Alternate Album Cover

Albums donut have to stick to one cover.

To release an album; musicians, promoters, executives, and such all have to come up with a cover for it. The artwork is meant to showcase part of the personality of the album and has to visually represent the music included within, at least most of the time. Book covers and movie posters often have multiple versions but popular music album artwork since the mid-20th century tends to be consistent through every release and rerelease of an album for consistency between reissues and across formats. Classical and jazz buyers seem to accept album cover variations more easily.

However, while certain albums covers have become iconic, covers can differ between various markets and formats. Many times, the artwork change is a form of Bowdlerization due to the artwork featuring Gorn or lewd imagery. This may involve de-sexying Sexy Packaging, using a Censor Box, or using a different photograph. The reasons for this change are often due to the Moral Guardians being against the imagery on the packaging. Other times, the changes are done to compensate for the different sizes of LP, CD, and cassette packaging and make them stand out on store shelves. When this is done, the changes are usually subtler, such as cropping the artwork, enlarging titles, or putting text on a Textless Album Cover, while keeping the same basic design in common across all formats. International releases often have different covers, either to tone down a racy image for a more conservative country, or the label just believes this design is more marketable there. Rights issues can also force an alternate cover, as album covers require permission from and royalties to the cover designers and photographers.

This trope is not meant to cover a redesign of a special edition.

Sub-Trope of Variant Cover. No Zero-Context Examples Please!

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Examples:

#-L

• 10,000 Maniacs:
  • The LP release of The Wishing Chair includes three copies of a photograph depicting a 19th century woman seated at a chair. The CD and cassette releases, meanwhile, only use a single copy of the picture.
  • In My Tribe features different photos of an archery class across the LP, CD, and cassette releases. The LP and cassette covers depict the class from the front, with the cassette version featuring a wider version of the photo, while the CD cover depicts them from above.
• AC/DC:
  • High Voltage has three different releases with that name (one of them being an international issue combining tracks from the original album and TNT). The original Australian version features a dog peeing on an electrical box, the second features an image of Angus Young, and the third is a rather brightly-colored image.
  • Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap: The original Australian version's album cover depicts a pencil drawing of Bon Scott with the album title tattooed on his oversized bicep while Angus Young flips the viewer off in the background. The international edition, meanwhile, features a new cover by Hipgnosis depicting a crowd of people with Censor Boxes over their eyes.
  • Highway to Hell: Both the International and Australian versions of the artwork show the band with Angus having devil horns and a tail. The Australian variant shows more flames.
• The Alan Parsons Project:
  • Tales of Mystery and Imagination: There are three versions of the album's artwork. The most common is of a man wrapped in tape casting a long shadow within a thin image. A altered version of this artwork adds an image a man's face wrapped in tape with a drawing of a mummified man in the background. A third image features an image of the top half of Alan Parsons wrapped in tape.
  • Stereotomy: The original LP release included a transparent sleeve with blue plastic on one side and red on the other. The artwork inside featured red and blue text and a Rorschach inkblot in the center. Later releases would simplify the artwork with just a blue inkblot with the album title in red text and the band name in light blue due to the high costs that replicating the original packaging on any format would entail.
• Anthrax: Anthems is a Cover Album with six editions. While the track listings are consistent across versions, each edition has cover art based on one of the songs therein.
• Art of Noise: The original UK cover for Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise? depicts a photo of a facepalming statue atop a black marble backdrop. When the album was released in the US, it was given a new cover depicting a pair of stylized "comedy" and "tragedy" masks (which the band used as a visual motif in their early years) against a blue marble background. Later that year, a third cover would appear on continental European reissues depicting a small pair of silver, traditionally-designed comedy/tragedy masks lying on a sheet of blue velvet. The three covers would be interchangeably used across regions when the album was released on CD.
• The Beatles:
  • The original UK release of Help! features the Beatles in a White Void Room, spelling out "NUJV" in semaphore. The US version◊ with an altered tracklist, meanwhile, shrinks down the band, rearranges the members so that they instead spell out "NVUJ", and sandwiches them between much larger versions of the band name and album title.
  • The original release of the US-oriented compilation Yesterday and Today infamously depicts the band in butcher smocks, covered in raw meat and chopped-up baby dolls. After the artwork stoked controversy for its violent content, it was hastily replaced with a new photo depicting the band in and around a steamer trunk; copies with the original cover have since become a highly coveted rarity.
  • The original LP release of the tribute album Beatlesongs! featured cover art by William Stout depicting a cartoon of Beatles fans holding up a banner praising the band. However, the illustration drew public outcry for the fact that it included a caricature of Mark David Chapman, who had shot and killed John Lennon less than two years prior; consequently, Rhino Records hastily swapped out the artwork for a photo of Beatles memorabilia strewn across a floor.
• amorica. by The Black Crowes: The original artwork is of an American flag thong covering a woman's crotch, taken from the photo used for the July 1976 cover of Hustler. Big box stores refused to sell it, so the alternate artwork features only the flag thong on a black back ground.
• Blind Faith: The original release of the band's Self-Titled Album depicts a topless 12-year-old girl holding a phallic model airplane. Due to the artwork's controversial nature, it was later replaced with a black and white photo of the band.
• blink-182:
  • The deluxe edition of California has a re-color of the album's cover artwork to distinguish it from the standard edition; the original artwork is still featured within the deluxe edition's packaging.
  • While all the physical formats One More Time... was released on share the Minimalistic Cover Art with the band's name, the album's title, and a new version of the band's smiley logo, each format has a different background color: cyan for CD, bright pink for vinyl, and lime green for casette. The album's digital release, on the other hand, uses a plain white cover featuring three black-and-white photos of the members alongside the band name and album title.
• David Bowie:
  • Space Oddity had several different covers across different releases.
    • The 1969 Philips Records release in the UK features a portrait of Bowie by photographer Vernon Dewherst, laid among a pattern of circles and squares designed by Hungarian op-artist Victor Vasarely.
    • The 1969 Mercury Records release in the US features a similar portrait of Bowie against a blank navy blue background, with the subtitle "Man of Words/Man of Music" appended to it; fans typically refer to this release by the subtitle for clarification's sake.
    • The 1972 RCA Records release features a trend cover photograph of Bowie as the title character of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, intended to cash in on the popularity of that album. A similar technique was used for the label's concurrent reissue of The Man Who Sold the World. In both cases, this trend cover would be replicated on RCA's CD reissues of the albums. The RCA reissue of this album also retitles it to Space Oddity, thus making the opening song a retroactive Title Track. This variant of the cover is also maintained on the 1990 Rykodisc remaster.
    • The 1999 EMI remaster restores the original 1969 UK cover, but appends the RCA reissue's Space Oddity title to the bottom.
    • Finally, the 2019 mix features◊ a textless variant of the 1969 UK cover against a navy blue background, packaged in a die-cut navy blue slipcase that exposes only Bowie's face; the slipcase is spot-varnished to feature the same pattern of circles, and includes the artist name and album title in a simple sans-serif all lowercase letters font.
  • The Man Who Sold the World:
    • The original 1970 American release featured an illustration◊ of a John Wayne expy standing in front of the Cane Hill Mental Institution, toting a rifle; this cover is featured on the back of the liner notes booklet on all CD reissues from the 1990 Rykodisc release onwards. A modified version◊ would later be used for Metrobolist, the 2020 remix, replacing the logo, adding the text "NINE SONGS BY DAVID BOWIE" at the bottom, and un-censoring the cowboy's speech bubble.
    • The 1971 British release featured a photograph of Bowie lounging in a satin dress, surrounded by playing cards scattered on the floor. The original plan was for the American cover to be the one used on all releases, as part of a gatefold that would include the dress photo as the inner illustration, but conflicts with Mercury Records execs forced a change of plans; the British cover would eventually be reinstated as the "canonical" one once Bowie regained the rights to his back-catalog in 1988.
    • The 1972 German release used an elaborate round paper cover featuring an illustration of Bowie as a winged hand beast flicking away the Earth; this cover folded over the record's inner sleeve.
    • The 1972 international reissue by RCA Records used a trend cover, featuring a black-and-white photo of Bowie as Ziggy Stardust on both the front and back. This cover would be reused on all RCA issues of the album, as was also the case with Space Oddity.
