo Gilbert & George (Gilbert Prousch and George Passmore) inspired the Tonight artwork, resulting in one of the most memorable David Bowie album covers of the 80s. The duo’s best-known work, a long-running series known as The Pictures, consisted of hand-painted photos, backlit and overlaid with grids. Recalling stained-class windows, they provided eye-catching inspiration for a brightly-coloured, flower-strewn album cover released at the height of the New Romantic era.

Designer: Mick Haggerty

13: ‘Station To Station’ (1976)

Up to this point, most David Bowie album covers had featured photos taken specifically for the record. The stark monochrome shot that appeared on Station To Station, however, was a still taken from Nicolas Roeg’s 1976 film adaptation of Walter Tevis’ sci-fi novel The Man Who Fell To Earth (in which Bowie starred as the lead character, Thomas Jerome Newton). With its heavy white border and no-frills red text, the design conjured the utilitarian artworks of German bands like Kraftwerk and Neu!, whose music Bowie was increasingly gravitating towards, while also introducing The Thin White Duke – a “nasty character, indeed”, in Bowie’s own estimation.

Photographer: Steve Schapiro

12: ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ (1970)

In an early example of Bowie’s canny media manipulation, in 1964 he formed the Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Long-haired Men and soon found himself (then still trading as Davie Jones) on the BBC’s Tonight show, defending his shoulder-length locks with members of his first band, The Manish Boys, in tow. At the start of the 70s – and on the cusp of a revolution in gender experimentation – Bowie, now sporting a curly blond mane reportedly inspired by a Pre-Raphaelite painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, posed on a chaise longue in his Haddon Hall home for the cover of The Man Who Sold The World wearing a “man’s dress” made by British fashion designer Michael Fish. One of the earliest David Bowie album covers to fall foul of the censors, the artwork was rejected by his US record label, who instead used a cartoon illustration Bowie had originally commissioned – and himself rejected, in favour of the “man’s dress” sleeve – from a friend, Michael J Weller. That design ended up in wider use on the 2020 reissue of the album, which also reverted to using The Man Who Sold The World’s original title: Metrobolist.

Photographer: Keith MacMillan

11: ‘Young Americans’ (1975)

Initially angling to commission a painting from Normal Rockwell, the US artist known for his depictions of everyday American life, Bowie changed tack when Rockwell’s wife informed him her husband would need six months to complete a new work. Turning instead to photographer Eric Stephen Jacobs, Bowie asked for a cover photo that replicated an image Jacobs had taken of his then choreographer, Toni Basil, for the cover of arts and entertainment magazine After Dark. Backlit and shot on a sound stage in LA, Jacobs later gave the image its distinctive airbrushed effect with some translucent oil, applied with Q-tips, resulting in one of the most era-defining David Bowie album covers. “There was no smoke in the picture,” Jacobs revealed to Bowie fan site Bowie Golden Years in 2018. “I totally painted that in.”

Photographer: Eric Stephen Jacobs

10: ‘The Next Day’ (2013)

After a decade’s silence, The Next Day was not only a surprise return, but a record that saw Bowie toying with his legacy. Somewhat inverting the Station To Station album cover, the bold square design returns; a gleeful subversion of one of the most iconic David Bowie album covers was all part of the game: in crossing out “Heroes”’s album title and sticking a big white square with the new title on top of Masayoshi Sukita’s original photograph, Bowie and designer Jonathan Barnbrook intended the design as a statement on “forgetting or obliterating” the past. “I don’t think anybody other than Bowie would have taken that risk,” Barnbrook said, though it “puzzled a lot of people… who just ‘didn’t get it’”. Barnbrook also created an entirely new font for the cover, Doctrine, which took its inspiration from the livery of North Korea’s national airline.

Photographer: Masayoshi Sukita | Designer: Jonathan Barnbrook

9: ‘Hunky Dory’ (1971)

When David Bowie entered photographer Brian Ward’s studio for the Hunky Dory photo shoot, the initial idea was to have him pose as a pharaoh. However, Bowie carried with him a photo book which included portraits of Marlene Dietrich. Looking for an image that would reflect the album’s “preoccupation with the silver screen”, the final shot also nodded to actresses Lauren Bacall and Greta Garbo. Ward’s original monochrome photo was recoloured by illustrator Terry Pastor and Bowie’s longtime schoolfriend George Underwood – another nod to one of Bowie’s celebrity idols, Andy Warhol, and his pop-art screen prints.

Photographer: Brian Ward | Illustrators: Terry Pastor, George Underwood

8: ‘Low’ (1977)

Though unusually low-concept – as far as David Bowie album covers go – another still from The Man Who Fell To Earth provided the Low artwork with a visual pun – and a gloriously futuristic burnt-orange colouring. Having relocated from Los Angeles to Europe – first travelling to France, before settling in Berlin – Bowie embarked on a series of albums with Brian Eno, known as the “Berlin Trilogy”, recorded in relative anonymity in Berlin’s Hansa Tonstudio. The profile image of Bowie as Thomas Jerome Newton completed the pun: “low profile”.

Photographer: Steve Schapiro

7: ‘Lodger’ (1979)

Having taken the iconic photo that graced Aladdin Sane’s front cover, London-based photographer Brian Duffy was called upon to shoot Bowie’s final album artwork of the 70s, Lodger. Designed by British pop artist Derek Boshier, the gatefold sleeve opened out to picture Bowie as an accident victim; the broken nose was achieved through make-up, but the bandaged hand came from a real incident – Bowie had burned himself with coffee earlier that morning. To achieve the shot – one of the more unsettling David Bowie album covers – the singer had to balance on a steel frame while Duffy took the photo from above.

