Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles

Whilst being one of the most iconic album covers of all time, Sgt. Pepper suffers as a result. The Peter Blake designed image is one to which we are overexposed, arguably to the detriment of the enjoyment the music, or at least the frequency with which we return to it. That's my experience at least. It therefore benefits more than most from flipping over to the reverse side. It reminds us that The Beatles really were as progressive and as important as we are told they are, even if we might tire of their influence at times. They are also important in the history of back covers as they were first major band to print lyrics on the album sleeve (Dylan albums had had selections of his writings on the reverse before, but not his lyrics). That the lyrics were deemed important was noteworthy; 'pop' music was starting to be seen as a culturally significant, studied by academics and fans alike.

The American literary critic and professor of English Richard Poirier wrote, “Learning From the Beatles,” originally published in 1967, a essay on the cultural importance of the album.  As his New York Times obituary notes, the essay "lamented the lack of serious cultural criticism about rock ’n’ roll, it recognized the emergent interaction between “serious” and pop culture and recognized the revolution that the Beatles, their Britishness notwithstanding, had begun to effect in American cultural life."

The fan interpretations were more far fetched, with the back cover thought to hold clues to the (conspiracy) theory that Paul McCartney had in fact been killed in a moped accident in 1966 and had subsequently been replaced by an actor. On the back cover McCartney has his back towards the camera and George Harrison appears to be pointing at the words "Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins", which was supposed to have been the time of Paul's fatal accident.

Three years later, Let It Be was an altogether less colourful affair reflecting the album's 'back-to-basics' approach (less psychedelic and less studio wizardry). The back cover states this in black and white: "they performed live for many of the tracks; in comes warmth and the freshness of a live performance". Although some don't agree that this ethos was necessarily preserved by Phil Spector's production. The cover was designed by John Kosh with photography by Ethan Russell. The individual stark images are in contrast to the band photographs of Sgt Pepper, and as Todd Leopold put it, "Russell's photographs show four men trying to rescue their fading musical marriage." Russell is apparently also the only rock photographer to have shot album covers for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones (Get Yer Ya-Yas Out) and The Who (Who's Next and Quadrophenia).