  • Hunky Dory:
    • The original US release uses a Textless Album Cover, featuring the glamour shot of Bowie and the surrounding black border but without any of the logotypes featured on the UK release.
    • The New Zealand LP release repeats the back cover on both sides of the outer sleeve (with the "DAVID BOWIE HUNKY DORY" logotype added), with the only differentiation being the presence of copyright information on the back.
    • The original RCA Records CD changes the text on the cover from white to black and adjusts the rear tracklist to reflect the single-track sequencing of both "Oh! You Pretty Things"/"Eight Line Poem" and "Fill Your Heart"/"Andy Warhol". The original RCA Victor logo on the black border is also removed, presumably to avoid any redundancy with the "RCA CD" logo that was featured on all of the label's CD releases at the time.
    • The 1990 and 1999 remasters remove the black border around the cover art, with the former additionally removing the artist name and album title.
    • The 2015 remaster's cover art is mostly identical to that of the 1971 UK LP, but replaces the RCA Victor logo with the Parlophone Records one (as was also the case for the label's concurrent releases of The Man Who Sold the World — albeit with the Mercury Records logo on that one — and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars).
  • The original artwork for Station to Station is a cropped, black and white photo of Bowie as Thomas Jerome Newton entering the spaceship meant to take him back to Earth, bordered in white. The 1991 Rykodisc CD and the 1999 EMI/Virgin Records CD both use a modified version of the cover that incorporates the uncropped, full-color version of the photo without the white border. The 1976 cover would eventually be reinstated starting with a 2007 "mini LP" repressing of the 1999 CD; the 1991 cover, meanwhile, would eventually see one last appearance in 2016 when a color-corrected version was used for the 2010 remix in the Boxed Set Who Can I Be Now? (1974-1976).
  • The cover art for Lodger is a gatefold-spanning photo of Bowie done up to look like an accident victim; the original 1979 release orients the photo to feature Bowie's legs on the front cover and his upper half on the back. CD reissues by RCA Records and Rykodisc flip this around to instead put his upper half on the front, which would eventually be reverted for the 1999 EMI/Virgin Records CD. When the album was both remastered and remixed for the Boxed Set A New Career in a New Town (1977-1982) in 2017, a third version of the cover was created that uses the Face on the Cover configuration but places the faux postcard at Bowie's head instead of his feet. This version would be used for both the remix and the standalone digital release of the remastered 1979 mix (physical releases of the latter maintain the original cover).
  • The arrangement of the band members on the cover photo of Tin Machine differs between each format. From left to right, the CD cover◊ features David Bowie, Tony Sales, Hunt Sales, and Reeves Gabrels; the LP and digital covers◊ feature Hunt Sales, Reeves Gabrels, David Bowie, and Tony Sales; the cassette cover◊ features Tony Sales, Hunt Sales, Reeves Gabrels, and David Bowie.
  • The original 1993 cover art for The Buddha of Suburbia consists of an edited still from the TV show of the same name, with a map of London inserted as the background^note the album grew out of Bowie's soundtrack for the show, and this cover tied in with its marketing as a soundtrack album (despite it diverging far enough from the show's score for Bowie and later analysts to view it as an independent studio album). The 1995 cover art for the US release replaces this with a black-and-white photo of Bowie seated at a cot. The 2007 reissue and 2021 remaster use a sepia-tinted variant of this photo.
  • Initial pressings of the CD release of 'hours...' feature a lenticular cover, meant to evoke a 3D effect with both the two Bowies and the hallway they're lying in. Later releases simply used a regular print of the image.
  • The CD and digital releases of ★ depict the titular black star against a white backdrop, with "BOWIE" written at the bottom in star fragments. The LP release, meanwhile, changes the background to black, spot-varnishes the "BOWIE" logo, and uses a die-cut hole for the star, exposing the record (protected by a transparent plastic inner sleeve) underneath. Removing the record and holding the open gatefold outer sleeve to the light also reveals a humanoid constellation in a field of stars under the star-shaped hole.
• Kate Bush:
  • Seven different cover photos for The Kick Inside exist, mostly based on which region the album was released in:
    • The first and best-known one, featured on the original UK release in 1978 and on the 40th-anniversary remaster in all regions, features Bush in an elaborate red dress riding a large kite against a backdrop of a large yellow-orange eye, framed in burgundy.
    • The second cover◊, used for the original American and Canadian release of the album on Harvest Records, is also a glamour photo of Bush, running her hands through her hair.
    • The third cover◊, included on the second edition of the Canadian and American releases (the latter on EMI America Records and later EMI Manhattan Records), features a glamour photo of Bush sitting in a wooden box, wearing a flannel shirt and jeans.
    • The fourth cover◊, used for the Japanese release, is a different glamour shot of Bush in a pink tank top.
    • The fifth cover◊, used for the Yugoslavian release of the album, is a photograph of Bush in a white dress, staring sternly into the distance.
    • The sixth cover◊, used for the Uruguayan release, is a black-and-white headshot of Bush staring directly into the camera.
    • The seventh cover◊, used for a Swedish cassette reissue in 1988, is another photo of Bush in a white dress, but dancing.
  • The initial Japanese CD release of Never for Ever crops the cover illustration to only focus on the creatures in the bottom-right corner. Reissues from 1995 onwards revert to the full cover.
• David Byrne:
  • My Life in the Bush of Ghosts: The original release uses a photograph of a TV displaying a feedback loop, intercut with taped-on paper cutouts in humanoid shapes. The 2006 remaster, meanwhile, features an outer slipcase depicting an indistinct horizontal blur based on the original cover's color scheme; a shrunken-down version of the original cover against a black background appears on the front of the jewel case booklet.
  • The Catherine Wheel: The original, truncated LP release uses a black background, the expanded cassette release uses a blue background, and the CD release (which uses the cassette version's tracklist) uses a red background.
  • Rei Momo:
    • LP releases feature a larger, zoomed-out version of the front cover showing more of both the heart and Byrne's face.
    • Promotional CD copies handed out to radio stations and reviewers only feature the heart on the liner notes, with the green dots depicting Byrne's face being printed directly on the lid of the jewel case.
    • The digital release of the album removes the heart in the background, replacing it with a solid black backdrop.
• Cacola: The cassette release of A Gift to Us All features a modified version of the cover illustration that removes the chromatic aberration effect and swaps out the bright neon palette for a more subdued red and black one.
• Most of Cannibal Corpse's albums, save for the Minimalistic Cover Art ones like Kill, have a censored cover art to go with the standard ones due to their usually graphic nature. These censored artworks are used for releases in countries with restrictions on the cover arts regarding retail, such as Australia, and Rhythm Games which feature the band's songs like Rock Band.
• The Caretaker:
  • The vinyl releases of Stages 4-6 of Everywhere at the End of Time are split into two discs per album due to the space limitations of the LP format. As a result, they feature entirely new artwork in their inner covers, with Ivan Seal creating a unique painting for each disc in the sets.
  • The CD releases comprising sets of Stages 1-3 and Stages 4-6 feature none of the main artworks for the albums, instead featuring one new painting for the one-disc set of Stages 1-3, and one per disc for the 4-disc set of Stages 4-6 (which is divided up that way due to space limitations on the Compact Disc format).
• Wendy Carlos:
  • The initial release of Switched-On Bach featured a cover photo of a man dressed as Bach sitting and listening to the album through Carlos' synthesizer, bewildered at the results. Carlos had the cover pulled both because of its silliness and because of its inaccurate depiction of how one would use a synthesizer. The replacement photo instead features a more traditionally dignified Bach standing upright.
  • After Carlos came out as a transgender woman in 1979, all of her previously-released albums were reissued to replace instances of her birth name (including those on the covers) with her preferred one.
• CKY's debut was initially a Self-Titled Album released under the name Camp Kill Yourself, with the cover art being a stylized painting depicting the public suicide of politician R. Budd Dwyer - from 2001 onward, the band name was changed to CKY, the album was re-titled Volume 1, and the cover design was changed to a photo of Chad Ginsburg performing live at the Warped Tour.
• Leonard Cohen: The original release of New Skin for the Old Ceremony features a cover illustration taken from the 16th century alchemist book Rosary of the Philosophers, depicting two crowned, nude angels embracing each other. The cover's depiction of nudity resulted in Columbia Records putting together a second cover depicting a black and white headshot of Cohen, with various releases of the album alternating between the two covers across regions.
