Radio

The front of Radio shows a single machine and no people. Steve Byram designed the sleeve around a straight-on photograph of a JVC RC-M90 boombox, framed so tightly that its speakers, dials and cassette deck fill the square from edge to edge, with LL Cool J's name printed across the top like a manufacturer's badge.

The choice suited the record. The beats on Radio are famously spare, and the back cover sums up Rick Rubin's production with the line "Reduced by Rick Rubin." A portable stereo was the instrument this music was built for, loud, mobile and owned by the listener, so the cover makes the album look as if it is already playing on a street corner.

Reviewer Ira Robbins singled out "the monster boombox on the cover," and the image became one of the defining pictures of mid-1980s rap. The boombox model on the sleeve, the JVC RC-M90, is now displayed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. The album was released on 18 November 1985 by Def Jam and Columbia.