AC/DC: The covers of High Voltage, Powerage, Who Made Who and Ballbreaker all feature Angus Young. Let There Be Rock shows the whole band on stage, but Angus has a spotlight on him while the others are largely in the dark.
Andrew W.K. has appeared on the covers of his first three albums. (Close-ups on the first two, waist up on the third.) Notably, he appears on his first album with a massive nosebleed due to having struck himself with a brick.
Aphex Twin shows off his grinning face on ...I Care Because You Do,note Painted as a self-portrait.Richard D. James Album, the Come to Daddy EPnote Superimposed on the faces of several children, a reference to the Title Track's music video. and the "Windowlicker" single cover.note Superimposed on a woman's face, a reference to the music video.
The Beatles. The album covers of Please Please Me, With the Beatles, A Hard Day's Night, Beatles for Sale, Rubber Soul and Let It Be just show pictures of the band members' faces in full close-up. On Revolver illustrations of their huge faces are shown in a field of smaller images.note Revolver is, however, the first Beatles album to feature a group photograph in which the band isn't looking at the camera. On Help!! and Magical Mystery Tour they are shown from a distance and in different clothing, but in an empty background that does not distract from the viewer watching at them. Abbey Road shows them crossing a street, again from a distance, but they are clearly on the foreground.
Beyoncé: On Dangerously in Love, B'Day, I Am... Sasha Fierce, and 4. Subverted on Lemonade, as it is a still frame from the music video for "Don't Hurt Yourself" and features Beyoncé wearing cornrows and a fur coat, leaning against a minivan and covering her face with her arm.
Björk: On Debut, Post, Homogenic, Vespertine and Medúlla her face and upper torso are shown. Volta is a more distant shot, with Bjork's face sticking out of a bizarre costume.
Blondie: On the cover of Parallel Lines the six band members are standing in front of a striped scrim.
The outright aversions are Tin Machine II (a photograph of a kouros replicated four times in a line), the original UK cover of The Buddha of Suburbia (which used an edited still from the miniseries it was released as a tie-in with), the original US cover of The Man Who Sold the World (a cartoon cowboy walking past the psychiatric hospital where Bowie's half-brother was institutionalized) and ★ (just the titular black star). Even then, most of these cases are mitigated to an extent; Tin Machine II and the UK release of Buddha both feature Bowie on the back cover, and the UK cover of TMWSTW and US/2007 covers of Buddha, which do depict Bowie on the front, are considered the canonical ones. Thus, ★ holds the distinction of being the only Bowie album to not depict him on the front or back cover in any capacity in any version (though even then his image is still present in the interior gatefold on both CD and LP copies).
Earthling and The Next Day are subversions: the former has Bowie standing with his back to the camera, the latter reproducing the "Heroes" cover but with a white square blocking out Bowie's face.
Finally, Lodger zigzags the trope— while all versions feature a photograph of Bowie, LP copies depict Bowie's lower half on the front cover and his upper half on the back, cassette versions feature the photo in full, and CD copies vary between using the same cover as the LP version or altering it to put Bowie's upper half on the front.
Garth Brooks: Garth's face on the cover of In the Life of Chris Gaines. The album's reversible cover lets it be displayed as either a Garth Brooks album or a Chris Gaines album. Garth also did this for his debut album as well as No Fences and In Pieces.
Kate Bush is pictured on the front of all of her albums up to and including The Sensual World (though Never For Ever uses a painting rather than a photograph) but none after that, though if you look closely at the film strip pictured on the front of Director's Cut, you can see that one of the negatives is the same image used on The Sensual World.
Most of David Byrne's solo (non-soundtrack) albums have had portraits or mugshots on the cover. Some of them (his self-titled album and Grown Backwards) are completely straight examples. Others are variations on the idea. Rei Momo is a photo of a human heart, with Byrne's face visible through cut-out portions. Feelings has a plastic doll modeled after Byrne. Look into the Eyeball has two completely different Byrne mugshots interlaced. Love This Giant has Byrne and collaborator St. Vincent posing in prosthetic chins.
Chicago: Mostly averted as the band's logo was the focus of most of their album covers, with three exceptions—Chicago VI(a small group photo is above the logo); Chicago's Greatest Hits(the group is on a scaffold, painting the logo on the wall of a building); and Hot Streets.
Gilby Clarke: Shown playing guitar, shot from a distance on Pawnshop Guitars.
The Clash: Sandinista! has a group shot of The Clash posing against a wall, shot from a distance, nevertheless. The cover of their self-titled debut depicts only the trio of Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, and Paul Simonon, as they were the only official members at the time - drummer Terry Chimes played on every track on the UK version of the album, but decided to leave the group before it was actually released; his replacement, Topper Headon, played on songs that were included on the US version, but wasn't with the group yet when the cover photo was taken. London Calling depicts Paul Simonon about to smash his bass guitar, but is technically an aversion because he's hunched over facing the floor and you can't actually see his face.