• Phil Collins: For the 2016 remasters of his catalog, Collins reshot all of his album covers to depict his older self, signifying how much time had passed since the original releases. Most of the reshoots are 1:1 with the original covers, while Going Back (Re-Cut and retitled The Essential Going Back) features Collins resting his arm on the drum kit and glaring at the camera.
• Elvis Costello:
  • This Year's Model: The British/European, American, and Scandinavian covers all show Elvis Costello in a suit, standing behind a camera, but each uses a different photo where he's posed slightly differently. On the UK release, he's standing up and has his hands beside the camera; on the American release he's leaning forward, with his hands still beside the camera, and on the Scandinavian release he's leaning forward with his hands on the tripod instead of the camera. Also, the first UK pressing from 1978 features a deliberate printer error where the photo is so off-center that the title text is partly cut off on the left side ("Lvis Costello: His Year's Model"), and color test blocks are visible on the right side. This joke wasn't repeated on any international releases, and even in the UK, most reissues fixed the "mistake".
  • Armed Forces: The European release features a painting of an elephant herd. The American release features abstract paint splatter art.
• Cutting Crew: The UK LP release of Broadcast depicts various pieces of broadcasting equipment surrounding a timpani drum, all against a red background; CD and cassette releases in the territory change this to just the drum. The US release, meanwhile, swaps out the cover for a new one depicting the band name in giant typeface with a large slash across the middle. The 2010 remaster splits the difference by featuring a variant of the UK LP cover with the drum replaced by a band logo styled after the US cover.
• Daft Punk: The cover of most releases of Discovery consists of the band's logo with a silver tone and rainbow lining against a black background. The Japanese release instead has a cover featuring characters from Interstella 5555 (which uses the entirety of Discovery as its soundtrack).
• Lana Del Rey: Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd came out with five different album covers at once, each depicting a different headshot of Del Rey. The standard edition depicts her resting her face on her hand while sulking, the pink vinyl edition depicts her lying on a pillow, the green vinyl edition depicts her craning her head up while gazing down, the dark pink edition depicts her looking ahead while pressing her thumb to her lower lip, and the white vinyl edition depicts her stretching her arm behind her head.
• Depeche Mode: The standard cover art for Memento Mori, featured on the digisleeve CD, digital, and double-LP releases, depicts two angel wing-shaped bouquets atop a wooden backdrop with the band name and album title above. The digibook CD and cassette releases only depict one bouquet due to the smaller size of the packaging, with the digibook CD additionally being a Textless Album Cover; the logotypes are instead included on a shrinkwrap sticker.
• J Dilla: The CD release of Donuts depicts a headshot of Dilla, while the LP release depicts a drawing of a donut shop.
• Electric Light Orchestra:
  • The UK release of ELO 2 depicts a lightbulb labeled with the album title flying through outer space. The US release, meanwhile, depicts a different lightbulb flying through the night sky above a mountain range.
  • The UK release of On the Third Day features a cropped headshot of Jeff Lynne staring down at the Earth. The US release replaces this with a black and white photo of the band baring their navels atop a white backdrop. Interestingly, the US cover features Hugh McDowell, who had briefly left the band while the album was being recorded and thus played exactly zero notes on the record.
• You've Come a Long Way, Baby by Fatboy Slim: The original artwork depicts a photo from the 1983 Fat People's Festival in Danville, Virginia, featuring an unidentified overweight person with a shirt reading "I'm #1 so why try harder". The North American release replaces this with a photo of a large record collection.
• Peter Gabriel:
  • The cassette release of Melt replaces the manipulated black and white photo of a melting Gabriel with a standard, full-color headshot.
  • Cassette and 8-track releases of Security swap out the distorted photo of Gabriel's face in favor of the solarized images of him biting a rope from the back LP cover.
• Genesis:
  • From Genesis to Revelation has been reissued countless times over the years thanks to Jonathan King's attempts at capitalizing on spikes in the band's fame. Accordingly, these countless reissues were also given countless different album covers, which are too voluminous to list in full. Among these are In the Beginning, the first version of which depicted an orange snake coiled around the Earth, And the Word Was..., which depicts a photo of the band atop a blue marble backdrop, and a reissue under the original name by Varèse Sarabande in 2008 that depicts a photo of the band atop a solid black background.
  • The UK double-cassette release of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway features the image of a brick corridor for the first tape and the portrait of a mouthless Rael for the second, both taken from the rear cover of the LP release. The French, Spanish, and Italian double-cassette releases, meanwhile, feature the same cover for both tapes, depicting all six photos from the front and back LP cover, with the observing Rael superimposed over the results. Later single-cassette releases use the brick corridor only.
  • Abacab features four different versions of the cover art featuring different arrangements of the color paper shreds. Going clockwise from top-left, the four arrangements are red-blue-yellow-brown, brown-yellow-red-light blue, teal-orange-red-light green, and yellow-red-brown-green.
• Gorillaz: Five different versions of the album cover for Humanz exist; four depict each member of the band individually, while the fifth features the full quartet.
• Guns N' Roses: The original cover for Appetite for Destruction depicts the Robert Williams painting of the same name, which showcases a metallic monster bearing down on an oblivious robot rapist who's just finished assaulting a human woman. After retailers objected to the illustration and refused to stock the album, the painting was moved to the inner sleeve, and a new cover was designed featuring an illustration of the band members' skulls decorating a Celtic cross (which was originally included as a temporary tattoo).
• Geri Halliwell's first solo album "Schizophonic" had two covers: one cover was a white-toned portrait of Halliwell, the other was a red-toned photograph of her lying down. The liner notes booklet and inner sleeve of the CD case were printed with both options, allowing owners to flip the artwork to whichever they wanted to display.
• George Harrison: The 2001 remaster of All Things Must Pass colorizes the black-and-white cover photo and adds a blue border. The inner sleeves and the front of the liner notes booklet feature additional edits to the photo that Photoshop in various urban setpieces.
• Jimi Hendrix:
  • The original UK release of Are You Experienced sports a photo depicting Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell crouching under Hendrix's splayed arms, all against a dark green backdrop. The US release, meanwhile, depicts a circular fisheye lens photo of the band against a yellow backdrop.
  • The original cover for Electric Ladyland was simply a large group of nude women (that's front and back cover). This cover somehow managed to survive being used in the UK, but the USA (and later CD) version of the album uses Karl Ferris' psychedelic portrait. Interestingly enough, neither of these were approved by the band: Hendrix had explicitly told his record label that for the cover he wanted a photo of him with some children, which was taken by Linda Eastman (later Linda McCartney). However, both of the band's labels (Track Records in England, Reprise Records in America) proceeded to ignore them and pick what ended up on the final product.
• Homestar Runner: The original 2003 release of Strong Bad Sings and Other Type Hits featured cover art consisting of a pen sketch of Strong Bad. The 2021 LP release, meanwhile, features a more lavish painting of Strong Bad as a heavy metal demon.
• The Human League: The original release of Dare uses a gatefold sleeve, with each panel featuring a photo of one of the band members. Some re-releases, which retitle the album Dare!, use a standard LP sleeve with all four photos on the front, with the two pictures from the original inner sleeve being shifted over to the back.
• Michael Jackson:
  • The cover art for Off the Wall is a gatefold-spanning photo of Jackson standing in front of a wall; the original release oriented the photo so that his upper half was on the front. Starting in 1990, reissues would flip this around so that his legs were instead on the front; the original configuration would eventually be reinstated in 2015.
  • Invincible features five different covers, each with a different color tint. The base cover is white, while the others are red, blue, green, and orange.
• Jane's Addiction: The original release of Ritual de lo Habitual depicts a painting by frontman Perry Farrell depicting three nude figures — one male and two female — embracing in front of a makeshift shrine. Because some retailers refused to stock items depicting nudity, the band put together a second cover for them consisting solely of the band name, the album title, and the first amendment of the United States constitution against a white backdrop. Likewise, the back cover was changed from a red curtain (referencing the one draped around the nudes on the explicit version of the front cover) to the following blurb:
  Hitler's syphilis-ridden dreams almost came true. How could it happen? By taking control of the media. An entire country was led by a lunatic... We must protect our First Amendment, before sick dreams become law. Nobody made fun of Hitler??!
