MetaChat - The worst album covers in the world.

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17 June 2005

The worst album covers in the world. From the Guardian, stolen from a comment by bargle, in MeTa. Anybody got any more contenders?

post by: taz at: 08:16 | 45 comments

That's pretty bad! But I'm sure we can all find one or two others...

*scampers off*

posted by iconomy 17 June | 08:25

≡ Click to see image ≡
here's one.

posted by taz 17 June | 08:27

Everything about this cover sucks - the name of the band, the name of the album, the drawing, the photos, the colours.
≡ Click to see image ≡

I quite like this one but I know it freaks some people out:
≡ Click to see image ≡

Oh, and personally I really hate the cover of Electric Ladyland but I'm sure I don't have to post an image of that here.

By the way, the woman on this cover looks familiar - was she in Rhoda or something?

posted by dodgygeezer 17 June | 08:42

Well, duh, if I actually worked out the woman who recorded the record was the same woman on the cover then I could've looked her up and found that yes, she was on Rhoda.

posted by dodgygeezer 17 June | 08:48

joyce almost killed me
i have definitely been up way too long

i use to live in a house for a while that was owned by some kind of dj, so there was this built in record player wall with sliding cabinets full of old records (not good ones)
like "Music To Suffer By"
and "When You're Happy Everyone Is Jewish" with "the woman from rhoda"

i'm pretty sure i'm blocking the memory of something so seventies it hurts that was on my friend's mantle piece for ever

posted by ethylene 17 June | 08:55

by "the woman from rhoda" i mean Rhoda
not like "the man from uncle"

posted by ethylene 17 June | 08:56

Not that it has anything to do with album covers, but hey, I made the paper today. Woo-hoo. They usually ignore me.

posted by yhbc 17 June | 08:59

plop

posted by thatweirdguy2 17 June | 09:21

Commish, you're the guy who sent me the Living Color mp3? I didn't know that was you, you ol' so and so...thank you!

So yhbc also stands for Your Humble and Benevolent Councilor, huh.

posted by iconomy 17 June | 09:26

Okay, dodgy, I'll see your pussy:

≡ Click to see image ≡

And raise you a Herbie Man:

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by taz 17 June | 09:27

oh mi god thatweirdguy just blew my mind once i got to the drug addict choir
i had to stop at the braillettes to keep oxygen flowing
and yhbc is named phil
the world is caving in

oh great: in preview: i may know herbie mann

posted by ethylene 17 June | 09:30

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by iconomy 17 June | 09:34

taz, I own that Lords of Acid album!
I was actually ashamed to bring it up to the counter and pay for it!

posted by kellydamnit 17 June | 09:36

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by iconomy 17 June | 09:38

kelly: but they love screaming for "Bongwater" in the music stores and asking how much "the Power of Pussy" goes for--
(and damnit if my copy wasn't stolen)

posted by ethylene 17 June | 09:46

≡ Click to see image ≡

Nice pants, dude.

≡ Click to see image ≡
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Those arent exactly easy on the eyes, neither.

posted by jonmc 17 June | 09:47

chico is adorable!

posted by ethylene 17 June | 09:55

his sexy bald head is a fake.

posted by jonmc 17 June | 09:56

Is anyone else seeing ≡ Click to see image ≡ on all of jonmc's links? I wonder if we used up our image quota. Not that I knew that we had one!

posted by iconomy 17 June | 10:01

I put the click to see image in manually, ico. That's what everybody else seemed to be doing.

posted by jonmc 17 June | 10:04

Jon, you have images turned off I think. You can turn them on from the top link bar. But if you're at work, you might not want to.

posted by taz 17 June | 10:06

jon do you have images turned off? No one else did that.

posted by iconomy 17 June | 10:06

Oh.

It's a good thing I'm so handsome, cause I'd never get by on brains alone.

posted by jonmc 17 June | 10:08

jon - see this thread.

posted by dodgygeezer 17 June | 10:08

≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by iconomy 17 June | 10:08

≡ Click to see image ≡
tee hee

posted by iconomy 17 June | 10:12

joyce is in a class of her own, but this one ain't bad aither

posted by mr.marx 17 June | 10:14

i can't look away
let me go dammit--

the brickwork and the dress pattern have attacked my brain stem
between that and the candlestick bucktoothed thing, all i can say is:

i want that clock

posted by ethylene 17 June | 10:16

oh, mr. marx--
ok we need a vote
i want finalists by time i'm conscious

posted by ethylene 17 June | 10:18

I nearly forgot Heino. This covers my favorite of his because his syrup seems to be hovering three inches above his head.
≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by dodgygeezer 17 June | 10:24

Hee. Is that a man or a woman? Or...erm...not?

posted by iconomy 17 June | 10:26

I find this one quite soothing, this one vaguely disturbing.

posted by jonmc 17 June | 10:29

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This one is actually called You Ride The Pony (I'll Be The Bunny)

posted by taz 17 June | 10:39

iconomy, I thought you already knew my real name - that's why I didn't send the song with the "yhbc" account. You're welcome.

posted by yhbc 17 June | 10:40

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No comment.

posted by blag 17 June | 11:03

The Scorpions are pretty good for bad album covers.

≡ Click to see image ≡

I spent a lot of time as a kid staring at this one--the forks in the eyes.... And this one was confiscated by the principal at Town Creek Elementary School. On Library Day I put it on the record player and turned it up (3rd or 4th grade)--Mr. Siskind was not happy.

"Rock You Like A Hurricane" was my favorite song.

posted by kortez 17 June | 11:33

Wow, I always liked the covers to Love Drive and Blackout. If you want bad cover art select just about any Windhall Hill album cover - they're not funny bad, just bad.

posted by Slack-a-gogo 17 June | 11:50

≡ Click to see image ≡
If by worst, you mean best. Then gimme a kiss.

posted by Divine_Wino 17 June | 14:43

ASSHOLE

posted by hootch 17 June | 15:42

Uh, that was meant for the worst post thread. Sorry.

posted by hootch 17 June | 15:43

eh?

posted by taz 17 June | 16:13

iconomy that "trees talk too" cover is really freaky.

Scorpions are always good for tasteless covers.
Virgin Killer

posted by dabitch 17 June | 17:15

More than the Gerhard Polt? I think that one gets the crown.

posted by taz 17 June | 17:18

I thought this was Joyce.

Virgin Killer for the win.

posted by bdave 18 June | 23:51

How could I possibly have forgotten this - surely the worst album cover of all time:
≡ Click to see image ≡

And then I read the sleeve notes to Steely Dan's The Royal Scam.
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Quoting Becker & Fagan:

Our happiness at this particular juncture would be ultracomplete save for one thing - namely we have not as yet found a cover shot for the album. [...] Luckily for us, we are in Los Angeles where, more than anywhere else in the known universe, bad taste abhors a vacuum, and before long we find ourselves staring into the maw of the most hideous album cover of the seventies, bar none (excepting perhaps Can't Buy A Thrill). Why are those buildings turning into repltilian horrors, or vice versa? What squalid back alley of the human condition is meant to be invoked by this contused nightmare palette? What manner of man - ill-shod, unshaven - dares sleep peacefully through this fearsome and repulsive protomorph?

Worst cover of the seventies? I think not, the competition is simply too great. It would be nice if more bands criticised their own covers.

posted by dodgygeezer 19 June | 12:00

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