The Beatles, The Stones, Led Zeppelin

Creating a great album cover is easy. All you have to do is…

…wait. If it were easy, every album cover would be great — and obviously that's not the case.

See also: 2011 Top 10 Albums for Grownups

Record albums used to come in a blank sleeve until Columbia Records ad man Alex Steinweiss created the first graphic cover in the late '30s. Steinweiss, who died recently at the age of 94, designed some of the greatest covers ever, including the original recording of South Pacific — an image so indelible that it's still the standard for new releases of the Broadway chestnut 60 years later.

So what makes a great album cover? There are no hard and fast rules. Instead, it's like Justice Potter Stewart's famous maxim (said about pornography): "I know it when I see it." A good cover is eye-catching — its primary purpose is to get your attention. But a truly great cover will also manage to evoke the tone and emotional resonance of the music inside.

Here's a selection of 10 great album covers on, not coincidentally, some pretty great albums.

10) Led Zeppelin — Led Zeppelin (1969)

Loud, fast and hard, Led Zeppelin embodied the concept of bombast. But these serious rock gods had a sense of humor, as evidenced by their decision to put the Hindenburg front and center on their album cover, in mid-explosion. By splashing a famous catastrophe right on the cover, the band boldly invited critics to take aim at them, while defusing that same criticism with self-deprecation. All these decades later, we're still talking about it. And Led Zeppelin.

9) The Eagles — Hotel California (1976)

As the U.S. approached its Bicentennial, the Eagles saw the great democratic experiment in danger of falling prey to materialism and soullessness. The result was what's regarded as the band's finest album, using California as a metaphor for the entire country. This is nicely captured by the cover, which showcases the Beverly Hills Hotel in silhouette at sunset. We see no sun-drenched beaches or glorious California mountains, just a mysterious, large, seemingly empty building as night descends. The image is beautiful, enigmatic and somehow threatening — like much of the music on the disc inside.

8) Deborah Harry — Koo Koo (1981)

Although Blondie was very much a band, Debbie Harry always received most of the attention, due in part to her sultry lead vocals and in part to her fashion-model looks. Determined to be regarded as an artist rather than just a (very) pretty face, Harry commissioned an album cover by renowned surrealist H.R. Giger. He delivered a lush painting of her face being impaled by spikes. Harry called the result a combination of punk, acupuncture and sci-fi. Giger said it was inspired by the four elements — and, indeed, a recent visit to his acupuncturist.

Next: Which Rolling Stones album makes the cut?