Photographer: Brian Duffy | Designer: Derek Boshier

6: ‘Blackstar’ (2016)

Officially stylised as ★, Blackstar, David Bowie’s final album, inspired one of his most minimalist album covers: a simple black star, with five fragmented stars beneath, spelling the name “Bowie”. “This was a man who was facing his own mortality,” designer Jonathan Barnbrook said at the time of the album’s release. “The Blackstar symbol, rather than writing ‘Blackstar’, has a sort of finality, a darkness, a simplicity, which is a representation of the music.” It also referenced the glam-rock that Bowie had found fame with in the early 70s, and Bowie’s own fascination with space, which ran through his entire career – including “the idea of a black hole sucking everything in, the Big Bang, the start of the universe, if there is an end to the universe”, Barnbrook said.

Designer: Jonathan Barnbrook

5: ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’ (1972)

As with the Hunky Dory album cover, the photo used for The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars was taken by Brian Ward and later coloured in by Terry Pastor and George Underwood. But where Bowie’s Hunky Dory pose found him mimicking old-Hollywood glamour, the Ziggy Stardust album cover would turn him into an icon in his own right, immediately marking itself out as one of the best David Bowie album covers of all time. Aiming for a cross between William S Burroughs’ 1971 novel, The Wild Boys: A Book Of The Dead, and Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, Bowie once claimed that “everything had to be infinitely symbolic”. While the colouring gives the extraterrestrial rock messiah an otherworldly appearance, fans were all too eager to read their own meanings into the image: the “K West” sign, actually indicating a place of business for the furriers of the same name (then situated at 23 Heddon Street, off London’s Regent Street, where a flu-ridden Bowie posed for the shot), was often interpreted as a coded declaration that Bowie had set out on a “quest” of his own. A more direct instruction appeared on the rear sleeve: “TO BE PLAYED AT MAXIMUM VOLUME”.

Photographer: Brian Ward | Illustrators: Terry Pastor, George Underwood

4: ‘“Heroes”’ (1977)

Routinely hailed as one of the best David Bowie album covers of all time, the “Heroes” artwork had already been given a dry run when Bowie had Iggy Pop recreate the pose in German painter Erich Heckel’s Roquairol, for the sleeve of his Bowie-produced 1976 album, The Idiot. More striking is Bowie’s take, which has become one of the most famous images in pop culture – so much so that Bowie revisited it in 2013 for his long-awaited comeback album, The Next Day. The quotation marks around the album title were intended, Bowie told the NME, to “indicate a dimension of irony about the word ‘heroes’ or about the whole concept of heroism”.

Photographer: Masayoshi Sukita

3: ‘Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)’ (1980)

A large-scale collage pieced together from a photo taken by Brian Duffy and a painting by British artist Edward Bell, Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) pictures Bowie in the Pierrot costume he’d worn in the Ashes To Ashes video. Nods to his “Berlin Trilogy” of albums – Low, “Heroes” and Lodger – along with Aladdin Sane (whose cover photo had also been taken by Duffy) appeared on the rear sleeve.

Photographer: Brian Duffy | Designer: Edward Bell

2: ‘Diamond Dogs’ (1974)

Guy Peellaert and Nik Cohn’s illustrated book, Rock Dreams, cut through the rock’n’roll fantasy in 1973, puncturing the myths that had grown around such idols as Elvis Presley and The Rolling Stones. Getting in on the joke themselves, the Stones commissioned their own Peellaert illustration for their 1974 album, It’s Only Rock’n’Roll, but Bowie realised the true potential of a Peellaert album cover when he had the Belgian illustrator paint him as a half-man, half-dog mutant flanked by freak-show mutts right out of Diamond Dogs’ fictional Hunger City. Controversially, Peellaert had included Bowie’s diamond dog’s bollocks in the original painting – which could be seen when the gatefold sleeve was fully opened. The offending genitalia was airbrushed out for most commercial pressings, though some uncensored copies exist, and can now change hands for four-figure sums. Peellaert’s uncensored image wasn’t officially used until a 1990 reissue of the album.

Photographer: Terry O’Neill | Illustrator: Guy Peellaert

1: ‘Aladdin Sane’ (1973)

Not only one of the best album covers of the 70s, the Aladdin Sane artwork is arguably the most recognisable image in rock history – and, at the time, was the most expensive album cover ever made, thanks to Bowie’s then manager, Tony Defries, insisting on a seven-colour printing technique (instead of the standard four-colour technique). The lightning-bolt that ran down Bowie’s face reflected his own fractured psyche (the “lad insane” of the punning title) in the wake of his post-Ziggy Stardust fame, while the red mullet and ghoulish tint would define the Ziggy character in the world’s collective consciousness. The photo was selected from a number of portraits taken by Brian Duffy, who came up with the lightning-bolt motif: “Bowie was interested in the Elvis ring, which had the letters TCB [“taking care of business”] as well as a lightning flash,” Duffy recalled. “I drew on his face the design… and used lipstick to fill in the red.” It then took Bowie’s make-up artist Pierre Laroche an hour to apply the finished look.

“Several years ago, I started calling it the Mona Lisa of pop,” Chris Duffy, son of Brian, told AnOther magazine in 2015. Aged 17 when his father took the photo that tops this list of David Bowie album covers, Chris witnessed some of the Aladdin Sane recording sessions first hand. “It has become a cultural icon… there isn’t really an image that is as ubiquitous.”

Photographer: Brian Duffy | Designer: Philip Castle