Secrets behind the most iconic ‘70s rock album covers revealed in new doc

nypost.com:

Led Zeppelin and Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles band Wings.The new documentary “Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)” — which opened at NYC’s Film Forum on Wednesday and rolls out nationwide later this month — goes inside the studio that created the visuals for some of the biggest acts of the 1970s. “The importance of an album sleeve will never be the same as in the ’70s, and to make a documentary about the most prominent album covers of the era that are all done by one design team is really important for people who have missed that period,” said renowned rock photographer Anton Corbijn, who directed the film. “Even though vinyl sales have surged again, it’s like a period that’s gone.”Here, he and Hipgnosis co-founder Aubrey “Po” Powell dish on some key album covers.Of all the classic LP covers to come out of Hipgnosis’ visionary factory, Pink Floyd’s 1973 concept album boasts the most iconic image of them all.

After a cow was famously featured on the curious cover of 1970’s “Atom Heart Mother,” Powell, who started Hipgnosis along with the late Storm Thorgerson, said that the band wanted “something more graphic or simple.” He found inspiration from an unlikely source: physics. “I happened to be looking through a book about the refraction of light and suddenly Storm said, ‘I’ve got it!

We need to do a pyramid with a refraction of light.’” By the mid-1970s, Pink Floyd had grown disillusioned with the music industry, griping about artists getting “burned” in the business.

So for the cover of their 1975 album, the band sought a literal depiction of that with a stuntman who — in an era before digital effects — actually had to be set on fire for multiple takes.