Some album covers are iconic. Some are controversial. Some hide secrets you never noticed. And some never existed at all; dreamed up by prop departments, art directors and screenwriters to sell the illusion of a band that never played a single note outside of a fictional universe.
These are the ten that I think are the best fictional album covers from the movies and TV. Some of them are better than the real thing.
Smell the Glove - Spinal Tap
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
For me, this is the one that kick-started this post. I always remember that glove. That scene. And, of course, the movie. That hilarious 'rockumentary, if you will'. The original Smell the Glove artwork featured a greased, naked woman on all fours being pushed down by a hand in a glove was deemed too sexist to release by the fictional label in the film. The replacement? Completely black. Nothing but black. Not even the band name. As David St. Hubbins memorably argued in defence of the all-black cover: "It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black." The cover became so iconic that real bands started copying it. A fictional album cover that influenced real ones. You cannot ask for more than that.
You can actually add this one to your collection - Smell The Glove - Spinal Tap
The Ultimate Collection - Wyld Stallyns
Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)
Two air-guitar legends from San Dimas, California. The Wyld Stallyns album covers that appear in Face the Music are a loving parody of every era of rock; from 80s hair metal excess to 90s grunge minimalism. The art direction is spot on. The band name in jagged lightning bolt font. The completely unnecessary smoke machine aesthetic. Every detail earns its place. Be excellent to each other, indeed.
The Awesome Album - Mouse Rat
Parks and Recreation
Andy Dwyer's revolving door of a band (which went through names including Flames for Flames, Rat Mouse, just Rat, and Land Lorde before settling on Mouse Rat) released The Awesome Album as an actual real album in 2021. A fictional band from a fictional parks department in a fictional Indiana town made a real album with a real cover. The cover itself is peak D-tier local indie band; hand drawn font, slightly too much going on, absolute confidence in its own mediocrity. It is perfect.
Stillwater
Almost Famous (2000)
Cameron Crowe didn't just invent a fictional band for Almost Famous, he built an entire fictional discography for them, complete with multiple album covers, liner notes and recording credits. The Faraway cover is the centrepiece. A moody, sun-drenched 70s rock aesthetic that looks like it could sit between Rumours and Hotel California on any serious record shelf. Crowe was so committed to the illusion that he hired real designers and real photographers to create it. The result is one of the most convincing fictional album covers ever made.
That Thing You Do! - The Wonders
That Thing You Do! (1996)
Written and directed by Tom Hanks, That Thing You Do! is a love letter to the early 60s pop factory era, and the album cover for The Wonders is a perfect recreation of that world. Four clean cut young men in matching suits, names listed in friendly sans-serif font, everything exactly as it should be. The cover looks so authentic that people have genuinely tried to buy the album without realising the band doesn't exist. That is the highest possible compliment.
Self Titled - Sex Bob-Omb
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)
Gritty. Lo-fi. Xeroxed within an inch of its life. The Sex Bob-Omb self-titled cover looks like it was designed at 2am on a photocopier that was running out of toner. Which is to say it looks exactly like every real self-released punk demo ever made. The attention to detail in Scott Pilgrim is extraordinary throughout and the album cover is no exception. A genuine piece of fictional punk ephemera that any real band would be proud of.
Get Him to the Greek - Infant Sorrow
Get Him to the Greek (2010) / Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
Russell Brand's fictional rock god Aldous Snow fronted Infant Sorrow across two films, and the album cover for
Get Him to the Greek captures everything a real late-era rock excess album cover should be. Overproduced. Self-important. Absolutely convinced of its own importance. The fictional backstory; Infant Sorrow as one of the last truly great rock bands of a generation is played completely straight, which makes the cover land all the harder. The album was eventually released on actual vinyl, complete with a full colour double-sided insert featuring stills from the film and artwork from the Infant Sorrow discography.
Renegade - Löded Diper
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
The greatest middle school metal album cover ever committed to paper. Löded Diper, spelled exactly that way, intentionally. Löded Diper is Rodrick Heffley's band, and Renegade is their magnum opus. The cover art captures everything about being fifteen, convinced you're the next Metallica, and having absolutely no graphic design skills whatsoever. The font choices alone deserve an award. Every person who ever had a friend in a terrible teenage band will recognise exactly what they're looking at.
Airheads - The Lone Rangers
Airheads (1994)
Three guys who take a radio station hostage to get their demo tape played. The Lone Rangers, Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi and Adam Sandler are the ultimate "we live in a van and eat gas station food" 90s rock band, and their album cover looks exactly like it. Rough around the edges, slightly too aggressive for what the music probably sounds like, designed by someone who owned exactly one font. A perfect time capsule of early 90s rock desperation.
N/A - Sonic Death Monkey
High Fidelity (2000)
Sonic Death Monkey is the band that never quite gets named the same thing twice: Barry, Dick and a rotating cast of musicians cycling through names in the back room of Championship Vinyl. There is no proper album cover because there is no proper album. Just the idea of one. And yet somehow that feels right for a film that is fundamentally about the gap between the music we love and the lives we actually live. High Fidelity is a film that Art Before Noise readers will understand on a cellular level. And Sonic Death Monkey or whatever they're called this week is its beating heart.
Knowing these album covers and finding images to match them is pretty hard. Use your imagination to visualise them. Or, watch the movie.
Know a fictional album cover we missed? Let us know in the comments.
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