• Japan: The 2003 remaster of Gentlemen Take Polaroids features an alternate version of the cover photo depicting David Sylvian catching the rain in his hands and looking at the camera while facing left (as opposed to the original cover, where he faces the camera but looks to the right).
• Jean-Michel Jarre: Equinoxe Infinity came out with two different covers at the same time, both picking up the "watcher" theme from Équinoxe again. One depicts a good future where the watchers exist in a pastoral landscape, while the other depicts a bad future where they stand amid a post-apocalyptic desert full of orange smog.
• Grace Jones:
  • Early CD releases of Warm Leatherette replace the Jean-Paul Goude photo of Jones with a still from the Concert Film A One-Woman Show, depicting a headshot of Jones in sunglasses awash in blue light.
  • Due to rights issues with photographer and ex-boyfriend Jean-Paul Goude, the digital releases of Nightclubbing, Living My Life, Slave to the Rhythm, and Island Life all feature generic cover art mimicking a folded-out cassette J-card, featuring just text and dark squares representing the removed photos.
• Joy Division:
  • The 40th anniversary reissue of Unknown Pleasures inverts the color scheme of the entire album packaging, such that what once was black is now white, and vice-versa.
  • The London Records CD reissue of Closer features a heavy yellow tint instead of the original white. Reportedly this was based on the US LP packaging, but that release was identical to the UK one.
  • The cover art for Substance was reworked for European editions in 1990 to use a zoom-in on the New Alphabet "s", with the epitaph placed inside the lower curve of the letter on CD releases and above it on cassette ones.
• Jake Kaufman's four Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove Bandcamp covers consist of official art of the characters superposed on an official art background (as you can see for yourself on these links). The other digital store (and vinyl) covers, however, have artworks by Pokémon and Megaman illustrator Hitoshi Ariga which show the personality of the four protagonists alongside major characters (as you can check on these links).
• King Crimson:
  • Most releases of Islands depict a photo of the Trifid Nebula. The original US release, meanwhile, replaces this with the art from the original inner sleeve, depicting a group of watercolor blots (representing an island) against a solid white backdrop.
  • The original release of Discipline depicted a Celtic knotwork design by John Kyrk, based on a pre-existing one by George Bain. Because the Bain design turned out to be copyrighted and used without permission, the 2001 reissue replaced it with a new, specially-commissioned design by Steve Ball, titled "Possible Productions knotwork", and it's stuck ever since; Ball would later design various other knotwork logos for Robert Fripp's other projects.
• Koji Kondo:
  • The Japanese release of the Super Mario 64 soundtrack album depicts the game's Japanese box art, with some of the accompanying logos changed to reflect the fact that it's a music CD rather than a Nintendo 64 cartridge. The US release of the soundtrack, meanwhile, depicts renders of Mario posing, punching, kicking, and swinging Bowser around. Furthermore, the German release repurposes a render depicting Metal Mario standing in Hazy Maze Cave.
  • The US release of the Star Fox 64 soundtrack depicts renders of Fox, Falco, Peppy, Slippy, and an Arwing posing in the Great Fox, with a starfield visible through the window behind them. The German release, meanwhile, depicts the team and the Arwing rushing towards the camera with Andross looming behind them.
  • The Japanese release of the soundtrack for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time features a painting of the game's heroes and villains, split between the child and adult timelines. The US release, meanwhile, simply reuses the game's box art in that region, depicting the game's logo against a gold backdrop.
  • The soundtrack for The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask features various different album covers depending on the region. The Japanese release depicts a painting of the game's cast, the US release reuses the art from the game's cartridge (depicting the game's logo and a drawing of Link swinging his sword against a sunburst backdrop), and the German release features Majora's Mask against a monochrome green version of the Japanese cover. When Nintendo of America reissued the soundtrack in the US in 2013, a new cover was designed featuring Link riding Epona against a backdrop of various characters and transformations from the game.
• Korn:
  • For the release of Issues, an artwork contest was held for fans to make their own cover art for the album. There were four winning cover arts on the highest places in the results; while the artwork in the first place^note Which became so iconic that the band would later request Ron English to make his take on the doll depicted in it for the cover art of The Serenity of Suffering. is used as the cover art for standard releases, there have been versions of the album with the other three winners.
  • Korn III: Remember Who You Are and The Paradigm Shift have different cover arts for their Special Edition and World Tour Edition (respectively) than the standard ones.
• Love Live!:
  • The singles for the Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club anime that feature the solos of the characters have alternate covers, each depicting a different character.
  • The insert song albums for Love Live! Superstar!!, as well as the "Hajimari wa Kimi no Sora" album, feature two different album covers and a song that's exclusive to that version of the album.
• LudoWic and Bill Kiley's Katana ZERO OST remixes album originally had a red variation◊ of the OST cover. It was changed for a cover of Electrohead (an NPC wearing a helmet with a television on it you must kill because He Knows Too Much) having a... Windows error induced bad trip?
• Lynyrd Skynyrd:
  • The original release of Street Survivors depicts the band standing in the middle of a burning city. After Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, and Dean Kilpatrick died in a plane crash just three days after its release, the album was hastily reissued with a new cover: the front uses a larger version of the photo from the back cover, depicting the band standing in a spotlight, while the new back cover is just plain text atop a black background. The original artwork was eventually reinstated for a 1991 Japanese reissue and all worldwide reissues since 1994.
  • In The New '20s, the artwork for two of their albums was edited for streaming releases to remove Confederate iconography in the wake of the George Floyd protests and increased scrutiny towards the normalization of white supremacy in pop culture. The Confederate flag on the cover of Southern by the Grace of God was replaced with an American flag, and for the soundtrack of Freebird: the Movie, the combined image of the Confederate flag and the band members was replaced with a map.

M-Z

• Catch a Fire by Bob Marley. The original LP release packages the album in a custom sleeve styled after a lighter, flipping open to reveal the record. Due to the cost issues involved with this, reissues replace it with a conventional sleeve depicting Marley smoking a joint.
• Freddie Mercury: The original 1988 release of Barcelona depicts a photo of Mercury and Montserrat Caballé seated against a gray backdrop, framed by a beige border. The German cassette release and the 1992 reissue depict the pair performing on-stage, framed by a dark teal border on cassette copies, with the original cover art instead appearing in the liner notes. The 2012 special edition, meanwhile, removes the duo's likenesses from the front cover and instead sports a painting of brightly colored squares with "BARCELONA" scrawled atop.
• Operation: Doomsday by MF Doom has three album covers. Two of them are of a hooded DOOM (with a Doctor Doom-esque appearance) holding a microphone. They differ somewhat in appearance despite their similarities — the 2011 re-release cover more clearly resembles DOOM. Another cover features DOOM's hand using a knife as a record needle. This cover was used for the 2011 deluxe remastered edition. The later two covers were created due to licensing issues with the original artwork that created problems with reissuing the album.
• MGMT: The original 2007 release of Oracular Spectacular on RED Ink records depicts a man in white and a winged man in black meeting each other in a CGI cosmic landscape. The 2008 wide release on Columbia Records features a different cover depicting the band on a beach at dusk.
• Mitski: Laurel Hell features six different covers, all based around a single headshot of Mitski. The digital release crops it to her face and neck, the physical release crops it to her head and hair, and the other four, each with their own names, are close-ups of her face used for limited-edition CD releases: "Stay" focuses on her brow, "Soft" focuses on her left eye, "Eaten" focuses on her right cheek, and "Get" focuses on her chin.
• Monty Python:
  • Another Monty Python Record: Some cassette and CD versions of the album respectively read "Another Monty Python Cassette" and "Another Monty Python CD" to reflect the difference in audio format.
  • The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief: The UK version of the artwork depicts a white box with a rectangular window and features one of the current Monty Python logos. The US artwork features a yellow box and an oval window while still retaining the same interior sleeve. CD releases combine the outer and inner sleeve for the information booklet.
  • Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album: The vinyl artwork features a version of the paper label of the record visible on the outer sleeve. In the UK, the Charisma Records label is visible while in the USA it's the Arista Records label. On CD, the label is edited out on some releases.
