When I was in high school, more than one folder got covered with logos of my favorite bands. Some, like The Pixes’ winged P were true logos, while others were just recreations of the fonts used on album covers, like Camper Van Beethoven’s Key Lime Pie. But whether plastered on the front of a t-shirt or scribbled on a binder, there was always something deeply satisfying about identifying with the brand of a band—rather than a clothing line icon or just “Trapper Keeper.”
There’s a Golden Age of band logos, and—unless you’re a big hardcore/metal fan—we’re not living in it. But neither is the band logo completely dead, and a few of the images we’ve compiled are from relatively new groups. Today, we celebrate that lovely intersection of visual art and music—the band logo—with 50 of our favorites (with a special nod to recent bands like Wu-Lyf, Justice and Miike Snow who are make the band logo cool again). Scroll through the gallery to count down to the greatest band logo of all time.
1 of 50
50. Metallica
2 of 50
49. Mastodon
3 of 50
48. Run DMC
4 of 50
47. Muse
5 of 50
46. The Cramps
6 of 50
45. Pink Floyd
7 of 50
44. Red Hot Chili Peppers
8 of 50
43. Daft Punk
9 of 50
42. Blitzen Trapper
10 of 50
41. New York Dolls