Album covers featuring larger-than-life images demanded far more time and money before Photoshop came along, allowing even novices to superimpose all sorts of things into spaces they never actually occupied. Pink Floyd spared no expense in shooting the cover for the Animals album. Having an enormous custom made inflated pig hove over a London area power station for the cover shot was complicated and expensive enough before it proved as unruly as a wild hog, breaking away and raising calls of alarm from commercial pilots flying in and out of Heathrow airport before landing in a farmer's field and triggering a stampede in his herd.
The recreation of the cover shot for the anniversary of the album's release could very easily have been staged without the drama - but a techno smoke and mirrors approach would not have elicited the kind of reaction that made using a real inflatable worth every penny.
Telegraph.co.uk
