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?
yorkio says
Did Carly’s people *really* sign off on that?
Gatz says
Oh. My. God.
I’ve never seen that one before and hopefully never will again.
davebigpicture says
And only two tracks.
PaulVincent says
Oh, god, that’s terrifying!
dai says
Martin Hairnet says
Thumbs aloft.
Rigid Digit says
I like that cover …
It’s so terrible, it’s great
(if that makes any sense?)
David Kendal says
Yes, it wouldn’t look out of place in Guy Pelleart and Nik Cohn’s Rock Dreams book.
dai says
Well John Lennon wasn’t very happy with it apparently.
dai says
SteveT says
Is that her shoe or a dildo?
Moose the Mooche says
A lass is never alone with Dildo Shoes™
Diddley Farquar says
Dildo shoes? I think Jimmy Nail may have had a pair.
Sewer Robot says
I can’t believe we’ve got this far down the thread without someone suggesting Mil-…
Oh. Righty ho..
dai says
Got excited as I managed to post a picture with no issues at all!
Martin Hairnet says
It’s not every cover you get to appreciate some decent bathroom tile work.
mrxsg says
Lovely bit of grouting.
PaulVincent says
Actually, that one sort of fits… yep, Millie Jackson – wot a wag, eh?
Hawkfall says
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.
Freddy Steady says
That’s a bit of dirty old grout though.
Moose the Mooche says
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”
Sewer Robot says
..not to mention the indignity heaped upon Lionel Jeffries in the overdubbed-for-U.S. version of Two Way Stretch..
Moose the Mooche says
….as for Porridge…. cuh
Sewer Robot says
Yep. Slade Prison had to be changed to Aerosmith Jail over there..
Billybob Dylan says
Spackle is Polyfilla. Grout is still called grout in the US.
hubert rawlinson says
Saw this for sale and I was drawn to it, but sense said not to buy it.
Moose the Mooche says
3 Mustaphas 3 : the early demos
Billybob Dylan says
John Oates, pre Hall & Oates.
Boneshaker says
A modern classic.
Rigid Digit says
Vic Reeves on the right?
Simpering wreck says
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.
Rigid Digit says
This one?
Simpering wreck says
That’s the one! And he hasn’t even had the decency to buy her a drink!
Slug says
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?
KDH says
https://www.discogs.com/artist/4472948-John-Bult
Story behind the sleeve here – click More in the profile…
Jaygee says
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…
Moose the Mooche says
John’s 50th birthday too, nice coincidence!
kool_aid_wino says
Brendan Fraser on the left
Billybob Dylan says
Re: The Faith Tones cover – a young Bernard Cribbins, surely? On the right, in the glasses.
Rigid Digit says
Vic goes solo
Slug says
James Galway’s career path has not been a simple one.
SteveT says
That’s the end of procreation then right there.
Mrbellows says
Star Trek executives take note.
David Kendal says
Stephen Fry at the right, when he used to play women in Fry and Laurie sketches. And at the front, er, Rebecca Front.
Moose the Mooche says
No, tis Steven Pemberton.
Jaygee says
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
stevieblunder says
Has anyone lost a nightmare?
Jayhawk says
No. Just no.
Rigid Digit says
Another old “favourite”
dai says
Blimey
Rigid Digit says
Not sure – some sort of porcine Black Metal perhaps?
dai says
thought this was very uninspired for a fairly decent album
Rigid Digit says
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)
dai says
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
Moose the Mooche says
Great album. Chaos and Driving Rain had cool sleeves though so there’s no excuse for this – it’s positively Van Morrisonian.
Gatz says
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.
Moose the Mooche says
You’ve thrown the banal out with the bathwater.
PaulVincent says
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).
fatima Xberg says
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.
PaulVincent says
Much better choice!
Cookieboy says
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.
Black Celebration says
Talking of ‘Tap, this BCR album cover was very much up their street.
“Strangers in the Wind”.
Hawkfall says
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.
duco01 says
2. No one shall post Fairport Convention’s “Sense of Occasion” or “Myths and Heroes”.
Yikes!
retropath2 says
Listening is a stretch, too, to be fair, @duco01
Freddy Steady says
Moose will be disappoint.
nickduvet says
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