Art toppers; 70YRS OF ICONIC ALBUM COVERS.

Byline: MATT ROPER

THE name Alex Steinweiss won't conjure up any rock 'n' roll images...

But without him, instead of enjoying iconic album covers, we'd all be staring at plain brown cardboard.

Aged 23, Alex designed the world's first ever album cover. It totally revolutionised the way records were sold and created a brand new art form.

Without him there would be no Nirvana swimming baby, no Pink Floyd prism, no Velvet Underground banana and no famous crowd adorning Sgt Pepper.

It was in 1939, when he became Columbia Records' first art director, that Alex pitched the radical idea of replacing the plain brown cardboard record wrappers with an eye-catching illustration.

Seventy years on, sleeve images are so much a part of music culture and bands' image that you can't imagine a time before they existed.

Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mirror,from his home in Sarasota, Florida, Alex, 92, says: "Record sleeves were so drab, so unattractive. I convinced the executives to let me design a few so people could look at the artwork and hear the music."

His first sleeve was for a set of Rodgers and Hart songs. Within months, record sales had increased by over 800%. Soon Alex's signature - aka the "Steinweiss scrawl" - was all over 40s album covers. And before long every record company brought in their own designers.

In 1947, he also invented the paperboard jacket which has been an industry standard for 50 years.

Sadly, the American, who went on to design 2,500 sleeves, thinks today's designs aren't up to scratch. Alex says: "The album cover has seen its best days. What they do now isn't up to snuff. It's lost its charm."

Here, to celebrate 70 years of groovy sleeves, STUART MACONIE reveals his 15 best covers of all time...

Frank Sinatra In the Wee Small Hours (1955)

MOODY illustration of Ol' Blue Eyes that fits perfectly with the songs' mood of late night bourbon melancholy.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience Electric Ladyland (1968)

TOO naughty for the US labels, but David Montgomery's infamous sleeve sums up both the era and the pure sexiness of Hendrix's music.

Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon (1973)

SIMPLE but inscrutable. Pink Floyd's prism sleeve probably had more "herbal cigarettes" rolled on it than any other album cover.

The Beatles Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

THE most widely recognised cover ever. Peter Blake's pop art collage sums up an era's kaleidoscopic playfulness. But it only earned him pounds 200.

King Crimson In The Court Of The Crimson King (1969)

A SUITABLY strange and striking image for a revolutionary-sounding record.

Roxy Music Country Life (1974)

WELL, it was the 70s. Beloved of teenage boys and ironic art fans.

The Clash London Calling (1979)

THIS design is based on an early Elvis sleeve, but photographer Pennie Smith's classic snap of Paul Simenon smashing his bass on stage in Texas is pure punk.

The Human League Dare (1981)

FRONTMAN Phil Oakey wanted the Dare album to look like an edition of Vogue. And it does. Slick and smart, it manages to be both elegant and modern.

Nirvana Nevermind (1991)

CONCEIVED by the late Kurt Cobain this is an image that is both beautiful and unsettling, with its contrast of innocence and greed.

The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967)

MORE pop art, but this time a daringly simple design by the master of the mass-produced image, Andy Warhol.

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention Weasels Ripped My Flesh (1970)

ODD. Funny. Disturbing. A bit like Frank really.

Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes (2008)

USING a centuries-old painting by Brueghel for their cover says that this band are different, timeless and utterly indifferent to modern trends. And brilliant.