• New Order:
  • The first US releases of Movement on the LP and CD formats each featured a noticeably different color scheme from the UK release, with the LP featuring brown-on-ivory art and the CD cover being black-on-white. However, later reissues in the US reverted back to the dark blue-on-light blue cover used in the UK, starting with the Qwest Records reissues.
  • Thanks to the unusual and expensive design for the UK LP packaging of Low-Life (swappable cards behind an onion paper overlay), releases across different regions and formats tend to get creative with how they carry it over:
    • Factory's cassette releases feature the band logotype against a solid white backdrop, while Qwest's US cassettes feature the unaltered photo of Stephen Morris on the front and the band name and album title above it; both include the other band photos in the J-card foldout.
    • Factory and London CDs in the UK replicate the LP packaging with jewel case-sized cards and a printed onion paper sheet, while Qwest goes for a gatefold booklet with the logotype printed directly on the front page; said booklet can be re-folded and reinserted as desired.
    • Qwest LP releases forgo the overlay altogether and simply have the unaltered band photos printed on the sleeves, with the logo included on an obi strip.
    • The Collector's Edition reissue also prints the band photos directly onto the digipak panels, though include the logotype on the front.
  • Brotherhood:
    • The original Factory Records CD and London Records CD both feature a close-up shot of the metal sheet, focusing specifically on the "TITAANZINK 0.50" text. Qwest Records' CD release, meanwhile, features the entire sheet, but with the artist name and album title added to the top in white text.
    • Factory, Qwest, and London's cassette releases of the album also zoom in on the serial text, but depict it as a slant rather than at a straight vertical angle reading up. Cassette releases in other regions simply feature a scan of the LP art against a white backdrop.
    • The 2008 Collector's Edition features a shot of the full metal sheet like the LP release, but has it heavily warped. This is also carried over to the 2015 remaster included solely on streaming services (which also feature the Qwest CD master).
  • The cassette release of Technique features modified cover art consisting of both the standard cover and a Palette Swap side-by-side.
  • The standard edition of Republic was a regular jewel case, with the booklet consisting of a collage of stock photos (specifically depicting a burning house juxtaposed with a pair of beachgoers on the front). For the US-exclusive "Limited Run", the entire album was packaged inside a puffy orange vinyl digipak making it resemble a pool toy; a waterproof version of the original booklet was tucked inside. Furthermore, the "Limited Run" edition had two slightly different versions: one with blue text on the cover, another with silver text.
  • The color scheme on the album cover for Music Complete is rearranged for the digital, CD, and LP releases of the albums. As a ready tell, the digital cover features a blue triangle on the right, the CD cover has a yellow triangle, and the LP cover has a red triangle.
• Nine Inch Nails: Pretty Hate Machine features a photograph of fan blades by Gary Talpas, stretched out and processed to look like a ribcage. On the original release, the image featured neon blue and pink color grading, which was done to match design trends that were commonplace in the late '80s. For the 2010 reissue, Rob Sheridan manually repainted it with digital software due to the master artwork being lost, featuring a more subdued blur effect and a grayish-teal palette, additionally modifying the angle of the photo.
• Sinéad O'Connor: The European release of The Lion and the Cobra depicts O'Connor gazing to the right and shouting. The North American release, meanwhile, features a different photo from the same sessions depicting her solemnly gazing downward.
• Mike Oldfield:
  • The original release of Hergest Ridge depicts a fisheye photo of a dog sitting on the eponymous hill, with a toy plane sitting next to it. The 2010 reissue, meanwhile, depicts an overhead shot of a glider flying above the hill.
  • The original release of Incantations depicts Oldfield on a beach. When the album was reissued in 2011, it featured a new photo depicting only the rock formation featured in the background of the original cover.
  • The UK release of Islands depicts... an island, with stylized handprints overlaid on the surrounding ocean. The US release replaces this with a surrealist illustration of two monochrome "sky" and "sea" cubes atop a white background.
  • The UK release of The Songs of Distant Earth depicts a manta ray flying in front of the Earth. The US release, meanwhile, depicts a man in a salt flat holding a glowing orb among a pile and ring of other orbs, with three manta ray-like creatures flying in the sky overhead.
• Pet Shop Boys:
  • The artwork for Introspective features a different set of color stripes between the CD, LP, and cassette releases. From left to right, the CD release's stripes are pink, yellow, red, green, pink, violet, indigo; the LP release is yellow, green, pink, red, yellow, violet, indigo; the cassette release is teal, light blue, yellow, blue, red, indigo, green. Digital releases simply reuse the CD cover.
  • The first CD edition of Very came in a custom jewel case, which was solid orange with the title in raised letters and a geometric pattern of raised dots. (The "LEGO case", some fans called it.) The 1996 reissue of the album came in a standard, clear jewel case — and the new cover art was just a photo of the old LEGO case.
• Pink Floyd:
  • The Dark Side of the Moon featured several revisions of its cover art for various reissues over the years. Early CD releases incorporate a printed version of the title sticker from the original LP release's shrinkwrap. The 1992 remaster (which was given a general release two years later) replaces the cover with a new one featuring a scanned glass prism instead of a drawn one. The 2003 SACD release uses a photograph of a stained glass window recreation. The 2021 repress of the 2003 SACD, meanwhile, uses a new drawing that depicts the prism as a pyramid floating in a starfield.
  • Wish You Were Here:
    • Cassette, 8-track, and early European CD releases swapped out the "man on fire" photo for the handshake logo from the sticker that was affixed over the black shrink wrap on the first vinyl pressings, with a white or black background depending on the country.
    • Most early CD releases outside of Europe feature a version of the standard cover with the background changed from white to off-white, reflecting the way that LP copies of the album yellowed out with age. This is particularly apparent when looking at the back cover of the US CD, which features a pure white stripe on the left for the barcode.
    • The initial Australian CD release added the band name and album title to the front cover and used an alternate take of the cover photo, in which the businessman on fire is leaning back rather than forward.
    • The 1994 remaster features a much less cropped version of the cover photo, with only the singed edge of the white border remaining in place. The band name, album title, and handshake logo are also added to said border.
  • Four different cover photos are used for The Division Bell depending on the format. The CD release features the metal heads lit directly by the morning sun, with four lights glowing in the background between them. The LP release features the metal heads lit from the side by the midday sun, with nothing between them except Ely Cathedral. The cassette release is shot similarly to the LP release, but uses two "stone" heads (actually polystyrene and fiberglass) instead of the metal ones. The digital download/streaming release uses a resurfaced outtake that features the metal heads in overcast weather, with three red flags in the background between them.
• Poison: The original release of Open Up and Say...Ahh! featured a cover photo of Bambi dressed as a snarling, long-tongued demon. When parental groups complained about the demonic imagery, the cover was modified to feature a letterboxed close-up of Bambi's eyes.
• The Police:
  • Most later releases of Outlandos d'Amour across formats remove the tunnel backdrop, leaving a solid black background, change the band logo from blue to red, and replace the cursive album title with a typewritten variant.
  • The digital release of Ghost in the Machine's 2022 Alternate Sequence Edition, which is based on an early production master with three extra tracks, features a modified version of the album cover◊ where the digital display band portraits sport a green PCB texture instead of a solid red color.
  • Synchronicity does this to a more extreme degree than most cases: thirty-six different variations of the cover art exist, all with different configurations of the photographs and color stripes, some more subtle than others. CD and digital releases generally stick with the most common version of the cover.
• Primus and the Chocolate Factory with the Fungi Ensemble normally has a purple cover◊: its vinyl release changed it for a golden variation. While it normally doesn't fit this trope, the Bandcamp page made it the default cover.
• Prince:
  • The original CD release of Around the World in a Day was in a longbox-sized gatefold package, with the CD held in a card sleeve tucked in a slot inside the gatefold. Later pressings would do away with this in favor of a conventional jewel case.
  • The American and initial European releases of Diamonds and Pearls feature a photo of Prince posing with Lori Werner and Robia LaMorte, framed by a border depicting strings of pearls against a gold backdrop; early CD and cassette releases additionally featured a holographic effect on the cover. Later European releases and the international release, meanwhile, feature a different photo of the three that takes up the entire cover.
