10 Album Covers That Transform the Female Body

Lady Gaga, Megan Thee Stallion, Rosalía, Lorde and more

I’ve always been drawn to album covers that use the female body as more than just a portrait. The best ones turn women into symbols: a machine, a creature, a saint, an alien, a mother, a god. They feel more like transformations than photos, which usually indicates some good music on the inside. As a director, I’m always chasing imagery that treats femininity as something weird, emotional, powerful, messy, evolving and larger than life. These all feel like bodies becoming something else.

Lady Gaga, Born This Way (2011)

This cover was the first that came to mind. Gaga literally fuses herself with a motorcycle and turns into this snarling chrome creature. It’s theatrical, ugly, sexy, ridiculous. She looks monstrous and powerful at the same time.

Florence + The Machine, Lungs (2009)

There’s something so beautiful and uncomfortable about this cover. Florence wears her lungs externally, almost like jewelry. I’m super intrigued by insides coming out and imagery that physically externalizes emotion. It feels romantic, but also fragile and slightly grotesque.

Halsey, If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power (2021)

This album got overlooked, but there was so much heavy symbolism in all the visuals from this era. Halsey resembles a Renaissance painting, but there’s something confrontational about it, too. A very mythic view of pregnancy. Not so much nurturing as almost intimidating.

FKA twigs, Eusexua: Afterglow (2025)

Twigs always makes the body feel mutable and kind of otherworldly. The stretched skin and distorted proportions here make her look halfway between alien and human.

Rosalía, El Mal Querer (2018)

This cover makes Rosalía look like a saint ascending into heaven. It’s cool to see her earlier covers clearly informing the Lux era she is in right now. I love seeing artists evolve in a way that also brings them back to symbols and motifs they were inspired by at the start. Filip Ćustić, who I’m a big fan of, shot this cover.

Nirvana, In Utero (1993)

The anatomical angel on this cover has always stuck with me and even inspired some personal photoshoots over the years. The exposed muscles and organs mixed with angel wings make the body feel spiritual and biological at the exact same time, which I love. It’s uncomfortable but also beautiful.

Megan Thee Stallion, Megan (2024)

When this came out, I remember thinking how symbolic a moment it was for Megan. Hatching from an egg is an instantly iconic rebirth image, and it felt like such a statement after so much of the public buzz around her life. The second you see it, you understand exactly what it’s saying.

Lorde, Virgin (2025)

Lorde is my God, and this album came to me exactly when I needed it. I love how the whole tracklist deals with the body in interesting ways, and this cover feels like a succinct visualization of her lyrics. It’s colder and more clinical than the others on this list, which is why I like it. The X-ray imagery paired with the zipper feels invasive and intimate all at once.

Björk, Utopia (2017)

There’s a plethora of Björk covers that could have gone here, as nobody visually transforms themself like Björk. On this cover, she barely even looks human, more like some kind of floral alien creature.

Grimes, Art Angels (2015)

This cover feels like femininity filtered through the internet until it mutates into something else entirely. It feels so digitally constructed, capturing this very modern kind of femininity where identity itself becomes customizable.