It was 1967. Everything was getting louder, brighter, and way more confusing. The Beatles had just dropped Sgt. Pepper, and the Rolling Stones felt like they were lagging behind. They needed something big. Something tactile. What they ended up with was the Their Satanic Majesties Request 3d cover, a piece of psychedelic art that was so expensive to produce it nearly bankrupted the project’s margin and drove record store owners insane because it wouldn't stay on the shelves.
You’ve probably seen it. It’s that weird, flickering image of the band dressed like wizards or sorcerers in a neon-drenched fantasy land. If you tilt the vinyl jacket, Jagger’s head moves. It’s a lenticular lens—a technology that, at the time, was mostly reserved for cheesy postcards or religious "blinking eyes" trinkets. But the Stones? They wanted to scale it up.
The Problem With Being a Follower
People love to bash this album. Critics often call it a Sgt. Pepper knockoff, and honestly, it’s hard to argue against that when you look at the cover. But the actual history of the Their Satanic Majesties Request 3d cover is much more about the Stones trying to out-weird their rivals than just copying them. They hired Michael Cooper, the same photographer who did the Sgt. Pepper shoot. That’s like hiring your ex’s wedding planner.
The shoot itself was a chaotic mess of set dressing and expensive props. They didn't just want a photo; they wanted a multidimensional experience. The band spent roughly £25,000 on the cover art alone—an astronomical sum for 1967. To put that in perspective, most bands were lucky if their entire recording budget hit five figures. The Stones were literally burning money to make a plastic sheet look like it was moving.
How the Lenticular Magic Actually Worked
Technically, it's not "3D" in the way we think of modern cinema. It’s a lenticular print. This involves taking several photographs from slightly different angles, slicing them into tiny strips, and layering them under a ribbed plastic lens. When you move the cover, your eyes see different strips of the image, creating the illusion of depth and movement.
It was a nightmare to manufacture.
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The plastic bits had to be glued onto the cardboard sleeves by hand in many cases. Because of this, the production was slow. Real slow. Decca Records in the UK and London Records in the US were horrified. Not only was it expensive, but the 3D flickers were prone to peeling off. If you find an original 1967 pressing today, the plastic is often yellowed, cracked, or missing entirely. Collectors call these "naked" copies, and they’re worth a fraction of the ones with the 3D bit intact.
The Beatles Are Hiding in the Flowers
If you look closely at the Their Satanic Majesties Request 3d cover, specifically the bottom half near the flowers, you’ll see the faces of all four Beatles. This wasn’t a dig. It was a reciprocating gesture. The Beatles had included a Shirley Temple doll wearing a "Welcome the Rolling Stones" sweater on the Sgt. Pepper cover. The Stones responded by tucking John, Paul, George, and Ringo into their own hallucinogenic garden.
It’s a cool bit of rock history that proves the "rivalry" was mostly a marketing gimmick. They were actually buddies. They shared drugs, ideas, and apparently, photographers.
But while the Beatles’ cover was a masterpiece of graphic design, the Stones’ cover was an experiment in physics. The set for the photo was incredibly dense. It featured bells, beads, exotic plants, and a bizarre backdrop of Saturn and other celestial bodies. The band looked uncomfortable. Bill Wyman later admitted he didn't really get it. Brian Jones was already drifting away into his own fog. Yet, the image remains the definitive visual of the Stones at their most experimental—and perhaps their most vulnerable.
Why the 3D Cover Disappeared
Money. It always comes down to money. After the initial pressing of several hundred thousand copies, the label realized they were losing their shirts on the packaging.
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For subsequent pressings, the 3D element was scrapped. They replaced it with a flat, 2D photograph of the same image. It looked terrible. Without the lenticular lens, the "spliced" nature of the photo made it look blurry and cheap. It lost the magic. This is why if you’re crate-digging at a record store, you need to check if the cover feels "ribbed" or "smooth." The smooth ones are the budget reissues. The ribbed ones are the holy grails.
Even the inner sleeve was a trip. It featured a red-and-white psychedelic swirl that was supposed to induce a "dizzy" feeling if you stared at it while the record played. The Stones weren't just making music; they were trying to hijack your entire sensory system.
The Artistic Fallout
Musically, the album is a polarized mess. You have "2000 Light Years from Home," which is a legitimate space-rock masterpiece, sitting next to aimless jams like "Sing This All Together (See What Happens)." The Their Satanic Majesties Request 3d cover acts as a perfect metaphor for the music inside: it’s ambitious, expensive, slightly blurred, and definitely a product of too much LSD.
Interestingly, the Stones hated the album later. Keith Richards has famously referred to it as "a lot of rubbish." He felt they were being forced into a psychedelic box that didn't fit their blues-rock souls. But the fans? We love it because it’s the one time the Stones truly let go of the "cool" factor and tried to be weird.
The 3D cover is the physical manifestation of that weirdness. It represents a moment in time when rock stars thought they could change the nature of reality with a piece of plastic and a 12-inch cardboard square.
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Authenticating an Original
If you're looking to buy an original version of the Their Satanic Majesties Request 3d cover, there are a few things you have to watch out for. Fakes exist, though they are rare because the lenticular process is still expensive to get right.
- The Border: Original UK pressings often have a green border around the 3D image, while US versions are more of a cyan or light blue.
- The Glue: Look at the edges of the plastic 3D insert. In originals, you can often see the dried remnants of the 1960s adhesive. If it looks perfectly clean and modern, it might be a later "limited edition" reissue (like the one from 2017).
- The Spine: The original jackets were gatefolds. If you find a single-sleeve version with a 3D cover, it’s a modern gimmick or a franken-record.
- The Inner Sleeve: Finding the original red-and-white "cloud" inner sleeve is the ultimate win. Most people threw those away or lost them over the last 50 years.
The 50th Anniversary Redemption
In 2017, for the 50th anniversary, the 3D cover finally got the respect it deserved. They released a box set that recreated the lenticular cover using modern technology. It actually looks better and shifts more smoothly than the 1967 version. It was a rare moment where the "remastered" packaging actually lived up to the spirit of the original.
It’s funny to think that this album—initially panned as a failure—now sits in the collections of millions, largely because people want to own that piece of plastic. It’s a trophy of the psychedelic era. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the packaging is just as important as the product.
Taking Action: What to Do Next
If you're a collector or just a fan of the era, don't settle for a digital stream of this album. You’re missing half the point.
- Go to a local record store: Ask if they have a "lenticular" or "3D" copy of Satanic Majesties. Even a beat-up copy is worth holding in your hands just to see the effect.
- Check the Matrix: If you find one, look at the run-out groove. Look for the "Bell Sound" stamp on US copies or the "1K/1K" markings on UK originals to ensure the vinyl matches the era of the cover.
- Inspect the Plastic: Use a flashlight to check for "delamination" (where the plastic lifts from the paper). If you see air bubbles, be careful—pressing it down can crack the 50-year-old adhesive.
- Listen in Mono: If you can find the mono version with the 3D cover, you’ve found the "true" version of the album. The stereo mix was an afterthought; the mono mix is where the heavy, distorted psych-rock really lives.
The Their Satanic Majesties Request 3d cover isn't just a gimmick. It’s a relic of a time when the music industry was willing to take massive financial risks just to make something look "trippy." It marks the end of the Stones' flirtation with flower power before they returned to their gritty roots with Beggars Banquet. It’s flawed, it’s flashy, and it’s perfectly 1967.