• Public Image Ltd.:
  • The original release of Metal Box featured the album packaged in a 16mm film canister, which was deliberately picked because it was large enough to fit the three records, but small enough to force the buyer to dirty up and scratch the discs getting them out. When the album was reissued as the double-LP Second Edition, it was packaged in a conventional gatefold sleeve featuring distorted photos of the band members. The UK cassette release, meanwhile, simply featured the album title and "PiL" logo atop a blank white background.
  • Album was retitled Cassette and Compact Disc for releases on those respective formats, and the Minimalistic Cover Art was changed accordingly to swap out the word on the front cover.
• Queen:
  • News of the World:
    • The original South Korean release used the upper half of the gatefold interior illustration as its cover art due to the government considering the UK cover too violent. A 1992 LP reissue would restore the original artwork.
    • For Comic Con London 2017, the album was reissued with a remake of the original cover by Mike del Mundo, depicting Sentinel, Old Man Logan, Kitty Pride, and Colossus from the X-Men series in place of the giant robot and band members. Of note is that both Marvel Comics and Hollywood Records (Queen's US label since 1990) are owned by Disney.
  • The original cover art for The Game features a band photo with Roger Taylor folding his arms, John Deacon & Freddie Mercury hooking their hands on their pockets, and Brian May with his hands at his stomach. The EMI CD release in the UK and Europe, meanwhile, replaces this with an alternate photo where Taylor & Mercury's hands are at their sides and May's hand is on his hip (Deacon makes the same pose in both versions). The second cover is also featured on the DVD-Audio release of the album worldwide.
  • The LP release of the band's first Greatest Hits Album in 1981 has the band photo skewed, as if lying down on the floor. The UK cassette release and the 2004 remaster use the unaltered version of the photo, while the German LP release replaces it with a band logotype embossed over a black background. In 2021, EMI would put out collectable limited-edition cassette reissues of the compilation with five alternate covers: one depicting the original, and each of the other four depicting one of the band members.
  • The CD, cassette, and digital releases of Made in Heaven depicts the view of the band's Montreux studio at dusk. The LP release, meanwhile, showcases the same area at dawn. Consequently, the back photo of the band is also different, going from them gazing at the Alps to them gazing at the rising sun.
• Lena Raine's original album cover for Minecraft: The Caves and Cliffs Update (Official Game Soundtrack) was a basic gray stone background with the game's title. For an unknown reason, it was later changed to a far more elaborate scene of Steve mining amethyst in a lush cave, with Alex exploring behind him and Creepers, Zombies, Skeletons, Spiders, and Endermen lurking nearby.
• Rammstein: The original release of their debut album, Herzeleid, features the band from the waist up sweaty and shirtless with a close up of an orange tinted flower. The US release features headshots of the band on a white background.
• R.E.M.: The Spanish LP release of Out of Time replaced the standard cover, depicting the band name and album title atop an ocean backdrop, with an abstract painting.
• The Rolling Stones:
  • The originally-proposed cover for Beggars Banquet depicts a dingy bathroom covered in the band's graffiti. After Decca Records rejected the idea for its vulgarity, it was replaced with a plain white cover styled after a formal dinner invitation. CD releases of the album would eventually reinstate the original cover.
  • The artwork used for Sticky Fingers features the crotch of jeans close up. On the original release, the zipper worked and would expose briefs. Later releases would not use the working zipper, such as the Mobile Fidelity Half Speed Master, which used a shiny embossing to represent the missing zipper. In Spain, the Franco Regime censored the artwork, so it was replaced with a can of treacle with a hand reaching out of it.
  • The standard cover for Some Girls features the faces of the band members in cut-out heads along with the faces of famous Hollywood actresses. When Lucille Ball, Farrah Fawcett, Liza Minnelli (who didn't appear on the cover, but her late mother Judy Garland did), Raquel Welch, and the Marilyn Monroe estate threatened legal action, the album was quickly reissued with a revised cover that had their faces replaced on the sleeve with a message reading: "Pardon our appearance. Cover under re-construction."
• Roxy Music: The original release of Country Life depicts a pair of female models in lingerie against an evergreen tree. Due to concerns over its sexual content, the initial American release packaged the LP in a green nylon outer bag, before replacing the cover with a shot of just the tree itself (also used for the back cover in all configurations); the CD release would eventually reinstate the UK cover in all regions.
• Run–D.M.C.: Raising Hell featured three different versions of the same base cover, depicting Run and D posing by an open window. One version features a purple tint and green text, one version features a green tint and purple text, and one version features a red tint and blue text. These covers were interchangeably used across each format and region, allowing for all types of buyers to obtain any of the three versions.
• Sabaton:
  • Carolus Rex had two cover designs originally: the standard cover art featuring stylized Swedish royal regalia, and the Limited Edition, which instead featured a depiction of Carolean soldiers charging the listener. The Platinum Edition reissue has a silvery minimalist rework of the standard cover.
  • The History Edition of The War to End All Wars comes in hardcopy with the same art as the normal version of the album, a dead British soldier hanging over barbed wire. The downloadable version of the History Edition instead depicts a German stormtrooper in a gas mask. Ironically, "Stormtroopers" is the only song on the album not to come with an Opening Narration on the History Edition.
• Scorpions:
  • Love at First Sting: Original artwork shows a man making out with a partially nude woman while giving her a tattoo. The alternate artwork is an image of the band in black and white, based on inner artwork from the original release. The change was due to Wal-Mart complaining about the packaging after its release.
  • Lovedrive: Original artwork features a couple sitting in a car with the woman's exposed breast connected to a man's hand by out-stretched bubblegum. The alternate artwork is a blue scorpion.
  • Virgin Killer: The original release of this album infamously depicts a naked little girl lunging against a black background, with a glass crack obscuring her crotch. Due to its controversial nature, later releases replaced the image with a photo of the band.
  • Pure Instinct: Original artwork shows four nude people held in a cage and surrounded by animals. The alternate artwork is an image of the band.
  • Taken by Force: Original artwork shows kids playing with guns in a graveyard. The alternate artwork is individual portraits of each member along the top and the album title in the middle.
  • In Trance: Original artwork is a black and white picture of a woman leaning over a guitar. One of her breasts can be seen peeking out of the shadows. The alternate artwork has the image altered so both breasts are hidden in the shadows.
• The Sex Pistols: Certain international releases of Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, including the US one, alter the color scheme from a pink stamp on a yellow background to a green stamp on a pink background.
• Siouxsie and the Banshees: The original release of Join Hands depicts four of the soldier statues from the Guards Memorial overlaid atop a white background. The 2015 vinyl reissue, meanwhile, sports the originally intended cover depicting an excessively photocopied Holy Communion card.
• Slipknot:
  • Iowa had a version of its standard cover art with a reddish-orange tint made for CD reissues of the album. Meanwhile, its 10th Anniversary Edition uses a completely different photo for the cover.
  • The CD and digital-exclusive Special Edition of Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) has a heavily edited photo of the band's members at the time of release as the cover art (previously used for one of the sleeves of the album's vinyl release), in contrast to the standard edition's "Maggot Mask" photo. In the CD version, the Special Edition cover takes the form of a slipcase over the standard cover.
  • The cover art for the 10th Anniversary Edition of All Hope Is Gone is a rendition of the standard one, with the band members wearing large statue-like masks (again, these masks were featured in internal photos of the album) and a yellow sky.
  • As well as its standard cover, the The End, So Far has nine covers of each of the band members for a series of CD-exclusive limited edition releases that could only be acquired by pre-ordering them before the album's official release.
• Sly and the Family Stone: The original release of There's a Riot Goin' On depicted a modified American flag, in which the blue square with white stars is replaced with a black square with white suns. The 1986 reissue replaces this with a shot of the band performing, as seen from the drum kit's perspective.
• Starflyer 59:
  • Silver: The original CD issue had a textless, solid metallic silver cover, while the cassette edition featured the logo of a fictitious airline on a metallic silver background. (The airline logo had been on the back cover of the CD edition.) For the 10th anniversary "Extended Edition" reissue, the CD received engraving-style art of a crown and an "SF 59" logo, still on a metallic silver background. Finally, in what's most likely some kind of mistake, the MP3 version of the album on various digital storefronts has a solid drab yellow cover, instead of silver.
