Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman

This is one of the first heavy metal albums I ever heard back in 1982 when my cousin sat me down in his room and spun this along with Iron Maiden's Killers and Dio's Holy Diver.

I know it was "Believer" which blew me out of the water when I first heard it since my cousin dropped the needle there first before trailing back to "Over the Mountain." I was immersed into the dark grooves and Randy Rhodes' mind-melding guitars, but this cover, along with Iron Eddie chopping down a victim of whom you only see their clutching hand off-panel, cemented my bond to metal music.

I'd already sprouted a love of horror films at this point and seeing Ozzy's Hyde-torn persona on this cover and the blood streaks on his pants really socked me out, not to mention his white-suited "angel" figure on the flipside of the album.

Audiences today might find Diary of a Madman's cover cheesy as all hell (there've been worse from Ozzy), but remember, we were the Atari generation and this album art was highly effective to our eyes. Playstation and iPods hadn't even been a thought and G.I. Joe didn't look like The X-Men, either.