50 Greatest Country Album Covers — Over 60 Years of Album Art, Ranked [Pictures]

Two albums placed back-to-back on this list of the 50 greatest country covers epitomize how important album art was and is.

At No. 20, find Randy Travis' iconic Storms of Life cover, the one where he's standing outside a general store as a group of old-timers talk about the weather. One notch higher, at No. 19, is a distinctly modern album cover. Hardy's The Mockingbird & the Crow album describes the Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of his country-rock album. One eye stares out at you menacingly as if to say, "Try me."

Both covers speak to what's inside the physical package. For Travis, it was pure country storytelling, but for Hardy, hard rock guitars first. Truth in advertising is one quality each of these 50 great album covers needs to have to make the cut.

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The art also needs to be creative (see No. 32, 17 and 14) and/or iconic (No. 30, 13, 7 and 2). The best album covers don't even need words to tell you who the artist is or what the record is called. The No. 1 album on this list even tells you what the artist was going through at the time.

Scroll down to find albums from Dolly Parton, Carrie Underwood, Eric Church and Willie Nelson, plus more contemporary covers from Old Dominion, Zac Brown Band and more. Did we get it right? Let us know here:

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