  • Gold followed almost exactly the same pattern as Silver before it: The first CD and LP issues featured a textless, solid metallic gold cover, while the cassette edition featured a shield and crest on a metallic gold background. (And the shield and crest were from the back cover of the CD and LP edition.) And the "Extended Edition" reissue featured engraving-style art, this time of a steam ship, on a metallic gold background.
  • The Fashion Focus: The CD edition had a design with some stock photos. The LP edition reused the same cover. Exactly the same cover, at exactly the same size. As in, they didn't scale up the CD-sized art to make it fit the larger LP sleeve at all — leaving the original cover to float in empty white space.
  • Everybody Makes Mistakes was available on CD with two cover variants: a yellow cover with white title text, or a white cover with yellow title text. Both were actually the same liner notes, just folded differently to put a different panel in the front. The vinyl edition was only available with the yellow cover.
• The Strokes: The originally-proposed cover art for Is This It depicts a crotch shot of photographer Colin Lane's girlfriend touching her nude hip with a leather glove. While this made it to the UK release, the US one replaced it with a psychedelic photograph of subatomic particle tracks in a bubble chamber. The two different versions of the album also have differing tracks between themselves.
• Sufjan Stevens:
  • The initial release of Stevens' debut album, A Sun Came, in 2000 depicted a black-and-white headshot of him staring into the camera. The 2004 expanded reissue, meanwhile, sports a new cover depicting watercolor art of a toga-clad Stevens fighting a dragon. An edited version of the original cover appears in the expanded edition's liner notes.
  • The first pressing of Illinois! included Superman mid-flight on the cover art; both Stevens and his label, Asthmatic Kitty, mistakenly assumed that the character was already in the public domain. After consulting with DC Comics, the label was allowed to sell off the copies that had already been manufactured, albeit with a balloon sticker on the jewel case covering Superman, and edited the cover art for subsequent pressings to either airbrush Superman out or replace him with the balloons. The 10th anniversary vinyl reissue, meanwhile, replaced him with Marvel Comics' Blue Marvel. Copies with the original Superman cover are now rare collector's items.
• Taylor Swift's folklore had eight alternate covers to choose from for people who pre-ordered the CD. All the covers were in black-and-white, and showed Swift outside wandering through or around a forest. Each design was named after a lyric from the album.
• David Sylvian:
  • The original release of Brilliant Trees featured a photograph of Sylvian in the woods, bordered by a yellow marble texture. When the album was belatedly released in the US in 1994, the border was removed and the photo was resized and re-cropped to put Sylvian closer to the center of the image. The 2003 remasters would change this again by using the uncropped version of the photo, with Sylvian once again being on the right side of the image. This configuration would become standard for later releases.
  • Because the original master artwork for the albums was lost, the 2018 reissues of Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities and Gone to Earth feature new covers made from various photoshoots done at the time, with the former now depicting Sylvian overlooking the view atop a hill and the latter depicting him sitting in the back seat of a car. Likewise, the expanded reissue of Dead Bees on a Cake for Record Store Day 2018 featured a new cover depicting a headshot of Sylvian circa 1999; a grayscale version of the original artwork is featured on the inner sleeve for disc one.
• The cover art of the original edition of Tad's 8-Way Santa featured a shirtless man with very 70s facial hair groping a bikini-clad woman as both smiled for the camera. The picture had been found in a photo album donated to a thrift store, and when the people depicted in the photo threatened legal action, it was reissued with a photo of the band posing in front of a cattle field.
• Talking Heads:
  • The original cover for Speaking in Tongues, designed by David Byrne and Robert Rauschenberg and used for the limited-edition LP release, consisted of an elaborate plastic clamshell with rotatable color wheels inside depicting a collage of urban imagery, based on one of Rauschenberg's earlier pieces. For cost reasons, the wider general release used a new cover across formats consisting of a painting by Byrne that provides an abstract reinterpretation of the original, featuring a blue dot on a yellow backdrop with tinted photos of an armchair in the corners. Some CD releases in Europe invert the color scheme of the painting cover, featuring a yellow dot on a blue background.
  • Cassette and international CD copies of True Stories feature a revised version of the front cover that includes both the band name and album title in rectangular bars on the front, with the colors of the text and background swapped around (namely, "Talking" and "True" are in white text against a red backdrop, while "Heads" and "Stories" are in black text against a white backdrop).
• Tears for Fears:
  • Most releases of The Hurting feature a cover photo of a child crying in a White Void Room, based on the "Suffer the Children" single art. Early international releases however use the photo from the "Mad World" single against a mocha-colored backdrop. The 2023 Blu-ray release would feature both covers as a reversible insert, though the outer slipcase only depicts the standard cover.
  • The European limited-edition release of Everybody Loves a Happy Ending features an outer slipcase with unique art depicting the totem pole from the standard album art against a white backdrop instead of blue. The standard artwork still appears on the inlays in the jewel case.
• Soul Mining by The The has three different album covers. The UK version of the album cover is of a yellow-skinned, blue-haired portrait of one of Fela Kuti's wives smoking a joint. the US release depicts a similarly-styled portrait of of band frontman Matt Johnson yelling. The 2002 CD reissue uses an early photograph of Matt Johnson.
• Thirty Seconds to Mars: This Is War features 2000 different covers which were randomly distributed to stores. The main cover depicts a vertically-mirrored headshot of a snarling tiger while the other covers depict headshots of fans.
• Kazumi Totaka:
  • The Yoshi's Story soundtrack features three different album covers depending on the region. The Japanese release depicts a render of Yoshi crossing his arms in front of aluminum foil balloons bearing the game name, the Nintendo 64 logo, the health meter, and Yoshi eggs, all atop a white backdrop. The US release, Music to Pound the Ground To, depicts Yoshi flashing a peace sign atop a denim pocket with the N64 logo embroidered in the corner. The German release, Love, Peace & Happiness, features a mirrored recreation of the game's box art.
  • The Animal Crossing: City Folk soundtrack features a render of K.K. Slider in both the Japanese and European releases, but the background differs between the two regions. The Japanese release uses a stylized green forest backdrop, while the European release, Animal Crossing — Your Favorite Songs, depicts K.K. in a spotlight with sparkles and music notes behind him.
• Tina Turner: Private Dancer had two different covers, one for each of the two editions of the album. The US edition depicts Turner reclining atop a box draped in cloth. The international edition, meanwhile, depicts Turner posing on a folding chair with a black cat at her feet. The international cover was also featured as the US edition's inner sleeve photo, while the international edition's own inner sleeve features a new photo depicting Turner curled on the floor and grinning at the camera against a blue backdrop.
• U2:
  • The European release of Boy depicts a headshot of a shirtless little boy (portrayed by Peter Rowen, who would go on to model for several of the band's other album and single covers over the years). Due to concerns that the cover might be construed as pedophilic in America, Island Records replaced the original photo with a new one depicting distorted portraits of the band members for the US release.
  • The original iTunes release of Songs of Innocence featured cover art depicting a faux test pressing of the album in a plain white sleeve. The subsequent general release of the album features a more elaborate cover depicting a black and white photo of Larry Mullen Jr. hugging his son's waist.
• Ugly Kid Joe: The original release of America's Least Wanted depicts the band's mascot as the Statue of Liberty, Flipping the Bird instead of holding a torch. After several major retailers objected to the crude imagery, the band put together a mocking alternate cover in which their mascot is Bound and Gagged.
• Ultravox:
  • The original album cover for Rage in Eden, designed by Factory Records collaborator Peter Saville, depicts a stylized face with a gold pane. According to Midge Ure, the artwork was based on an unspecified film poster. Due to rights issues, European reissues replace it with a surrealist painting of a wooden landscape, and the 1997 remaster replaces it with the "UV" horse logo associated with the album against a burgundy and navy blue backdrop. A further variant of this, used for the 2015 LP reissue, features the same logo against a gray and white backdrop.
  • The original LP release of Lament depicts a grid of black squares against a gray background, with the album title and tracklist displayed in the upper-right quadrant. Releases on other formats and in most regions outside the UK replace the tracklist with a photograph of the Callanish Stones in Scotland. The 2009 Definitive Edition CD would split the difference, featuring the photo cover on the outer slipcase and the tracklist cover on the front of the jewel case's booklet. The 2017 reissue of the Definitive Edition, meanwhile, features a third modification that's mostly similar to the original cover, but moves the tracklist to the back.
