Terrible album covers

[Glebe]

Unused Grange Hill opening concept "disturbs".

[marquis_de_sad]

How does a band go from covers as classy, restrained and timeless as CS&N/Eponymous, Deja Vu and CSN to an abomination like that? 

Drugs.

[wosl]

Talking about the Blockheads, A best of Ian Dury

I like this a lot (reservations about the Photoshopped eye and jockey aside).  Good colour combinations (those electric pink frames pop off that field-grey ground really nicely), good proportions and lay-out logic - four squares forming a square within a near square, creating a 'window'/cross optical game - text-free and with what looks like a classy satin/matte finish (with a gloss coating on the photos?).  Also, I prefer slipcovers like this that don't feature the actual album cover art they're slipped over.  And lastly (Patrick Bateman voice): "the tasteful thickness of it."

[thecuriousorange]

[non capisco]

It's only right that there's a world map on the front cover of The Best Of Keane. Even if you don't like their music you can't deny them their globe-girdling cultural influence. If I'm ever in a situation where I have to break an uncomfortable silence with an Inuit I can at least go "Keane were a load of shit, weren't they?"

[Terryfuckwit]

It's only right that there's a world map on the front cover of The Best Of Keane. Even if you don't like their music you can't deny them their globe-girdling cultural influence. If I'm ever in a situation where I have to break an uncomfortable silence with an Inuit I can at least go "Keane were a load of shit, weren't they?"

Actually they aren't. Good pop songs with great choruses.

[holyzombiejesus]

Actually they aren't good pop songs with great choruses.

That's better.

[alan nagsworth]

Talking about the Blockheads, A best of Ian Dury

So it's like... looking at a gift horse's mouth, eye deer (idea), seahorse jockey and... and kissing a frog? Well I guess you can't fault the artist for umm... having some extremely vague grasp of wit. Fuck.

[greencalx]

That's not how you wear a buttplug. I'm told.

[NoSleep]

How does a band go from covers as classy, restrained and timeless as CS&N/Eponymous, Deja Vu and CSN to an abomination like that?

That must be the POV of this album cover at lunchtime:

[wosl]

So it's like... looking at a gift horse's mouth, eye deer (idea), seahorse jockey and... and kissing a frog? Well I guess you can't fault the artist for umm... having some extremely vague grasp of wit. Fuck.

'Solving' the pics passed me by, I must say (it hadn't even registered that they were visual riddles in the first place).  I just like the overall design (and think that it's in the wrong thread).

[jenna appleseed]

not necessarily actually bad but odd/silly & this comment keeps popping back into my head and making me grin

(stolen from discogs 'Worst album cover art' thread https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/404578?page=12)


Billy Swan - I Can Help

discogs poster "It's not that I doubt he can help, I'm just trying to work out what it is that he's so keen to help out with ... If it's putting a swan in a bath, he's your man."

I'm now imaging him singing "if you want a swan in a bath, I can help" as part of the actual song & the back cover shows the swan escaping out the bath lol
https://img.discogs.com/XwJ-aMBzoCC-QqK7lZQinELMGWI=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1589059-1300596184.jpeg.jpg

[kalowski]

not necessarily actually bad but odd/silly & this comment keeps popping back into my head and making me grin

(stolen from discogs 'Worst album cover art' thread https://www.discogs.com/forum/thread/404578?page=12)


Billy Swan - I Can Help

discogs poster "It's not that I doubt he can help, I'm just trying to work out what it is that he's so keen to help out with ... If it's putting a swan in a bath, he's your man."

I'm now imaging him singing "if you want a swan in a bath, I can help" as part of the actual song & the back cover shows the swan escaping out the bath lol
https://img.discogs.com/XwJ-aMBzoCC-QqK7lZQinELMGWI=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1589059-1300596184.jpeg.jpg

Isn't that the point? Not, "if you want a swan" but "if you have a swan" in your bath, I can help.
And he does, because on the back he's charmed the swan out.

Should have called it "The Swan Whisperer".

[Famous Mortimer]

Imagine being the poor bloke who had to cart that heavy bath out into the garden, fill it with water then put a swan in it.

[Ferris]

Imagine being the poor bloke who had to cart that heavy bath out into the garden, fill it with water then put a swan in it.

The irony of doing it for a record called "I Can Help", while Billy Swan stands stony faced & arms folded, manifestly offering no help whatsoever.

[jobotic]

I've got two broken arms, I can help

[Glebe]

Is this an intentional visual gag? "When you said 'bird bath' I thought you meant..."

[Ferris]

Is this an intentional visual gag? "When you said 'bird bath' I thought you meant..."

When you said "the album would be like a scaled down Swan Lake", I thought you meant...

[Glebe]

When you said "the album would be like a scaled down Swan Lake, I thought you meant..."

"When you said 'Put a swan in a bath in a park on your album cover, it'll look great!' I thought you weren't being sarcastic!"

[TheMonk]

[DrGreggles]

Whiting up?
#CANCELLED

[Glebe]

Joaquin Phoenix Joker inspiration revealed.

Or

Nick Kershaw has really let himself go.

[Egyptian Feast]

Apparently this album sold over 10 million copies, but I only heard about it for the first time on a Stereogum retrospective this morning. Truly a shit sleeve for the ages. The computer graphics may have aged poorly after 20 years, but I'd imagine it still looked (and sounded) pretty terrible back then.

[NoSleep]

So that's where Ridley Scott got the idea for Prometheus.

[phantom_power]

Either that or Morph

[Ferris]

Phwoarr that's a stinker!

[holyzombiejesus]

I'm so glad that The Stereophonics are so utterly shit in every single respect; horrible people, shit songs and maybe the most consistently poor album covers and titles.

[garbed_attic]

I'm so glad that The Stereophonics are so utterly shit in every single respect; horrible people, shit songs and maybe the most consistently poor album covers and titles.

I have their first album on iTunes (which I still think is pretty good) and I can't bear to use the real album cover as it makes me feel physically sick.

[NoSleep]

Phwoarr that's a stinker!

The colour scheme suggest that it should have been titled Human Poo.

[purlieu]

I have their first album on iTunes (which I still think is pretty good) and I can't bear to use the real album cover as it makes me feel physically sick.

Their last few albums have been surprisingly decent; I like to imagine that Graffiti on the Train was an overdue follow up to their debut and everything that was released in between never happened.

They do have an astonishingly bad run of album covers, though.






Even the reasonable You Gotta Go There to Come Back cover:

came in this monstrosity of a slipcase


That new one is pretty bad, but it's the use of the logo from their first two records that totally sinks it for me. The singles don't sound remotely like their early stuff, so there's not even that excuse for such an ill-fitting font on the image.