Behind the NSFW Zippable Album Cover ‘Sticky Fingers’ by the Rolling Stones

In the ’70s, rock and roll was about sex as much as ever.

Case in point: the Rolling Stones album cover for their hit LP, Sticky Fingers. From the name to the tight jeans, the whole thing is titillating, to say the least.

Andy Warhol and the Infamous Cover

When you’re the Rolling Stones, you can get anyone to design your album cover. By 1971, the band had released songs like the 1965 hit “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and “Paint It Black.” Sticky Fingers had its own slew of hits, from “Brown Sugar” to “Wild Horses” and “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.”

If you’re Andy Warhol, you’re going to go over and above. Make it advertising magic and art all wrapped up in one. So what did Warhol do? He gave the record a denim fly to unzip. The whole thing was like an in-your-face closeup of the hip-swinging band frontman Mick Jagger—though the cover is said to be model Joe Dallesandro.

For the album, Warhol and members of his art collective The Factory depicted a man’s crotch, bulge and all, as well as a working zipper that, when pulled down, revealed underwear. The effect was expensive to produce and affected the quality of the vinyl album it held, so future copies of the LP just showed the photo of the jeans and crotch and were, while less ornate, just as shocking in many ways to buyers.

Success!

However, the, um, package was wrapped, the album today is considered one of the band’s best. Just as a rose by any other name smells as sweet, the vinyl by any other outer accouterments sounds just as sweet.

It’s since gone on to earn triple platinum certification and it is a veritable greatest-hits record from the band. Along with the songs mentioned above, the LP, which was recorded in part at the famous Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama, includes tracks like “You Gotta Move” and “Dead Flowers.”