I really wanted to buy this album so I could stare at the fucking fantastic wrap-around cover all day long (click image to enlarge), but in 1986 I was in the punk and post-punk club, and clubs didn’t mix. We listened to Metallica’s Master of Puppets while skateboarding, but that was the extent of my metal intake.
The artist is Derek Riggs, who painted all of Iron Maiden’s ’80s album covers and created Eddie the Head, the grisly mascot who appears in Maiden artwork in different guises. Riggs says of Somewhere in Time:
This is the most complex album cover ever done by anyone… and I’m not going to do it again. It’s too much fucking work. This may be the biggest version that some of you have ever seen. there’s tons of stuff in here, you will have to look and find it for yourself. There’s more about the painting of this in the book “Run for Cover” which is available from my website. They said they wanted something a bit Bladerunner looking so I painted this.
Riggs’ covers for the singles are below as well.
P.S. I’m going back and listening to Iron Maiden’s catalog, starting from the beginning. (Thanks for the reminder, Jason.)
2 Warps to Neptune 
Man, talk about a lost art. It’s great to hear from the artist himself, and both funny and tragic to hear that it was “too much fucking work.”
I think we were the last generation before the great “digital divide.” I’m glad I was able to learn the traditional art, design and photography techniques before it all turned into pixels and programs. Yet, at the same time, I’m happy to have witnessed and been a part of the evolution as well.
Glad to be of service, heh. I wouldn’t recommend much past Seventh Son, though. These days I listen to Maiden regularly, although I have to admit not being into them at the time. My 80s years were filled with throwback stuff that was decidedly out of fashion for most kids then – Zeppelin, Tull, Yes, Deep Purple, Sabbath…
Yeah, I’m just doing the ’80s albums. Killers might be my favorite.
I started playing guitar my freshman year and picked up The Wall my junior year. Then I started listening to Zeppelin and Hendrix, The Doors, all the classic shit.
Punk and post-punk (The Chameleons, Joy Division, Echo, The Teardrop Explodes) are still my favorites, but I listen to almost every genre these days.
I forgot to mention: your comment was #665. You missed the number of the beast by one!
I’m not embarrassed to admit my musical tastes tend to go through phases. I was definitely into punk, post-punk, and goth from the mid-90s until maybe 2005. Went through rockabilly and psychobilly for a few years after that, and then gradually returned to older metal and prog rock. Not to say that’s all I listen to entirely, just maybe 90% of the time. I’ll still throw on some Bauhaus or X-Ray Spex or Sixgun Republic (and the like) now and then these days, but not very often. I’ve also recently started grabbing old LPs from antique malls and flea markets – one can still get some good stuff for a few dollars. The snap crackle pop of old vinyl is comforting sometimes.
Off by one, damn. Well, I can always hope for 2112…
I had a door length post of the cover and a normal size poster of the Stranger in a Strange Land. As well as a really cool 4’X4′ Power Slave white on black satin wall hanging which I am sure was a unofficial item from a carnival.
I had the CD for this album (replacing a worn cassette tape), but I still bought the vinyl album for the express purpose of having the large-sized wraparound album art.
To this day, I still consider it the greatest album artwork ever.