• Balance by Van Halen: The original artwork features nude conjoined twins on a see saw. The alternate artwork features one of the conjoined twins missing so it looks like a single child is sitting alone.
• The Velvet Underground:
  • The Velvet Underground & Nico:
    • Later copies had the picture of Warhol associate Eric Emerson being projected upside-down behind the band airbrushed out after Emerson sued over the use of his image. The original image was restored on later reissues.
    • US cassette releases and initial CD releases worldwide added text to the album's cover, bearing the band name and album title in big black letters. The 1996 remaster reverted back to the LP cover, albeit with the banana being printed on rather than using a sticker (the design behind the sticker, a pink, peeled version of the banana, was moved to the interior tray art).
  • White Light/White Heat had multiple covers over the years:
    • 1970s U.K. reissues had an alternate cover with a white negative image of toy soldiers.
    • The Archetypes reissue uses a third cover featuring two figures in racing helmets and leather jackets standing in front of an F.W. Woolworth Co. building.
    • A New Zealand pressing from the early 1970s has a Warhol-esque illustration of a disembodied pair of female lips sipping a soft drink from a straw.
    • Early CD releases use a variant of the 1968 cover that omits the tattoo and resizes and rearranges the text up top to account for the smaller size of a jewel case. The 1996 remastered CD would restore the original LP cover, tattoo and all, with later releases on the format following suit.
• Roger Waters:
  • The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking: The original artwork shows softcore porn actress Linzi Drew with her bare behind pointed towards the viewer. After the illustration attracted accusations of sexism, Waters' US label, Columbia Records, put together a modified version that covers Drew's rear with a black rectangle.
  • The original 1992 release of Amused to Death depicts a photo of a chimpanzee staring at an eyeball on a CRT television. For the 2015 remaster, this was replaced with a new photo that recreates the original, but with a human baby staring at an LED television instead.
• Face Dances by The Who: The vinyl and CD releases feature 16 paintings of the band members on the cover. Due to the detail of the images and scale of the alternate release, cassette and 8-track copies of the album just show a tube of paint with the album's title on it.
• David Wise:
  • The Donkey Kong Country soundtrack features three different album covers. The US and German releases, DK Jamz, features renders of Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Rambi, Winky, Expresso, and an animal crate atop a jungle background, with an alternate card sleeve release in the US featuring close-ups of Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. The Japanese release, meanwhile, reuses the game's Japanese box art.
  • The soundtrack album for Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest depicts a render of Diddy Kong and Dixie Kong traveling through a swamp on the US and Brazilian covers. The Japanese cover, meanwhile, carries over the game's Japanese box art.
• Yello:
  • The initial US release of Claro Que Si featured three different variations of the album art: one with the standard green backdrop, one with an orange backdrop, and one with a yellow backdrop. While most reissues worldwide stuck with the green cover, the orange one would briefly reemerge via a 2005 vinyl reissue in Germany.
  • Baby features a cover photo of Boris Blank and Dieter Meier posing against an elaborate drawing by Ernst Gamper. While the cover used in most regions depicts the pair leaning down and staring into the camera, with Meier on the left and Blank on the right, the initial UK release features an alternate photo depicting Blank on the left, standing upright and crossing his arms, and Meier on the right, still leaning down. Later UK editions switch to the international cover.
  • The original release of the band's first Greatest Hits Album depicts headshots of Boris Blank and Dieter Meier. The 1995 reissue, done to promote The Santa Clause (which the band contributed a song for), adds an outer slipcase based on the film poster, though the original artwork is still present on the front of the jewel case's booklet.
• Yellow Magic Orchestra:
  • The original Japanese release of the band's self-titled debut features an album cover of a Circus cabinet and various other pieces of western upper-middle-class paraphernalia against a metallic blue backdrop, with the artwork spanning all across the LP sleeve. The remixed western release, meanwhile, features an android woman in a mock-Oriental outfit (who also appears as a mannequin in the "Computer Game/Firecracker" video) against a blue background, with a photo of the band on the back. These different covers are still simultaneously in use to differentiate between releases of the Japanese mix and releases of the US mix.
  • The US release of ×∞Multiplies removes the red border around the cover image, while the European release simply redoes the border's text, repositioning the band name and album title while removing the kanji and "Yellow Magic Special" tag. For CD releases, both the Japanese and US versions use the borderless version of the album cover, making it difficult to tell them apart without looking at the tracklist on the back. The 1999 remaster would eventually restore the original cover art, border and all, for the Japanese version.
  • The Japanese cassette release of Service removes the large black circle as well as the text denoting the band name and album title (which is instead listed in a generic label below the illustration), leaving behind the unedited painting of a head in profile.
  • The original release of Technodelic sported cover art of three Polaroids of the individual band members in Kabuki makeup, all laid against an off-white background. The European release swapped out the cover with one featuring a stock photo of a woman in Maoist China against a red background; this cover was later incorporated into Japanese reissues, becoming standardized worldwide and consequently eclipsing the original cover in recognition. Since 2003, CD reissues include both covers on different sides of the liner notes pamphlet, allowing one to flip it around and insert it back in based on which cover they prefer. The "Polaroid" cover would eventually be reinstated as the canonical one in 2019, via the 40th anniversary remaster.
  • European CDs and reissues of Technodon omit the polarized effect on the album art's text.
  • The Collector's Vinyl Editions of the band's discography in 2019 feature heavily pixelated versions of the original album art, causing them to resemble indistinct masses of squares. The Standard Vinyl Editions, by comparison, use the unaltered artwork.
• Yes:
  • The UK release of their self-titled debut has a large red speech bubble with a black background, while the North American release was a band photo being taken at an architectural centre.
  • Time and a Word was released elsewhere with the album cover being a naked woman in a dadaist room, but the North American cover opted for another band photo. Strangely, it featured Steve Howe, who wasn't involved in the album and joined as a replacement after original guitarist Peter Banks got fired.
  • The original double-LP release of Tales from Topographic Oceans features an elaborate Roger Dean painting depicting a surreal Mayincatec-inspired landscape. Meanwhile, early double-CD releases outside of Japan zoom in on the band logo and album title at the top-center in order to account for both the smaller size and different proportions of a fatbox jewel case compared to an LP sleeve. Later remasters would revert to the full LP artwork, owed to the introduction of standard-sized jewel cases that can store two CDs at once via a hinged tray.
  • The cover of the original LP release of Big Generator featured dark blue print over an aquamarine background, while the cassette and CD versions used red print over a yellow background.
• Frank Zappa:
  • The cover art for We're Only in It for the Money was designed as an unflattering, yet very thorough Sgt. Pepper's Shout-Out, which Paul McCartney reportedly approved of. However, Verve Records changed the cover at the last minute to swap the outer art with the gatefold photo, which depicts a plain image of the Mothers of Invention against a yellow background (as a riff on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band gatefold photo). When Zappa regained the rights to his back-catalog in The '80s, he had the inner and outer art swapped back to match his original intentions.
  • Most releases of Weasels Ripped My Flesh depict a parody of a Schick electric razor advertisement, replacing the razor with a snarling weasel tearing open the customer's cheek. The German release, meanwhile, features a different cover depicting a metal baby sculpture bleeding out while caught in a mousetrap. As the German cover was made without Zappa's approval, reissues of the album universally omit it in favor of the razor cover.
  • The original release and 2012 UMe reissue of Does Humor Belong in Music? use a photograph of Zappa below large metallic title text, while the 1995 Rykodisc reissue uses a new illustration by artist Cal Schenkel.
  • The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life received three over the years. The original 1991 release consisted of a photograph of Zappa and co. performing during the 1988 tour, framed by blue underlighting. Due to the photograph being used without the permission of photographer Bruce Malone, Zappa opted to simply remove it on later releases, leaving the space in the middle blank. The 1995 reissue by Rykodisc, meanwhile, uses an illustration◊ by artist Cal Shenkel; the censored version of the 1991 cover would be reinstated on the 2012 UMe reissue.
  • The original 1996 release of Läther depicts a cow with Zappa's facial hair in a field, parodying the cover of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother. For the 2012 remaster, the cover was swapped out with a new photo depicting Zappa covered in soap foam, playing off of the originally-proposed cover of Zappa in blackface (which was ultimately used for Joe's Garage).

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