Come an' Get It

Come an' Get It's cover art was created by British artist Malcolm Horton.[7] Malcolm had been contacted by an old friend John Ward who was at the time road manager for Whitesnake. He explained that the band didn’t like any of the ideas for the album cover that EMI, their record label, had come up with and so he suggested getting Malcolm involved. The band agreed and so he was asked to go and meet them and come up with some ideas. The final artwork sees the white snake trapped inside a glass apple on the front cover and on the reverse the glass apple is shattered and the snake set free; the power of seduction / temptation clearly too strong. The snake’s mouth actually depicted a vagina; however, it did not stir as much controversy as the infamous cover of the band’s second album, Lovehunter.[8] The 2007 reissue redesigned the mouth to more closely resemble a regular snake’s tongue.

Malcolm describes the time in a blog post celebrating the 40th anniversary of its release. Painting Whitesnake’s Come An’ Get It album cover – 40 years on

The original artwork has since gone missing.

By within its debut, Come an' Get It debuted at No. 2 in the UK chart, the highest debut in the band's discography ever in their native country, but was prevented from the top spot over Adam and the Ants' Kings of the Wild Frontier. It eventually stayed 23 weeks up in the charts. The album charted on 7 countries, with Finland charting on No. 3, Germany on No. 20, Japan on No. 41, Norway on No. 26, and Sweden on No. 24. In the US, it only debuted on the Billboard 200 chart at No. 151 and kept showing for 6 weeks, unlike the moderate successes of their previous album 'Ready an' Willing' that formerly stayed for a total of 16 weeks at that time in 1980.

The album was certified by BPI within silver status on 27 April 1981, eventually reaching gold (100,000 copies) on 16 September 1981. The album also received a gold award by RIAJ in 1981, making the band's very first certification outside their native country.