Licensed To Ill’s infamous plane not only serves as a metaphor for the Beasties but also an unintended Nostradamus style prophecy for the end of this phase of their life cycle.

In an image stinkingly redolent of the 1980’s; the plane is a symbol of status and power. But more than just greed is good, it also builds in rap’s obsession with self aggrandisement. The Beasties have their own branded liner, making them the biggest and the best. Like when Marty gets the new car at the end of Back To The Future, the Boys have the best wheels / wings and are off touring round the world so brace yourself.

Let’s not beat around the bush, the plane is a phallus. Again, power, but more importantly, getting one over the ‘cock rock’ bands. When we consider the band toured with an enormous pneumatic knob on stage, you get the impression they’re more obsessed with bell ends than a campanology group.

Of course, the wonderful sight gig is that, flip the album over and the plane’s gone face first into a cliff. Firstly this tells us that humour is behind everything the Beasties do. Secondly in revealing that their enormous phallic plane is in fact, fucked, the back cover satirises the front. More importantly it transmits a valuable life lesson that power is not only linked to stupidity, but fragility. Thirdly, and this is where Nostradamus comes in, we can see see the plane as the Beasties and how the ‘Fight For Your Right’ frat boy act would become hit a grim dead end and finally die, the cliff face being Daily Mail outrage, stolen VW badges and commotion in Liverpool. The Beasties, like the Sex Pistols before them, would see their destructive nature turned inwards. From the ashes of the plane crash the Beastie Boys flew again, with Paul’s Boutique…. but that’s another story…

And the number on the tail 3M TA3? EAT ME!

Meanwhile on Dragnet, The Fall’s sophomore album (to use Pitchfork terminology) shows a stark black and white image of spider and butterfly on a web.

It’s perhaps too easy to say but The Fall had already positioned themselves as the spider at the centre of the web. They were originally called The Outsiders and rejoiced in being distanced from the Factory set. They were keen to draw people in though and the butterfly is us, the listener. If you get caught in the web of The Fall you may escape, but if you get stuck, there’s no escape and before you know it you’re buying everything you can. With his usual pre-cog kills, Mark E Smith had already predicted the entire position and effect of his wonderful, contrary band.

The choice of a spider is interesting and reflects that Mark was leaving the twisted social realism of suicidal bingo callers behind him and starting on embracing his love of MR James and Lovecraft. There’s a spider on the front of the album and in the music contained within there’s killers and spectres and spooky chills. Given the trap depicted on the artwork, Mark’s opening line of “is there anybody there?” could be interpreted as asking for acolytes or victims.

Contrasting their artwork with the nature displayed by the Bunnymen, the austerity of Joy Division, the high art of Magazine and the politics of Gang Of Four; The Fall on Dragnet offer a less celebrated but arguably more personal representation of their nature in the album art.

From the Beastie Boys as a plane, to the spider of The Fall, both bands use objects as metaphors for themselves and the role they played in music.

Read more What’s In A Cover? articles…!

Hinterland by Lonelady and English Martyrs by Total Victory

Spying by Jennie Vee and Vintage Violence by John Cale

So Alone by Johnny Thunders and Marquee Moon by Television

Fans of The Fall may enjoy this article on the time travel antics of The Remainderer and the Mark E Smith obituary