Awesome question about album covers. Also, I think M is not a fan of having faces on album covers, and this made it even worse from the get-go. So many iconic album covers, like 90% of them, have faces or at least pictures of faces on them... Or other approximations of living beings.
It rarely happens when an album with an amazing album cover (which can be considered true ART) has equally amazing music. You need to pick your poison, either a great cover with music that sucks or vice versa. Nearly all my favourite album art is simply someone else's work (a photo, a collage or a painting) and not an original creation.
BIA album cover is a perfect happy accident as it captures the vibes of Montserrat so well you feel like you visited the place. I can imagine the magnitude of the "aha" moment when this picture was taken, it's impossible to come up with anything better than this.
