The Stylishly Alternative Covers

Andrew Bird: Armchair Apocrypha (2007) For the cover of his third solo album, Andrew Bird abandoned his usual (and beloved) illustrations by Chicago-based artist Jay Ryan for a photo from a series by Lynne Roberts-Goodwin titled Bad Birds. The images consist of stuffed bird specimens from the Department of Ornithology at the Australian Museum in Sydney, turned away from the camera and photographed against black seamless. While some have criticized the pun on the artist's last name as a little obvious, we like to think the images were chosen for their unsettling mixture of scientific precision and unknowable mystery -- a favored dichotomy in Bird's music. -- MJ