Awful album covers

Kirsty MacColl - Desperate Character.

They could have used this image instead.

I think Bonnie had chunked out at this point, but that's no excuse...

Twee pop in the era of Manson...

Ooh, ooh! Let me post "Joyce"!

Great album, woefully unattractive cover.

R1/R2 I didn't expect to see Kirsty here!

MARY!

Dusty looks like a Chuck Jones cartoon. It's kind of cute.

Millie Jackson owns this thread.

r6

Australia thought so too. I'm not sure they salvaged it.

[quote] Millie Jackson owns this thread

Truth! I had to stop myself recently from buying this CD just for the awful cover

I loved Dusty's long hair glam look, but that cover is dire no matter what!

See All Her Faces isn't great either. I think either Dusty or her handlers were trying to go into the early 70s mystical folk band kind of covers, or something Led Zeppelin-esque.

Girl, no.

They really tried to overcorrect for the fact that Laura Branigan was a late starter as a recording artist.

I grew up with this album in my house. As a tiny gayling, I listened to it over and over...

Thrilling to Carly's emotional voice, her intimate, confessional songwriting....

Oddly titillated by her sensuous, earth mother beauty....

And wondering, even at that tender age, why the FUCK they couldn't get that stray strand of hair out of her face for a single photo.

Eew!

Blondie - The Hunter

The awful violet background, the lettering that looks like it was drawn by a high school art class, the guys look good... but with the vague scratch marks(?) on their face that are half-done? Do the make-up, or don't do the make-up. One or the other. And the black tuxedo jackets? Debbie looks great as ever... but the Tina Turner fright wig (a lions's mane?) And the Wilma Flintstone dress?

This was an over-thought, under-done, phoned-in the night before it was due design disaster! Barf!

It's sort of shooting fish in a barrell by positng "indepedent" label album covers but Johnny Gill's latest is turrible. You'd think he'd insist on larger font for his name.

*barrel

A classic....

I've always wanted to see what the Parallel Lines cover was supposed to look like. Debbie has said the band members were supposed to merge with the lines.

Nivea No!

Husker Du is one of my all-time favorite bands but their album covers were wretched (belying the idea that gay men have good taste). This one was probably the worst ...

I totally agree with R17. What a letdown, particularly since their first 3 album covers (including Parallel Lines) were all so iconic and gorgeous.

Compare and contrast. I was about 12 when this album hit and it was the most glamorous thing I'd ever seen.

R21 According to the book Making Tracks (I think came out in 1981?) Debbie said this was true, they were supposed to merge in and out of the lines with their black and white clothes. But the record company design department didn't come through on this.

She also claims the band was adamant they didn't want to be smiling in any of the cover photos. But the photographer insisted they do one shot over everyone smiling. So they took exactly one shot of that. Then... they used that one shot of all the GUYS smiling, and cut out a different shot of Debbie with her hands on her hips looking almost angry. It looks like all the guys are leering at here. The shot on the back cover of Debbie resting her hand on her shin and smiling is the cut-out of her from the smiling shot, put with another shot of the guys. If I remember correctly what she claims in MAking Tracks.

If you want to have fun google image "Blondie Parallel Lines photo shoot" and all kinds of interesting images come up. You can do it with most popular album covers and sometimes alternate cover images appear.

So fucking stupid and ugly

Carly had a lot of awful album covers:

Hotcakes

Like this one

And this one

I fucking love these Georgian gals but whoever put this cover together should be shot. It's so kitschy and it looks like it was photoshopped by a 7-year old.

Love me some Kate Bush. But this one was just... silly.

My mother asked me if it "was children's music."

The great Birgit Nilsson deserved a better art director.

The original cover art for Pop-Eyes by Danielle Dax is quite unpleasant.

It is a piece she created called Meat Harvest, and it was replaced subsequent pressings with cover art by Holly Warburton.

Eeeeee!

I absolutely love David Bowie, but his Diamond Dogs album cover freaked me out.

ANDDDD this one.....

And I can't take it anymore...

And I can't take it anymore...

And I can't take it anymore...

Joan Osborne - good album, crap cover:

Crowded House was awful music too.

Crowded House was awful music too.

R37, R38 & R39 - Given you've posted it 3X, I guess you [bold]really[/bold] can't take it.

