The cover of A Hard Day’s Night was again shot by Robert Freeman. But The Beatles won, and hence the creation of a very iconic album cover! When they received the shots, EMI were originally unhappy with the sultry expressions of The Beatles, and wanted something a little cheerier. The “shadow” technique was suggested by the band, from when their German friend Astrid Kirchherr would take similar shots of them in their time in Hamburg.
So The Beatles and Freeman set up a makeshift studio in their hotel. Photographer Robert Freeman was hanging with the band, and they needed an album cover. In the Summer of 1963, The Beatles were touring England and were staying in Bournemouth. Since it was a session, it’s no surprise that there’s a number of outtakes. The Zoo, however, didn’t consent, so the cover was famously taken on the stairwell at EMI headquarters by a guy called Angus McBean. ‘Cos George Martin was an “honorary fellow” of the Zoological Society of London, the original plan was to shoot the cover in front of the Insect House at the London Zoo. The cover of Please Please Me was shot in around February or March, 1963. Each of these are either pictures that are a little different to the final image, or a discarded piece of cover art, or a draft for the cover - or maybe even all three! So here goes… You may have seen a picture of The Beatles walking the opposite way across Abbey Road, or maybe the uncropped and unstretched Rubber Soul cover. (Or any of the following shots, too.) After seeing a few of of these different images, I decided to try and find an unused photo for each album. And not to mention the millions of artists that have recreated the images for their own albums: among them Gorillaz, Queens of the Stone Age, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and, oh, The Rutles.īut like a lot of iconic things, The Beatles’ album covers went through a few changes before settling on the iconic images we all know and love. It seems like an obligatory tourist thing when one is in London to stop by the Abbey Road crossing and recreate the cover of the album of the same name. And whenever someone makes a list of the ‘best album covers’, The Beatles feature pretty prominently in them. It goes without saying that the covers of The Beatles’ albums are iconic.
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