OK, there are lots of album covers that are crap for various reasons: lazy, stock photos; awkward-looking “family album” photos of the artiste in question; scruffy scrawled “minimalist” typography… all the usual reasons. But what about those covers which are just so spectacularly inappropriate that your dropped jaw can only articulate the words “what … the … hell … were they thinking?”
I was prompted to write this post by my recent rediscovery of the back-catalogue of the wonderful and not-long-departed Chick Corea. And … this! Smurfs? What the…? (etc.)
So – any more favourite (if that’s the right word) examples of this sub-sub-category?
Did Carly’s people *really* sign off on that?
Oh. My. God.
I’ve never seen that one before and hopefully never will again.
And only two tracks.
Oh, god, that’s terrifying!
Thumbs aloft.
I like that cover …
It’s so terrible, it’s great
(if that makes any sense?)
Yes, it wouldn’t look out of place in Guy Pelleart and Nik Cohn’s Rock Dreams book.
Well John Lennon wasn’t very happy with it apparently.
Is that her shoe or a dildo?
A lass is never alone with Dildo Shoes™
Dildo shoes? I think Jimmy Nail may have had a pair.
I can’t believe we’ve got this far down the thread without someone suggesting Mil-…
Oh. Righty ho..
Got excited as I managed to post a picture with no issues at all!
It’s not every cover you get to appreciate some decent bathroom tile work.
Lovely bit of grouting.
Actually, that one sort of fits… yep, Millie Jackson – wot a wag, eh?
The sad thing is this is what she tends to be remembered for these days. Which is a great shame as the records she made in the 70s on Spring are very good indeed. She is a very underrated artist.
That’s a bit of dirty old grout though.
It’s spackle in the US. One of the many jarring things about American culture. What a horrible world spackle is… doesn’t have the lilting poetry of “grouting”
..not to mention the indignity heaped upon Lionel Jeffries in the overdubbed-for-U.S. version of Two Way Stretch..
….as for Porridge…. cuh
Yep. Slade Prison had to be changed to Aerosmith Jail over there..
Spackle is Polyfilla. Grout is still called grout in the US.
Saw this for sale and I was drawn to it, but sense said not to buy it.
3 Mustaphas 3 : the early demos
John Oates, pre Hall & Oates.
A modern classic.
Vic Reeves on the right?
We’ve had a thread like this before, so I’m looking forward to seeing some old favourites – “Julie’s 16th Birthday” was one ill-considered classic, I remember. As for the Faith Tones (form an orderly queue, chaps), the one on the right does indeed look like Vic Reeves, but how does the one on the left ever get to sleep? It must be impossible to lie down with that barnet.
This one?
That’s the one! And he hasn’t even had the decency to buy her a drink!
But surely the couple are intended to portray Julie’s concerned parents? There is only fine, up-standing wholesomeness to be seen here, and there is no way that the woman is only 16 or the tender concern for his wife on the man’s face could ever be mistaken for an an evil leer. So it’s all fine, ok?
https://www.discogs.com/artist/4472948-John-Bult
Story behind the sleeve here – click More in the profile…
I think the ravaged look on the female’s face is a clear warning of the dire consequences that await the Julies of this world if they don’t wait til they’re 16
“Nobody can see the twist at the end of the song coming”? Well nobody with a brain…
John’s 50th birthday too, nice coincidence!
Brendan Fraser on the left
Re: The Faith Tones cover – a young Bernard Cribbins, surely? On the right, in the glasses.
Vic goes solo
James Galway’s career path has not been a simple one.
That’s the end of procreation then right there.
Star Trek executives take note.
Stephen Fry at the right, when he used to play women in Fry and Laurie sketches. And at the front, er, Rebecca Front.
No, tis Steven Pemberton.
Seems Rebecca did a Diana Ross and broke away from the habitually poor-selling Faith Tones.
Sadly, her debut album, “We call her Miss Fudge”, seems to have done little to resurrect her career
Has anyone lost a nightmare?
No. Just no.
Another old “favourite”
Blimey
Not sure – some sort of porcine Black Metal perhaps?
thought this was very uninspired for a fairly decent album
Starbucks album?
This was , I think, the culmination of Macca accepting and talking about his past. Good album it was too. It seemed like he wasn’t trying to hide away anymore.
(see also Chaos And Creation In The Backyard)
Wasn’t that Kisses on the Bottom? Chaos superior to Memory for me (in his top 3 for me solo), but both are v good
Great album. Chaos and Driving Rain had cool sleeves though so there’s no excuse for this – it’s positively Van Morrisonian.
Whenever this thread rolls around my contribution is always the ‘official bootleg’ Richard Thompson album Live at Crawley. The breathtakingly ugly banal is Richard’s youngest, Jack.
You’ve thrown the banal out with the bathwater.
Yep, this one fits the brief nicely. Legendary songwriter/guitarist… bafflingly ill-fitting cover image. Most of the foregoing are – well, who the hell are they anyway? But this hits the same spot as the Chick Corea album cover (key member of Miles Davis’s classic 60s band, leader of legendary electric prog-jazzers Return To Forever… and suddenly The Smurfs).
As for the Chick Corea album – he explains the cover (“Cover concept by Chick Corea”) on the back: it’s about children and friendship as hinted at in the song titles. I have the German (original?) Polydor version of the album, with a different toy jazz band sculpture on the front, consisting of a rabbit, two frogs, and a dolphin. No Smurfs anywhere to be seen.
Much better choice!
This just cannot be more pompous. If it were “Spinal Tap in Rock” it would have been one of the funniest sight gags in that movie.
Talking of ‘Tap, this BCR album cover was very much up their street.
“Strangers in the Wind”.
I think these threads are great, but before we go any further I think we should establish some ground rules:
1. No one shall post anything by The Scorpions
OK, that’s fine.
2. No one shall post Fairport Convention’s “Sense of Occasion” or “Myths and Heroes”.
Yikes!
Listening is a stretch, too, to be fair, @duco01
Moose will be disappoint.
The front of the gatefold cover to Gentle Giant’s album ‘Acquiring The Taste’ appears to be in questionable, er, taste
the reverse clarifies it somewhat