Music has always been a conversation. Artists sample each other. They cover each other's songs. They borrow chord progressions, production techniques and lyrical ideas; sometimes consciously, sometimes not. It's how art works. Nothing is made in a vacuum.

And sometimes that conversation happens on the cover before you've heard a single note.

These are eight album covers that are talking directly to another album cover. Some are deliberate tributes. Some are knowing winks. Some are coincidences so perfect they feel impossible.

London Calling - The Clash (1979)

References: Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley (1956)

Both covers use pink and green text that borders the left and bottom sides of the album cover with a black and white photo in the background. Presley's debut showed him singing his heart out at a microphone. The Clash replaced him with a famous shot of Paul Simonon smashing his bass on the ground. Same colours. Same layout. Completely different energy.

The tribute is deliberate and layered. The Clash were simultaneously honouring the spirit of early rock and roll and announcing its destruction. The London Calling cover simultaneously pays tribute to Elvis Presley while also blowing up his version of rock and roll. The King probably never smashed a bass guitar on stage. That's precisely the point.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles (1967)

Referenced by: Their Satanic Majesties Request - The Rolling Stones (1967)

We've touched on this one before on Art Before Noise, in the Look Closer post, but it deserves its full moment here. Photographer Michael Cooper shot both covers in 1967. When he shot Their Satanic Majesties Request for The Rolling Stones, he hid the faces of all four Beatles in the flowers on the cover. It was The Stones' response to being parodied by their greatest rivals, hidden in a floral arrangement.

A game of visual tennis, played across two of 1967's greatest sleeves. Cooper was the net.

Demon Days - Gorillaz (2005)

References: Let It Be - The Beatles (1970)

The four quadrant portrait approach of Demon Days harkens back to the classic cover of The Beatles' final album Let It Be. Damon Albarn is of course too much of a music nerd not to have noticed the connection, and certainly Jamie Hewlett would have known the graphic similarities, but both have yet to officially comment on the matter.

Four faces. Four quadrants. A virtual band paying silent tribute to the greatest band in history. Confirmation isn't necessary; it would be stupider if it wasn't an intentional homage.

Kamikaze - Eminem (2018)

References: Licensed to Ill - Beastie Boys (1986)

Eminem's sleeve depicting a kamikaze piloted plane in mid explosion obviously tips its hat to the Beastie Boys' 1986 debut Licensed to Ill, its cover painted with a similar disaster bound aircraft.

We've already written about the Licensed to Ill cover on this blog, Hold It Up To A Mirror, and the Beastie Boys connection runs deep for Eminem. Eminem told Rolling Stone: "There was something about Licensed to Ill… 'Fuck you. We fucking curse. We spit beer.' And obviously as they got older their views and things changed, as all of ours do… Same as me."

Two planes. Two eras. One conversation about what it means to be an outsider making noise.

The Next Day - David Bowie (2013)

References: Heroes — David Bowie (1977)

This one is unique - an artist referencing himself.

The sleeve designed by Jonathan Barnbrook called up the much beloved Heroes cover art, if only to obscure most of it with a white box bearing the album's title, the original legend Heroes simply scratched off.

Bowie returning from a decade's silence and literally crossing out his own most celebrated album cover. Not erasing it, the image is still visible beneath the white rectangle. Just placing something new on top of it. A man in conversation with his own past. Refusing to be defined by it. That is the most Bowie thing imaginable.

Turbulent Indigo - Joni Mitchell (1994)

References: Self Portrait With Bandaged Ear - Vincent Van Gogh (1889)

No one person better embodies the myth of the anguished artist, suffering and bleeding for his art, than Vincent Van Gogh. Joni Mitchell painted herself as Van Gogh for the cover of Turbulent Indigo, bandaged ear and all.

Mitchell is a serious painter as well as a serious musician. The self portrait on the Turbulent Indigo cover is not a casual reference; it's a fully realised work of art that places her in direct conversation with the most celebrated anguished artist in history. A woman claiming Van Gogh's mythology as her own. Bold doesn't begin to cover it.

Meet the Residents - The Residents (1974)

References: Meet the Beatles - The Beatles (1964)

While Meet The Residents takes a scrawling Pop Art swing at the classic Beatles album, other bands such as The Gorillaz, The Mothers of Invention, Booker T and the MGs, Blur and Utopia have all taken a crack at paying their visual respects.

The Residents were an anonymous avant garde collective who refused to reveal their identities; their faces always hidden behind giant eyeball masks. Their debut album took the famous close cropped Beatles portrait and replaced the Fab Four with something altogether more unsettling. A parody, yes. But also a genuine piece of conceptual art about fame, identity and the cult of the rock star.

The Heart of Saturday Night - Tom Waits (1974)

References: In the Wee Small Hours - Frank Sinatra (1955)

In order to firmly establish his connection with jazz, Waits decided to pay homage to Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours. Waits doesn't have the blue eyed soul of Sinatra, as his inner demons are far too omnipresent, but it's fun to think of an alternate universe where Waits is croaking out My Way in Vegas.

A young Tom Waits, still finding his voice, still figuring out what kind of artist he was going to be, placing himself in visual conversation with the Chairman of the Board. The ambition is staggering. The cheek is magnificent. And the cover works because Waits, even then, had enough personality to hold his own in Sinatra's shadow.

Spotted a cover conversation I missed? Let everyone know in the comments.