David Bowie - Aladdin Sane (RCA, 1972)

Released as the follow-up to The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]David Bowie[/lastfm]‘s 1972 album Aladdin Sane is, in the words of Bowie scribe Nicholas Pegg, “one of the most urgent, compelling and essential” albums in his catalog. It’s also wrapped in one of his most compelling covers.

“I was not a little peeved when Kiss purloined (the flash symbol that signifies “High Voltage’). After all,” he’s quoted as saying in The Greatest Album Covers of All Time, “purloining was my job.”

Adapting for himself the same zig-zag flash framed by bright pink makeup and flame red hair (created by Pierre La Roche), Bowie enlisted designers Duffy and Celia Philo to complete his vision and ship it off to the printers.

The original version — using a seven-color process — was outside of the printing capabilities in his English homeland … so it was shipped off to Switzerland for completion.

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