All Time Worst Rock Album Cover

Slade - Slayed (you see, cover AND title)

 

The original version of Big Black's "Headache" was the most horrible one I'd seen.
I don't want or need to see more like that....

 

They did, but they were no longer with Decca by then, they had nothing to do with it.

 

Hipgnosis was hit'n'miss but when those two were on, they were on fire.*

*Yeah, I realized that too.

 

Charlie is very visually oriented too. A graphic designer before becoming a rock star. He regularly consults on set design and such. There was a scene about that in the Four Flicks documentary I think. I wonder if he's active in the cover conceptions/selections.

 

I'm pretty sure I've already posted in this thread, but my answer must be repeated: The Rolling Stones' Undercover. Hideous. Even the colors are gaudy. Trying too hard to be offensive in one way, they ended up being offensive in another. It's embarrassing. The music is better than the cover suggests, however it is still a step down. But, then again, apart from the classics, they don't really have a lot of great album covers, do they?

 

Yes, actually, I was, for as we all know, Nigel is primarily a name favored by the British aristocracy which one would naturally equate with upper crust upbringing, education, erudition and general comportment. Imagine my chagrin when I was confronted with this public display of life's shortcomings in such a candid and coarse manner.

Egad, what was he thinking? One hopes his poor Mother gave him a good tongue thrashing!

 

CSN - live it up...hated it then...hate it now.....just ridiculously horrible. it has nothing to do with anything.

 

"Knife" - Aztec Camera

 

Really? I don't think it's that bad myself. I can think of a lot worse covers.

 

No not his daughter just an 11 year old girl. The photographer was doing high art. LOL

“I could not get my hands on the image until out of the mist a concept began to emerge. To symbolize the achievement of human creativity and its expression through technology a space ship was the material object. To carry this new spore into the universe, innocence would be the ideal bearer, a young girl, a girl as young as Shakespeare’s Juliet. The space ship would be the fruit of the tree of knowledge and the girl, the fruit of the tree of life.”

“The space ship could be made by Mick Milligan, a jeweler at the Royal College of Art. The girl was another matter. If she were too old it would be cheesecake, too young and it would be nothing. The beginning of the transition from girl to woman, that is what I was after. That temporal point, that singular flare of radiant innocence. Where is that girl?”

The Young Girl Featured On The “Blind Faith” Album Cover »

 

The sad thing is that it's actually a good album but nobody could get past that cover. He even recorded Thunder Road for the album but it was pulled because Springsteen refused to approve the lyrical changes made by Rowland.

 

My post about the album cover for "Jumpin' the Gunne" (containing an image of same) was apparently deleted because not family friendly. Fair enough, though that may also why it could belong in the conversation about worst. If you need to see it, just google the title and click the images tab at the top.

So, dusting myself off and moving on:

Here's one for the category of creepy. Jobriath (debut album on Elektra). He was hyped as the "American David Bowie", and claimed to be "rock's true fairy". The same cover image was also on a fifty foot billboard overlooking Times Square back in 1973. But even during the height of the glam era, I guess it all proved a bit too much. On the cover image, he appears to be not just explicitly effeminate, but predatorily so.

He (and his band) did appear on Midnight Special that year, and in fact they really weren't half bad from a strictly musical perspective. Rolling Stone even said he had "talent to burn". His first tour was supposed to open at a Paris opera house, with an elaborate stage setup including Jobriath dressed as King Kong being projected upward on an Empire State Building morphing into a giant spurting phallus. Or something.

But his breakout broke down in a blizzard of negative press amid the overhype. The Paris show was cancelled and the tour scaled back. In the end, his label and manager withdrew all support in mid-tour. Still the band pressed on. Ironically, Jobriath finally connected big time with an audience at the last show of his only tour in, of all places, Tuscaloosa, Alabama(!). As in, Deep South, Bible Belt, NASCAR country Tuscaloosa, where even Ali G's "Bruno" would have some trouble some 35 years later during a more enlightened age. Yet he got five encores. Go figure.

Sadly, he faded into obscurity and became the first (kinda) celebrity to die of AIDS in the early 1980s. Like Alexander "Skip" Spence's solo album "Oar", which also had famously poor sales back in the day, Jobriath's debut LP experienced a latter day revival, and a documentary was filmed about his career, as it were. Morrissey is a big fan. Jobriath's Midnight Special appearances and at least several tracks from the LP can be seen and heard on YouTube, as can the documentary.

 

But what happened to my other post about "Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins"? I didn't even include an image of that one because it was full frontal, while the "Jumpin' the Gunne" wasn't. Oh well.

 

Merely

 

I love how his face shows his exact level of dedication to this cover. "This is the best day of my life, or something!"

 

Rare Earth - Ma (1973)

 

......................................................................The worst album covers from this years rock and roll hall of fame inductees?

 

I bought that album when it came out, entirely to show off the fact that I owned a copy. Sadly it was never released as a vinyl LP. I understand that it sold in tiny numbers but sadly it's not worth anything today. I remember thinking that for a man in his forties his nipples had held up well. With a bit of body oil and some weight training and a facemask he could have gone into business as a Mexican wrestler, wearing that dress. I would pay to see that.

On a musical level I remember thinking that it was sincere but dreadful; it's a cheap radio orchestra doing perfunctory shopping mall covers of pop hits with Kevin Rowland crooning over the top. It's how I imagine the 1970s Scott Walker albums, except that it's off because her personalises some of the lyrics. Since then he appears to have mutated into Ian McShane. The NME had a thing for him, briefly - he appeared at the Reading Festival wearing a different dress and satin briefs, with strippers.

"Bad stuff's over"

The Jobriath cover is actually pretty good. The concept works and it's well-executed.