I loved Todd but really?

Love George, love CC, even love a lot of the music on here but......

Orleans

I generally leave album art untouched in iTunes, no matter how bad, but I HAD to use fan-made artwork for Midwinter Graces. Why, Tori? Why?

Joe Cocker's With a Little Help from My Friends:

I quite like the Lionheart cover, R31. It's strange, but in a good way.

Annie Lennox: A Cornucopia of ... shit

Gee Ay.

Girls Aloud are majority Brits but with one Irish member. The designer seems not 100% on the Irish flag, though...

It's hard to believe lots of people used to look like Joyce.

All of Girls Aloud's album covers were abominations, R52. It was their thing.

False Claim, your Honor!

Diana Ross' first solo album cover:

I saw Joyce in concert.

I saw Joyce in concert.

She could pass for Darfur Orpan, R56

I was going to say she looks like a feral child

In another "she was too chunky at the time to photograph well" (see also Judy Garland in much of '50s), I give you a Not-So-Glorious cover,

The CD release made it even worse by going full green with the tint.

The UK said "No thanks" and used an alternate cover. Very blaxploitation.

Given how photogenic Britney is, it's astonishing that so many of her album covers are... eek.

The "Blackout" cover is particularly janky.

Ava Aldridge

Frustrated Housewife

I kind of like this, though they needed no text.

Linda Ronstadt, “Silk Purse.” Oink.

My sister had this album, and I couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to be sexual somehow.

Klik-Klak

Billy Joel's "River of Dreams" designed by wife Christie Brinkley

REM "Monster"

Siamese Dream

R72, I love that cover.

Obvious, overrated and cheap-looking - deserved a much better cover.

....

Don’t forget about us ...

Beck, Midnite Vultures.

There was no need for 3 identical pictures.

R72 R.E.M. had so many great covers in the early days and then their later ones turned to shit. Out of Time was a stinker too.

The last bunch were all fine.

creepy AF ...

That terrible green!

Difficult color, green.

I was going to post Blondie's "The Hunter," but R17 beat me to it.

The typography alone was horrific.

Debbie Harry has never had the best taste in album covers

Let Me Touch Him

Koo Koo is a stunning album cover. The taste level of some of these posts...

I thought the front cover of this was awful...

...and then I saw the back!

R89 and yours

Two virgins.

For a throwboack disco diva ("Bring on the Boys"), the cover at r90 is pretty on target. It's an obviously retro vibe executed cleanly.

The 90s had a lot of bad ones

How did this thread get to almost 100 replies and no one thought to include this? It's the quintessential awful album cover. The type that extinguishes flaming hot careers.

This one is a good second place finisher.

Debbie Does Awful Album Covers

Brian Epstein hated the Sgt. Pepper cover. One of his wishes in his will was, "Brown paper bags for Sgt. Pepper."

[quote]It's hard to believe lots of people used to look like Joyce.

All of my teachers in elementary school.

Not an album cover but another example of Adam Lambert missing the mark. He's always serving uninspired cosplay.

Soul Asylum’s album with the hit Runaway Train.

Hideous. Notoriously difficult to get a photo that all 3 could agree on, but this could have been put together by a 8 year old with scissors and a pritt stick.

R51 - I was so disgusted by that cover I ordered mine though their website and got this version instead.

"Tusk" - not only shitty as an art project, but the cover alone indicated self-indulgence had gone way overboard. And the accompanying pics were cringe makingly amateurish.

This awful cover did Aretha no favors at all. The superimposed images made it look like she had a bird growing on her head.

Never liked this Olivia cover.

[Quote] Notoriously difficult to get a photo that all 3 could agree on

As if Jacquie even had a vote.

Were they going for a clown motif here?

I've always thought Madonna's Like A Prayer album cover was rather boring, considering how great most of her other album covers were.

Only the important ones get to look at the camera.

Millie Jackson indeed owns this thread.

Joyce had the voice of an angel. Listen for yourself:

This is pretty unpleasant, but the album is fantastic.

For extra ick factor, in case you don't know, these guys are brothers.

Anything with Mariah Carey's fat face on it!

Nice bone.

Billy Joel, Piano Man Walking

R118 - I have a friend who is terrified of that cover. He's told me he has nightmares about it.