I'm Your Man has a black and white photo of him in a pinstripe suit, t-shirt and dark sunglasses, eating a banana. Originally a candid behind the scenes photo, Leonard decided to use it as the album cover, because "at the times we think we're the coolest, what everyone else sees is a guy with his mouth full of banana".
Phil Collins is another musician who makes a habit of appearing on his album covers, usually in close-up. Face Value takes this to its most logical extreme in that his face is the cover, tying in with the idea of the album putting the listener inside his head. Dance Into the Light instead features a full-frontal picture of him dancing. Going Back, his soul and Motown cover album, provides a unique variation: the cover is an old black-and-white photo of Collins at thirteen years old, while Collins himself was in his late fifties when the album was made.
The Doors: The Doors, Waiting For The Sun and L.A. Woman show a picture of the band. In the first example even with Jim Morrison's face in close-up and the other musicians behind him. On Strange Days it's a bit more subtle. The cover shows a group of circus performers, but on the window we can see a group photo of the band.
The cover art from the album Relapse features Eminem's face laid out in a mosaic of tablets, which shows us the drug addiction that Em struggled with.
Music to Be Murdered By has two standard covers; the first one with the shovel is featured on the digital copies, and the other cover, with the gun and axe, which is a Shout-Out to Alfred Hitchcock's album of the same name, is meant for physical copies. There’s a third version of the cover, with Marshall hiding the gun and axe, that appears exclusively on the physical albums sold on Eminem’s official website. A deluxe version of the album has the cover inspired by Hitchcock's film, The Birds.
The cover of Unhalfbricking shows a middle-aged couple standing outside their suburban home. Look closely and you can see the band members sitting on the lawn on the other side of the fence. The couple are in fact Sandy Denny's parents.
Fleetwood Mac: Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks featured in the image on the album cover of Rumours.
Fugazi's Margin Walker EP is their straightest example, with the front cover being a closeup of frontman Ian McKaye's face with some shaving cream slathered on. Other albums that qualify as examples tend to use photos of live performances, or else put some artistic spin on it - for instance the cover of Red Medicine is a collage that includes a group photo of the band, but it's not immediately recognizable as such because the photo is oriented upside down and the members are standing up to their necks in the ocean.
Each of Peter Gabriel's first seven studio albums features a photo of him on the cover in various forms. Gabriel particularly took a liking to the cover of his third album, commonly known as Melt, because it allowed him to depict his likeness in an unflattering way for artistic effect, manipulating a Polaroid to make his face look like it was, well, melting. Scratch My Back and New Blood break the practice, instead using SEM images of blood cells.
Heart: Their debut LP, Dreamboat Annie, featured Ann and Nancy Wilson sitting back-to-back, apparently topless (the picture was cropped apparently for modesty reasons, but other unreleased photos from the same shoot revealed they were wearing towel wraps). This backfired on them when an unscrupulous record company deliberately circulated false rumours that the sisters were not only bi-curious, they had experimented with each other. Contracts were severed shortly afterwards by the furious and humiliated sisters, and the first single for their new label was Barracuda, a scathing Take That! at Mushroom Records.
Carole King: She is shown on the cover of Tapestry, full-length, sitting on a window seat in half shadow, barefoot and casually dressed in sweater and jeans, clutching a piece of her own tapestry work and upstaged by a large tabby cat. Very domestic and far from glamorous.
MC5: The band are seen on the cover of Kick Out the Jams in a collage, but apart from the lead singer not very recognizable.
Don McLean: The singer is featured on the album cover of American Pie, but his hand is seen in a more extreme close-up than his face, which is shown in the background.
Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé appear both together on the cover of their collaborative project Barcelona.
Joni Mitchell: The album cover of Blue is a close-up of her face. She appears in a wintry backdrop on the cover of Hejira with a road projected on her coat.
Meat Puppets usually have vocalist Curt Kirkwood's paintings or drawings as cover art rather than photos - the only exception is Too High To Die, where the photo of Curt on the front is over-exposed, tinted pink, and with text deliberately covering part of his face.
New Order: Normally known for obscure and minimalist sleeve art, they only ever used this trope once, on Low Life. It turned out to be one of their most highly-regarded album covers, probably second only to its immediate predecessor Power, Corruption and Lies.
Nine Inch Nails: The cover for the "Head Like a Hole" maxi single is an inverted black and white closeup of Trent Reznor's face, obscured somewhat by the song's lyrics placed over it.
