I had “Wild Pete Macy” guitar player from the Los Angeles via Brooklyn thrashers “Early Man” talk about his favorite album cover artwork -  Check it out!

Pete Macy

This is a list of some of my favorite album covers. I am by no means endorsing any of these as the “best of all time” or anything of that nature. I have very bad taste. For me, the more over the top the better. It’s heavy metal, not some art dork’s thesis. These record covers remind me of being a kid and going into Sam Goody or Record Town in the Swansea Mall to buy a Poison tape or a Guns N’ Roses cassingle and having something catch my eye that I had never heard of before but knew I needed to hear. The records I liked before I had ever heard them based on the cover alone. Records that I thought made me cooler just by owning them.

*Honorable Mention* – Death Penalty – Witchfinder General
-This record gets a mention as it has all the trappings of a really killer cover. It’s in a graveyard. The band members are dressed foolish. And there is a naked woman. Even though the music on this is really great, the cover is just a little too cheesy, even by my standards, to make the list. And that’s saying something.

10. “Stay Hungry” – Twisted Sister
TS were one of the first metal bands I really loved. I remember being in kindergarten and thinking “I Wanna Rock” was the coolest song I’d ever heard. I’ll never forget walking into my cousin’s room and seeing “Stay Hungry” in the corner and freaking out. Some sort of mutant man-beast crouching in the corner eating what I had to assume at the time was human meat. I was hooked for life.

9. “Fighting The World” – Manowar
I love Manowar. I really do. 100% without a trace of the irony that most “fans” I talk to have. This record cover is my favorite because you just know they were sitting around one day talking about how their new record needed an epic cover, like KISS’ Destroyer. So they hired the same artist to do the exact same album cover for them, except instead of KISS, it’s Manowar! It’s so over the top ridiculous it works perfectly. Extra bonus points for the Blow Your Speakers 7″, which is the exact same cover but with some topless babes waiting at Manowar’s feet.

8. “Once Upon The Cross” – Deicide The autopsy of Jesus Christ. It’s not very clever, but    goddamn it was jarring. Especially when listening to it between classes at your Catholic high school like I did. It was the aural equivalent of ramming the Satanic Bible down the principal’s throat, and the cover was like pissing on a crucifix.

7. “Animal (Fuck Like A Beast)” – W.A.S.P.
A bloody crotch with a saw blade going through it. Need I say more? 1984 or 2010, that shit is genius.

6. “Blood, Guts, and Pussy” – The Dwarves
It’s as if someone showed the cover of Samhain’s “Initium” to a bunch of middle school kids and asked them to improve upon it. 2 naked girls, 1 naked midget, and they’re all covered in blood. How did The Beatles not think of this first?

5. “The Ultimate Sin” – Ozzy Osbourne
Anyone who has read the Early Man blog knows that I love this record. But the cover is totally priceless. It’s got this insanely hot demon babe on the cover with glowing eyes and a retardedly awesome butt in skintight zebra pants. As if that wasn’t enough, you get a giant green Ozzy-dragon swooping in, all evil and freaky looking. Why Ozzy’s camp denies the existence of this record I’ll never know.

4. “Trilogy” – Yngwie J Malmsteen
In the land of the overblown, only one man has what it takes to be king. Yngwie J Malmsteen. I bought this on cassette when I was in 3rd grade. And the reason I chose this over his over records was this cover, a completely over the top homage to all things great. For those who have not seen it, it features an illustration of Yngwie on a rocky shore, in the most epic of all power squats, pointing his beloved Fender Stratocaster to the sky. Sounds killer, right? But it doesn’t end there. The reason for this killer move? He’s using his guitar to fend off an oncoming attack…from a fire breathing three headed dragon. Never has ego been defined so beautifully.

3. “Painkiller” – Judas Priest
Priest have had many a killer album cover over the years. Sad Wings Of Destiny had a great cover. The brutal simplicity of British Steel is one of the most iconic covers in all of metal. The gnarly bright yellow Hellion on Screaming For Vengeance is as classic as they come. But just like the music on Painkiller, the cover was as genius as anything they’d ever done. An metal savior riding a saw-wheeled, fire-breathing, smoke snorting, all metal monster over the remains of a burning city. It looks just like the record sounds: cold, harsh, and mean.

2. “Rust In Peace” – Megadeth
Vic Rattlehead has done a lot over the years on various Megadeth albums, singles, and t  shirts. 99% of the time it’s pretty awesome. This cover falls into the remaining 1% where it’s totally mindblowing. Megadeth always had songs about the government and its lies, conspiracies, and corruption, and they all came together perfectly on this stunning album cover. It features Vic in (presumably) Hangar 18, standing over a giant coffin/test tube holding an alien. Congregated together behind this eerie scene sits a delegation of world leaders, namely George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, alongside leaders from Germany, Japan, and Great Britain. Vic has never looked so menacing, and with that crew behind him on his side, he’d never been so evil.

1. “Powerslave” – Iron Maiden
The definition of epic. Eschewing traditional themes for covers such as fire, scantily clad    women, satan, pictures of themselves, or the color black, Iron Maiden and Derek Riggs came out with a cover the likes of which metal had never seen. An Egyptian themed masterpiece, this record featured Eddie as Pharoah, sitting majestically as part of a giant pyramid with a funeral procession entering up a massive flight of stairs. Words can’t describe how amazing it is, so look it up, or better yet, go buy a copy of it. I distinctly remember buying this record when I was younger. I knew I wanted a Maiden record but I    didn’t know which one. So going on cover art alone I started looking…hmmm…Killers looks tough…Number of the Beast looks intense…HOLY SHIT! POWERSLAVE!!! I bought it and never looked back. Even looking at it now to write about it I’m at a loss for words. It’s so huge, beautiful, and flat out epic I just find myself looking at it in awe. The best album cover from a band known for its legendary album covers.

Frenchy –