This one is pretty creepy too.

Joyce had a large gay following.

The Beatles’ Yesterday and Today cover was so disgusting that the record label ended up recalling every copy.

R96, that Born This Way cover was the first sign that Lady Gaga's peak was a fluke. It was one of the most hyped follow-up albums ever and she makes THAT the album cover? It was like a "fuck you" to anyone who thought she would actually end up being a great pop star.

R123 - the cover was shit, but the album was amazingly even worse.

....

R124, agreed. There's maybe two or three good songs on it. The rest is weird. It was way too early to make a metal/dance tribute album (or whatever she was trying to do).

R125, Mariah Carey's album titles got campier after she divorced Mottola.

"And I can't take it anymore... "

Good thing you posted it three times then.

Joyce's second album.....

Incredibly stupid cover for such an innovative record.

Oh dear.

R114 Oh agree! A great, underrated 80's new wave album by an unusual band. I love this record!

But yeah the cover is awkward, not done right.

Hmm... I'm seeing quite a few truly amazing, even visually classic, album covers here being posted as examples of "awful."

What the fuck?

R133 Such as?

R133 Yeah, I think this thread got away from "awful" to "oh, it's too busy for my delicate eyes" or something.

The Hissing of Summer Lawns is in art galleries. A big chunk of the stretch between R72 and R79 are considered classic covers. I mean, Nevermind? GTFO.

Minus her Klik-Klaks.....

All of Mariah's album covers are photoshopped into next Tuesday

Ye gods.

Always thought this was dull and, of course, Photoshopped to hell and back.

I nominate . . .

r9 Millie Jackson absolutely

Did they have photoshop in the 1890s?

I love Stevie Nicks' Rock a Little album cover. I was actually searching for a t-shirt of it a while back. Really expensive (and not my size).

A little Photoshop is okay, R138.

"Me. I Am Mariah." was just so hilariously OTT it was embarrassing.

That should also be a contender for worst album title too.

Not that anyone in Fifth Harmony’s demo actually buys albums... but, WTF???

This one. I went to a restaurant where there was a picture of this album cover on the dessert menu.

REM's "Eponymous" (greatest hits). Great album, cover is a head-scratcher.

This photo of Michael Stipe ("They airbrushed my face") was on the inside of the album ("Eponymous").

Michael Stipe had some dick-suckin' lips back in the day!

More of Millie Jackson...

I fucking LOVE Millie Jackson's album covers. Fuck all y'all.

Yeah, Millie Jackson's album covers do what they set out to do.

[Quote] Hmm... I'm seeing quite a few truly amazing, even visually classic, album covers here being posted as examples of "awful."

Yep, I said as much earlier. The taste level of some people on this thread is laughable ("Oh, the green just ruins it," "Billy Joel is ugly, therefore this is a bad album cover", "This cover freaks me out, therefore it is awful.").

This hurts my eyes...

Oh my goodness....

Post something other than ugly people.

And European stuff doesn't count.

OP should have sent us a mimeographed sheet of instructions, r157. I didn't know the rules....honestly....I...I...

I always thought this one was remarkably plain.

I'll write them out soon, R158.

Billy's Joel The Stranger has no place on this thread, for instance.

The hairdos from R155’s album. Ratty! And those dresses!! I’m guessing they were Mormons.

[quote] I always thought this one was remarkably plain.

I Am Woman, hear me bore.

R159, there were several Greatest Hits albums that looked like that in the 70s. Linda Ronstadt as well.

Kiki Dee's debut long player was not, in fact, a children's album...

Happy Holidays

The Firestone Christmas albums from the 60s had real simple-looking covers like the Helen Reddy album cover at R162. Not sure if this is a Firestone album, but it looks like one.

R144 Here you go - I have ordered a lot of t-shirts from these guys and have been very satisfied

R86: Jazz Hands!

Awful cover and title reduced a pretty solid album to a disney-esque joke..

They probably thought this would get all the horny teen boys to buy it..

R154 Indeed, some of these suggestions are amongst the most iconic album covers of all time - 'Diamond Dogs', 'Nevermind', 'KooKoo' ??