Nirvana: Subverted by the album cover of Bleach, which shows the band members performing, but their faces can't be seen because their long hair covers them up.
Portishead: Lead singer Beth Williams is featured prominently on the album cover of Dummy, shown from a distance, but nevertheless in the center of the image.
Lou Reed: He is shown in close-up and full frontal on the album cover of Transformer and Metal Machine Music. He is also shown on the album cover of Berlin, though less clearly visible and in a smaller image.
The Big Bubble has four men posing on the cover, and at the time it was rumored to depict The Residents unmasked for the first time. It was really four hired models, but the cover art still fits the trope conceptually - the album was supposed to represent the career of a Fake Band within their Concept Album series "The Mole Trilogy" who were also called The Big Bubble, and the cover models were supposed to be portraying said band. In fact, the original LP had the image depicting The Big Bubble off-center and sitting over a backdrop with semi-transparent images of the Residents in their usual eyeball mask guises subtly superimposed, thus hinting at it being sort of an album within an album.
This is due to contractual issues. For some reason, Run and DMC were contracted to Premier Records, but Jam Master Jay was under contract to Def Jam (the label most rap groups of that time period were on). Because of that, Jay could not be pictured on the front cover, but was usually shown on the back covers and other photos of the group.
Santana: Carlos Santana's face is seen in Egyptian style on the cover of Shaman.
Joe Satriani: Satriani has been featured on the covers of nearly all of his albums, with the notable exception of Surfing With The Alien, which features the Silver Surfer instead.
Sia on her albums Healing is Difficult,Colour the Small One, and Some People Have Real Problems, which caused older fans some puzzlement when she decided to become The Faceless in public in 2014.
Squarepusher's albums Go Plastic, Ultravisitor and Damongen Furies feature only his face, while Ufabulum features him masked.
Shobaleader One's debut d'Demonstrator features one unknown member of the band masked, while the live album Elektrac features the entire band masked up.
Talking Heads did a few variations on this. More Songs About Buildings and Food was a montage of small photos of specific body parts (a hand, one eye, a mouth, etc.) arranged to form a portrait of the whole band. Remain in Light had head shots of each band member, but with their faces obscured by digital blotches of red ink. (Allegedly, they also considered a cover with producer Brian Eno's face pasted over each of theirs.) And Stop Making Sense (both the film and the soundtrack album) was a picture of David Byrne in the iconic big, white suit—but with his head out of frame.
The iconic album cover of Songs from the Big Chair is a black-and-white portrait of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith.
Orzabal and Smith stand side by side on the artwork for The Seeds of Love.
Orzabal stands alone on the Elemental cover.
Television: Marquee Moon and Adventure both feature photo portraits of the band. For Marquee Moon, the photo is a xerox with colors skewed, giving it a surreal air.
Peter Tosh: On Legalize It Tosh is shown smoking a hash pipe in a field of cannabis plants.
With Love And Squalor by We Are Scientists is a subversion: the band members are lined up on the cover... but they're all holding cats in front of their faces.
Tom Waits: Waits is often pictured on all of his albums, though sometimes with subversions like Bone Machine, where his face is almost unrecognizable.
Wet Wet Wet do this on many of their albums, but their Cover AlbumCloak & Dagger is particularly interesting for two reasons: firstly, the album is officially credited to Fake Band Maggie Pie and the Imposters, but having the band members' photos on the cover rather gives the game away; and secondly it's their only cover to feature guitarist Graeme Duffin, who otherwise stays out of the limelight.
The White Stripes: The two of them are surrounded by black-clad figures on the cover of White Blood Cells. On Elephant the band is shown from a distance, full frontal, but still in the center of attention.
The Who: Group shots of the band are seen on My Generation and Who's Next. A psychedelic album cover is seen on the cover of A Quick One. On The Who Sell Out Pete Townsend and John Entwistle pose with products. Similar portraits of Roger Daltrey and Keith Moon appear on the back.
Amy Winehouse: The cover of Frank shows her in a pink dress, laughing. The cover of Back in Black shows her sitting on a chair against an empty background.
Yes: The band usually subverts this trope, instead opting for artwork by Roger Dean on their album covers, but group photos did appear on the covers of The Yes Album and Time And A Word, which features the wrong lineup (Steve Howe is pictured on the cover, even though Peter Banks is the one who played on it, as Banks announced his departure from the band shortly after its completion).
John Zorn: Interestingly enough, Zorn doesn't feature his own face on album covers much, if any. A notable exception is "First Recordings 1973" (1995), a collection of recordings he made when he was 20 years old and in college. He used a childhood foto of himself in front of a desk.
Pabllo Vittar: All of her albums with the exception of NPN Remixes have her on the cover.
