An Easter Egg is a hidden reference or message in a piece of media.
Normally easter eggs are hidden in things like tv and movies, like how Disney hides hidden mickeys in a lot of their shows and films.
The original name comes from, maybe unsurprisingly, Easter Eggs!
The original Easter Egg in a video game was credited to Warren Robinett, who his his name in the Atari 2600 video game, Adventure, as a form of protest because Atari was not crediting their developers.
The term Easter Egg was then coined by another Atari Employee, Steve Wright, who liked the idea of having hidden things for players to find, like an Easter Egg hunt.
Easter Eggs in album covers are a lot less common then in movies and video games, but they certainly do happen, and I always appreciate the effort they take.
Here are 5 amazing Easter Eggs in album covers that I think are worth knowing about.
5 – Harry Nilsson – Pussy Cats
Harry Nilsson was a succesful singer-songwriter in his own right and also succeeded in writing songs for other bands.
He became very good friends with both Ringo Starr and John Lennon over the course of their careers, and even co-produced one album with John Lennon – Pussy Cats.
Okay, so let’s look at the album cover for Pussy cats.
The Album Cover
The cover for the album is a little odd, to say the least.
The best thing about this easter egg is just how silly and childish it is!
Once you get past the very weird childish scene, you may spot a very clever adult reference hidden in it.
Found it yet?
So, the scene is a doll house, with Harry Wilson and John Lennons faces pasted over two dolls.
Around the room are a few things: a dog, a Yin-Yang wall decoration, a table with a plant on it, and under that table are some lettered blocks sitting by a rug.
The Easter Egg
If you take the positioning of those items under the table, you can spell out a word!
D-Rug-S
It’s a drugs reference! In a very childish and silly scene!
This Easter Egg (and the album title) are actually a reference to Harry Nilsson and John Lennon getting a bad reputation for being drunk and rowdy in Los Angeles at the time.
This album was made during John Lennons infamous Lost Weekend period.
So the album name is a sarcastic take on it, and the hidden drugs reference was a bit of a middle finger to their critics.
4 – Led Zeppelin – In Through the Out Door
Led Zepplin were no strangers to weird and wonderful album covers.
For example their album Presence, which throughout the vinyl album has images of stereotypical happy 1950s families, all staring at a black obelisk on a table in their houses.
The contrast of a normal household to an otherworldly item is unsettling and odd.
Their 1979 final album, In Through The Out Door however is weird and wonderful in a very new way.
The great thing about Easter Eggs is that you can miss then dozens of times and then suddenly see it, staring you in the face!
But this one could stay hidden forever! In fact, I’d bet that a lot of people who owned this album never realised this secret, because it’s rather counter-intuitive.
The Album Cover
The cover shows an old-fashioned bar with a man in a white suit perched on a stool. There were actually six variations of the album, each showing the perspective of one of the patrons of the bar.
Apparently, the album was originally sold in a brown paper bag, so that the buyer wouldn’t know which version of the cover they would get.
The photo is sepia-coloured, except for a brushline going through it, and where the brush mark is, the album is in full colour.
It’s an interesting idea, to have different variations of the same scene for the same album, but even that isn’t the secret!
The Easter Egg
The Easter Egg is not obvious at all, and goes against every instinct you would have as a vinyl album owner.
It isn’t totally mysterious however, and the brushstroke on the front cover is the clue.
Inside the album, on the inner sleeves, the album featured some interesting black and white line art.
If you were to take a damp cloth and gently wipe it across these pages, they would transform from black and white to full colour!
Nothing on the album tells you to do this (and why would you ever make your album wet?!) but it was a brilliant hidden easter egg for people willing to follow their nose and try something.
3 – The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’ Lonely Hearts Club Band
The cover to this iconic album is is iconic in its own right, and it just makes sense there would be an Easter Egg hidden on it – since it’s covered in references, pastiches and just plain weirdness.
The Album Cover
The cover of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band features the four Beatles dressed in bright colourful outfits, based on a bright, colourful (fictional) Edwardian military band.
The band are stood behind a flowerbed reading ‘BEATLES’ and in front of a crowd of famous people, all either models or cutouts from other media.
Within the crowd behind them, there are several famous people, inlcuding wax models of four band members, Edgar Allen Poe, 19th Century Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel and Shirley Temple, not to mention dozens more!
But that is what makes the Easter Egg so easy to miss, because it’s not in the crowd!
The Easter Egg
The Easter Egg here isn’t in the crown behind the band but is very prominently on the far right of the cover, in the front row.
Sat on a chair is a doll of Shirley Temple (Again), wearing a red white and black striped jumper, and stitched on the front of the jumper is four words:
‘Welcome The Rolling Stones’.
The history of the jumper itself is rather strange. It belonged to the son of the photographer of the album cover, Michael Cooper.
He brought several toys to the shoot to help fill out the photo, and one was a Shirley Temple Doll wearing the jumper.
So, why did he have this doll in the first place?
It was given to him by none other than Rolling Stones singer, Mick Jagger!
2 – Rolling Stones – Their Satanic Majesties Request
The 6th studio album by The Rolling Stones, ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’, is a controversial one with Rolling Stones fans, and even the band themselves, with Mick Jagger himself calling it a load of shit.
But anyway, this blog post isn’t about that! It’s about how the Rolling Stones repaid their Easter Egg from the Beatles!
The Album Cover
The cover from ‘Their Satanic…’ shows the four band members dressed in rather OTT magical garb, with lots of sparkles and bright colours, as they sit in font of a Childs arts and crafts project to recreate the Taj Mahal.
(Can you tell this album was highly influenced by LSD?)
The Easter Egg
The very weird and trippy album cover is more weird than it sounds! The cover was actually a lenticular image, which means the image can change when viewed from different angles.
However, the Easter Egg we’re looking for has nothing to do with that, and is honestly blatantly obvious when you are looking for it.
Hidden within the album cover is the four faces of the Beatles.
Honestly, once you know they’re there, it’s so obvious to find them!
But as a fun reference and a reciprocal shout-out, it’s a great Easter Egg to hide.
1 – Iron Maiden – Powerslave
This album cover has several Easter Eggs in, which was common on album covers designed by Derek Riggs.
By the way, his cover for the Somewhere In Time album has dozens of secrets, but that is a blog post for another day.
The Album Cover
The Powerslave album cover shows ancient Egypt, but with an Iron Maiden bent. The Sphinx is now modelled after Eddie, the pyramid is shown as being obscenely huge and imposing, with electricity emanating from the peak.
It is a fantastically imagined scene, and beautifully drawn by Derek Riggs.
The Easter Egg
This cover actually features several Easter Eggs for the Eagle-eyed Maiden fans. And I do mean Eagle eyed, because the Easter Eggs are very small and almost invisible without a magnifying glass (or digital zoom).
The walls of the structure are covered in graffiti that pokes fun at the scene.
There are several different bits of graffiti across the cover, including:
- Indiana Jones wos ‘ere
- Bollocks
- Wot No Guinness (featuring Kilroy)
The highest-quality images of these Easter Eggs came from the website IronMaidenCommentary, so I have used one of their images here to show the Easer Egg, but use the link to see them all.
Wrap Up
Easter Eggs in album covers have always been a rare thing, but that just means that when you discover one, it feels even more special and interesting!
And if you managed to find an Easter Egg that is as well hidden as any of these, you can also feel a sense of accomplishment!
