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Underground > Radio & Music >

10 worst album covers of all time!

05:16 / 10.04.04

bwaa ha ha ha ha...one word..."Joyce".

http://porktornado.diaryland.com/albumcover.html

04:26 / 11.04.04

i'm stunned

14:51 / 11.04.04

Anyone else have any "bad" covers?

21:15 / 11.04.04

One of the less appealing cover images I've seen lately-

[External image]

..although nowhere near as bad as those in the link.

00:57 / 12.04.04

Am I alone in thinking that many of these covers are amongst the BEST I've ever seen...? And how can you be dissing Ivor Cutler? Anyway, what do y'aal make of this?:

[External image]

I find it troubling, yet was compelled to buy it on the 'strength' of the cover...

01:11 / 12.04.04

I'd pick up a copy of Joyce for .50, if it got me a record sized version of that cover, so on some level it's doing its job. But, you really do have to wonder they were thinking making some of those.

02:23 / 12.04.04

Oh my god. On the bottom of the page on the link opening this thread, click on "Next Entry" for more bad covers.

08:43 / 12.04.04

And how can you be dissing Ivor Cutler?

It's in no way a diss of Ivor Cutler... this thread just made me think about how, having just bought Dandruff, I then tried to explain it to one of my friends. Who wasn't particularly responsive to the idea that a Scottish geography teacher saying aphorisms over a guitar track could be brilliant, and was even less impressed that I had just bought an album with a cover featuring a man sweeping up a huge pile of dandruff.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:50 / 12.04.04

*horribly off-topic*

Ivor Cutler absolutely fucking rules.

*you are now back in your thread. You will not remember anything other than the post prior to this*

09:42 / 12.04.04

both the album covers so far displayed in this thread are great. What's the matter w/ you people?

As soon as I've got a longer period of internet time I'll dredge you up some really bad ones..

But until then; try and get a look at the cover to Luna's album 'Live', it's got the most horribly cheapo ugly photoshopped cover I've ever seen.. and that band's covers are usually excellent, so I can only assume they put it together in, like, an hour as some sort of contractual obligation thing..

11:56 / 12.04.04

OK, Vincennes, accusation retracted. Why not play the album to your friend and if they're still not convinced then I suggest that they are no longer your friend...

Rizla, I agree that these are great covers, I just find the Frampton one a little bit disturbing: Look into his eyes, regard the pose, remember the title. He's IN YOU... It holds the same facination/repulsion for me as Joyce does and seemed to be in the same vein as the initial examples that started this thread.

Really bad covers would include any of the numerous Fall compilations and... er, I'll get back to you on that.

at the scarwash

18:51 / 12.04.04

Here is a tangentally related link that was brought up in the Design forum last year. This site provides hours of worst album covers ever. Also worth checking out is the Companion Records site, a record company devoted to rereleasing the best LPs in this collection.

[External image]

22:36 / 12.04.04

Radiohead - The Bends

what was Stanley thinking?

18:20 / 13.04.04

And again, that's a brilliant cover! Check the moustache, the innocent pride on their faces, the classic "slouching against the wall" pose - rock n roll!

You're just not getting with the idea.

23:30 / 13.04.04

I think perhaps this thread's title is a little misleading. Maybe "Unconventionally Superb" or, for want of a better phrase, "So bad it's good" is the direction we're heading...? Of course, I'm willing to accept that some people would consider these images as truly awful, but personally I'm all for 'em. Show me more! Good-bad or bad-bad, I really don't care. So for your further enjoyment/debate: (and apologies for the hugeness, if you're of a sensitive disposition)

[External image]

Which is a masterpiece.

[External image]

Which I'm really not so sure about.

10:54 / 14.04.04

OK, THAT'S bad.

20:29 / 14.04.04

The Mrs. Mills cover of Yellow Submarine, that's gotta' rock! \m/

23:02 / 14.04.04

Have you ever heard a Mrs Mills album? They're godawful! But I am fascinated by the covers.Come To My Party is possibly my alltime favourite record cover, but I couldn't find it on this here internet and I have no scanner at present. Can anyone bring enlightenment? Also, there's one with a rocking-horse protruding from between her legs/skirt which is rather great/frightening...

10:53 / 16.04.04

After a long time in the works, here's my run down of bad album covers. It's not so much mad/weird forgotten records from the midst of time, because I like those, but covers to records by well known artistes which are just.. wrong.

Here goes (I hope the images work out);

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Whoever decided this would be a good image to put on the front of a Black Sabbath album should be beaten to death. Unless it was the band, in which case they’re excused.

[External image]

clapton, you CUNT!

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Ditto.

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Pentangle had some of coolest weirdy folky cover art of the 70s, so what’s the obvious choice for the cover of this ‘best of..’ CD? How about a totally lazy photoshop job that makes them look like a third rate brit-pop band!

[External image]

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD – NO!

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About the most rocking album I’ve heard in my life, but you certainly wouldn’t know it from the cover, which isn’t exactly a design classic…

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Again, great album, but.. he looks like a Radio Cornwall DJ or something for christ’s sake… Actually, no, the more I look at this photo the more I see the barely concealed insanity, and the more of a great cover it becomes – a very striking image – respect is due. But I’ll leave it in this list anyway.

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Not a classic. There's a waaay worse Procal Harum one, but I couldn't find it..

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Not meant in any way to antagonise Barbelith’s Marillion fanbase (please don't hurt me!), but simply to say – this is a pretty grim record cover, especially considering the cool craziness of some of their other ones.

And finally, cos I think I’ve already spent too much time on this, my number one bad album cover;

[External image]

YUCK!

11:07 / 16.04.04

That first Clapton one is HILARIOUS! It reminds me of the painting in the 'Boring Priest Who Overstays His Welcome' episode of Father Ted (Smiling Ted with arm around boring priest), not only in the actual style, but in the "look, it's me with my hero!" thing. Plus he looks like Bergerac.

11:25 / 16.04.04

I think the Iggy Pop one has its own strange charm... Iggy's manic, blank-eyed face just staring out at you and grinning forever...

The Black Sabbath one is utterly dreadful, though. Definitely a contender for worst ever.

17:31 / 16.04.04

Yeah, and it's so completely at odds with the cool image Sabbath had established with previous dark and scary covers - it's just HORRIBLE. And it's a crap name too.

And, yes, the more I look at it, the more the Iggy one is genius - he looks completely evil, like a rock n' roll version of the Night of the Hunter preacher, and the way he's looking directly at the listener (or rather, er,looker) like "trust me, honestly, I don't do heroin anymore.. I say, what a nice drinks cabinet you have, and is that your daughter.." he looks like he's going to climb straight out of the record and gleefully wreck your life..

10:44 / 18.04.04

Oh boy, the Destitutes look so much like those guys in the red shirts from the old Star Trek who keep getting killed in every episode...
I bet 5 seconds after that photo was taken they were all shot with poisonous thorns from gigantic carnivorous plants, pelted with rocks by a giant one-horned caveman, and mugged by lizardmen with visible zippers.

15:51 / 18.04.04

rizla: does that mean that lust for life is the musical equivalent of that video from the ring?

oh jesus, i shouldn't have left my teenage daughter alone with that thing...

17:02 / 19.04.04

It's an intriguing and frightening thought, but be reassured that the vast majority of listeners who haven't been personally terrorised by Iggy suggests that it probably isn't actually the case.