The Hidden Meaning Behind These Album Covers

Back in the '80s, the Beastie Boys enjoyed an image as the rude, crude, party-crashing princes of hip-hop. But there was a dark, wry, even satiric sensibility hidden beneath the surface. For instance, the group's party-positive bro anthem "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)" was intended as a joke to make fun of songs like Brownsville Station/Motley Crüe's "Smokin' in the Boys Room" and Twisted Sister's "I Wanna Rock." That song appeared on Licensed to Ill, which has a cover laced with jokes and commentary. 

In 100 Best Album Covers (via Diffuser), Beasties producer Rick Rubin said that while the album was being made, he read the salacious Led Zeppelin biography Hammer of the Gods. "In the book, there is a photograph of the Led Zeppelin private jet and the idea of this cover came from that," Rubin explained. "The Beastie Boys were just a bunch of little guys and I wanted us to have a Beastie Boys' jet. I wanted to embrace and somehow distinguish, in a sarcastic way, the larger-than-life rock 'n' roll lifestyle." That's why the cover shows a jet, and the fully extend gatefold shows the rest of the jet smashed into a mountain. But because the Beastie Boys worked on so many levels, there's another, more puerile joke hidden on the Licensed to Ill cover. The plane's serial number is "3MTA3." Held up to a mirror, it reads, "EAT ME."

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