Unique among album cover designers, Hans Rudolf Giger (1940 – 2014), aka HR Giger won an Oscar for his „xenomorph“ creature in Alien, and continued in the film business for more than four decades, including working for Ridley Scott’s 2012 hit, Prometheus. Giger, who had studied architecture in Zürich, also designed video games and worked in interior design. The surrealist Swiss painter was in demand in the music business. Among his many triumphs was the 1973 cover for Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s album Brain Salad Surgery, which keyboardist Keith Emerson said the band chose „because it pushed album cover art to its extreme“. He also changed Debbie Harry’s popular blonde girl image with his cover for KooKoo.
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