The 30 best album covers - ranked 30) The Strokes – Is This It

Photographer Colin Lane met the Strokes in early 2001, after being commissioned to shoot them for The Face magazine. The album cover happened by chance – after hanging out on another shoot a few weeks later, Lane heard the band’s art director hassling them to choose an album cover. He’d brought his portfolio with him, which included the now-infamous “ass shot”. The photograph, Lane later revealed in interviews, was taken in either late 1999 or 2000. His girlfriend had just got out of the shower, while he was playing with an old polaroid camera. He found a Chanel glove and asked her to pose. “Shooting on a Big Shot isn’t easy: you can only shoot from a specific distance, and it’s really designed for head-and-shoulders portraits,” he explained to The Guardian. “But when she slid the glove on and bent forward, I knew it was the perfect shot – simple, straightforward, graphic and just so sexy.” For fans, the image represents one of the last definable scenes in music.