This Is the Picture: Famous and Not So Famous Album Covers, and Their Locations

It is one of, if not the most, iconic photographs in rock history. Paul Simonon, bassist for The Clash, legs in a tense, locked down spread, raises his instrument high above his head, poised to smash his bass against the unforgiving and immovable object that is the stage floor. It's a moment seething with unadulterated rock n' roll attitude.

And you probably have no idea where it took place.

The location of that particular piece of famed artwork - London Calling by The Clash -  may not by obvious, but other album art locations are. How about The Freewheeling Bob Dylan? You'd be correct if you guessed Greenwich Village in New York (specifically Jones Street). The Beatles' Abbey Road? Abbey Road in London. Michael Jackson's Thriller? Easy - an oxygen tank on Jackson's home planet.

But the locations of most album cover shots aren't so obvious. Which is why the UK's Word Magazine has created this nifty Album Covers Map. It's a Google Map of the world, dotted with blue arrows revealing the locations of album cover shots. Yes, many are in the US and the UK, but a good number are also in far-flung places. Kilimanjaro, the 1980 debut album by The Teardrop Explodes, for a long time featured a photo of Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro on its cover. And so there is a corresponding blue arrow pointing to Tanzania that notes this. The cover of Casual Gods, the solo project from from former Talking Head and Modern Lover Jerry Harrison, depicts a disquieting photograph of goldmine slaves in Brazil. A photo taken in 1986.

There are several ways to browse this elegant time-waster. View a complete list of albums. Take a glance at the world map and poke around. Or use the random album cover player. The latter is a fantastic way to peruse lesser known gems, such as Jon Hassell and Brian Eno's 1980 ambient/world release Possible Musics, the cover of which features an aerial image of the White Nile in the Sudan. Future pushpin maps of music artwork will likely reveal the locations of mere jpgs attached to mp3s, which is all the more reason to appreciate the full-sized glory of album artwork, as well as the Google maps that love them.

And the cover of London Calling by The Clash? Taken at the old Palladium club on East 14th Street in New York. But like the old Greenwich Village club the Electric Banana, it's not there anymore, so don't look for it. In fact, the site of the Palladium now houses a New York University dormitory. But we'll always have that album art.