Let us instead turn to one of the masters of the genre:

Chumbawamba - Anarchy.......only time I've ever changed a cover in my iTunes library. Good album. Not a cover I ever wanna see again.

Did you change it to this?

I admit it's the perfect warning cover for a cover-album made by a troubled band that was already falling apart (and it shows). Still, it's the most phone-inest cover of all times and I don't care what the shitty metaphor is. I give you Guns N' Roses, The Spaghetti Incident?. (And don't get me started on that stupid pretentious question mark. Yes. I'm a GnR fan. And I speak as such.)

And especially for the US-ian supremacist upthread, my table greets your table with this Serbian classic:

That Diana Ross cover is just so bizarre.

R134: that’s a classic!

I think the cover that Christie Brinkley did is kinda cool.

I have to admit I don’t like Lennon’s body. Small shoulders and chest with slightly bigger hips is a no for me.

I think the Ross cover makes perfect sense. "Fledgling solo artist debuts" etc. The sequinned "Everything Is Everything" cover is its flipside.

[Quote] And, my, the boys are looking quite pretty, aren't they? Especially Daryl. He's suddenly gone from Daryl Hall to Daryl Hannah!

Ugh. Hetereosexuals.

One of my favourite albums of my teens, but the cover is tacky AF:

[Quote] I must admit, however, and I know I'm bias because I had a crush on the young Daryl, but he's looking pretty hot to me with all of that makeup. I've never seen a prettier man (and no, I'm not a lesbian.)

Shut the fuck up, Pam.

I don't think the "Stripped" cover is bad at all. It's well executed and the b/w eliminates the virtual black face she was doing at the time. I'd call it a save.

Aguilera has been so consistently awful over the years that I believe she must have a lot of say in her own styling.

Wretched.

Wretched.

What was so bad about the Carly Simon album covers? I don't see anything bad about them at all.

Has this classic been posted yet?

I like the Like a Prayer cover, but considering The Immaculate Collection is her top-selling album, the cover is very basic and boring.

I think "Playing Possum" is a classic cover. And I'd say that Simon's album covers were smartly done, even "Babycakes." I don't think they were done for homosexuals (which isn't to say they couldn't be appreciated by said group but...).

This is probably my favourite of hers.

The Afghan Whigs - Congregation

I use the laserdisc cover.

I think the original and Like a Prayer were a rejoinder to claims that Madonna was all image.

I always think of that scene from WKRP in Cincinnati when Venus Flytrap says to Johnny Fever: "Want to go look at some Carly Simon album covers?" "Sure."

I know this may elicit some gay gaps but I've always though this looked like a budget compilation. It's a fail for me.

*gay gasps

I've never liked the Xerox quality of this cover. "Harvest" is so much better.

This thread seems to have turned into "bad" album cover designs, but then also album covers that are supposed to be ugly, conceptual, difficult, weird, but are great.

Here's a good example, Royal Trux's 1997 album "Sweet Sixteen." The band's logo spelled out in pink and blue cake icing on top of a disgustingly overflown toile clogged with god knows what.

The record label hated them at the time and was about to dump them, so the offensive design is presumed intentional. Released on Virgin, stores live WalMart refused to display it. The CD booklet fold out so you see the rest of it. Sadly was never released on vinyl for a full fold-out effect. A good album, too!

*toilet

Bush "Sixteen Stone"

R198 That is the opposite of great.

At a glance, that Royal Trux album cover looks like a fucked up casserole. I think a good album cover should communicate much of itself immediately. Interesting details might reveal themselves, like Easter Eggs, with close viewing. But like song lyrics, one shouldn't have to think too much about them or study them to "get" them.

The early 90s had a lot of shitty album covers.

I think Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" is a great album cover. I thought so before I even noticed the heart on her sleeve - a playful detail.

This should have been the "Hard Candy" cover. I think it was called "Black Madonna" at one point.

The Queen of 90s R&B thots, Adina Howard, with the cover of her debut album. Very subtle.

The Queen of 90s R&B thots, Adina Howard, with the cover of her debut album. Very subtle.

Seems pretty on brand...

Chris Brown's latest is a No from me.

It's a favourite album of mine but the cover is ugly as fuck. The contrast between her hair, skin and the background is off. The bright, almost lurid font clashes with the stately pose.

In contrast, this budget release takes a similar approach but gets it right.

