Best Album Cover

In my opinion, the best album cover of all time never actually made it to print. It was for The Coup's album, Party Music, released in 2001. On Sept. 13, 2001, recording label, 75 Ark, announced that it would be changing the cover--shown to the right--for obvious reasons.

Of course, The Coup front-man, "Boots" Riley, argued with label management, saying that the cover is "supposed to be a metaphor for the capitalist state being destroyed through the music."

You're goddamn right, Boots.

A self-described Communist, Boots has long been defined by provocative, anti-establishment lyrics. And DJ Pam the Funktress brings the funk.

The cover is self-explainatory, but there are a few things that I love and want to point out. First, Pam the Funktress is dancing around with the conductor batons. You can tell she had been practicing her hard-face; the batons accentuate it. Plus, she has not one, but two batons. Extra badass. Not guns, not a bomb vest, no knives, swords or ninja stars. Just some muthafuckin' conductor batons.

Second, Boots is detonating the bomb with a detachable head unit. This is totally awesome, and if you don't know why, you don't understand hip-hop. To compete with Pam the Funktress's hard-face, Boots is making duck-face. Also totally badass.

Third, I obviously love the tactlessness of the picture, but also the clairvoyance that Boots used. Is he psychic? Did he know this was going to happen? Is he al Qaeda? Did anyone even look into this? Perhaps he was John Doe Number 2. Witnesses say Number 2 was Arab, and I don't think it is out of the realm of possibility for a few Oklahoma City residents to not know the difference between a black man and an Arab. Hell, Boots is light-skinded, that's gotta confuse some Oklahomians.

All jokes aside though, how the fuck did this happen? I mean, if you listen to The Coup, then you know it's not surprising that they designed this album cover. But the image is eerily similar to the real thing and the timing is too perfect to not leave you scratching your head. But, I suppose it's possible that if the towers falling was an unintentional success (from al Qaeda's perspective), then this album cover was a similar success.

The one disappointing thing is the cover they used instead. It's a picture of a bar, with a gasoline can on the bar, in the background. In the foreground is an arm--looks like either Boots' or John Doe Number 2, assuming they are not the same person--and the hand is clutching a martini glass filled with a flaming brown liquid, presumably gasoline. It's just not that cool, especially with the martini glass. Anytime I see a martini glass, I immediately think of Sex and the City. And that's not cool. When I listen to The Coup, I don't want to think about Sex and the City. Plus, besides Sex and the City, who really drinks martinis? Only pussies and the French.

Anyways, the album includes such The Coup classics as: Five Million Ways to Kill a CEO, Ghetto Manifesto and Ride the Fence. If you haven't heard it, or have never heard The Coup, you should check it out. But don't be surprised if you get flagged and added to a government watch list.