That Chris Brown one is ghastly

Have you ever wanted to take a drive around Aretha's neck? Well, now you can!

R210 Agree totally. Etta deserved better.

The cover of the Spice Girls' third album, Forever. They all look like they'd rather be anywhere else. And they were always marketed on their strength of their different personalities, so why dress them all in black?

They should never have gone American R&B Lite. "Holler," as good as it is, should have gone to an American act.

Nevermind is iconic in spite of it's cover.

If Hootie and the Blowfish or Third Eye Blind used the same cover everyone would say it sucked and consider it a joke.

[Quote] Nevermind is iconic in spite of it's cover.

Nah. If the cover was reviled or considered hurtful to the album's status, it would have been changed. You're welcome to dislike it as much as you wish, but it's widely held up as an iconic album cover.

Every legendary album cover is iconic, which doesn't mean it doesn't suck .

Mettalica's "Load"; yes, it's what you think it is.

^ The Metallica guys are dataloungers?!

"Hey, Sonny, you jealous yet?"

Awful, or fabulous? Awfully fabulous?

A REALLY bad album cover was the one Cher did with Gregg Allman. The album was entitled "Two the Hard Way" by "Allman and Woman." It featured a shirtless Gregg Allman on top of Cher, who looks like she's wearing no underwear. The look on Allmans' face is priceless; his mouth is hanging open and he looks totally bewildered, as though he's thinking "what the hell am I doing?" He later said the album was a piece of shit, which it certainly was.

Speaking of Allman...

[quote]Every legendary album cover is iconic, which doesn't mean it doesn't suck .

Exactly.

Rosemary Clooney did some of her best work on the Concord label but boy did many of those album covers suck.

Led Zeppelin III. Just a hot mess.

I swear I can smell the B.O. and armpit funk coming through my screen.

The Cars, Shake It Up.

You're going to start posting Roxy Music album covers now, aren't you?

At least Linda looks good here.

Whaaaaa?? A lot of these album covers are amazing!

No way, R231. Roxy Music covers are an art unto themselves.

Millie Jackson continues to own this thread:

Those portraits...

Mimi trying desperately to stay relevant by going for a Beyonce look on the cover.

This one

R237, she's airbrushed so much there that you can hardly tell it's her

Okay, at the time computer photo manipulation was cutting-edge and exciting... but fuck that's creepy.

When f#xking for album covers goes wrong...

This.

I swear I thought it was fan art created by a Fourth grade "little monster" that just learned Photoshop.

Nope, it was the actual artwork. Great album but not as great as Monster or The Fame IMO.

I like the btw cover. She’s too worried about looking pretty now.

It’s like a transformer. And the wolf like snarl. Pretty cool.

I believe that's DL fave Mary Louise Wilson on the LP cover in R241's post.

[quote] I believe that's DL fave Mary Louise Wilson on the LP cover in [R241]'s post.

It looks like Ginny was fucking Ed Cooper before Ann!

The young Sinatra was an attractive man. Why they chose to re-imagine him as a ventriloquist's dummy for the cover of this album, I have no idea.

I've thought about this one, having purchased God knows how many vinyl LPs in my sweet short lifetime. So, the one albumen (sic) that keeps rising to the surface is... Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk." The cover is sprawling, uneven, just so self-indulgent. Luckily, the album itself stands up well, although I only listen to a handful of its tracks. One thing I don't like about the pics is that'they're too dark. And they show every blemish and imperfection in everybody's face.

Joyce gets my dick hard.

I loved the songs on the album, but Belinda's 1991 album cover makes her look like the villain in a "House Of Wax" remake =

Brenda deserved better.

I've always hated the cover of The Bends by Radiohead but I guess you can call it "edgy".

What in the world is going on here?

R252 Edgy for 1995.

This album was not released until 13 years after it was recorded. Possibly because the artwork was so horrendous. Why did you choose the Jolly Green Giant as your style guru, Patty?

I'm a huge Reba fan, but I've always hated this album cover that looks like she was photoshopped into someone's national park vacation pic.

Edward Hill

Belinda at R250 would've been much better if she used one of the better photos kept for the inside =

It probably would've sold the most copies with this photo =

Sob!

Jason

Wrong indeed