Wow, I never realized until you posted this just how truly awful it was. Ouch! I never liked this cover, but I guess I just blocked it out of my mind. The Graphic Designer's license has hereby been revoked.
Also, Robert Plant doesn't quite look like himself - more like the singer for a second-tier Sunset Strip glam metal band circa 1986.
I think it suffers because most of Led Zeppelin's covers were pretty artistic and this is just 4 Photoshopped pictures of the band.
I think it's two-fold. First, the photos are rendered into a nearly unidentifiable mess which is not only unattractive, but also visually painful -- especially when one discovers the album's title drowning helplessly in the middle of all this madness. Secondly, all the photo manipulation and coloring nonsense was completely unnecessary to begin with. It would have been striking to simply have four nice photos in pure black and white.
Brian Wilson's interesting 2004 album Gettin In Over My Head was rather overshadowed by news he was reviving Smile. But the slapdash cover by pop artist Sir Peter Blake (he of Sgt Pepper) can't have helped. Beach Boys fans concerned that a Brian Wilson solo album might be a tad too eccentric for their tastes would have had their prejudices apparently confirmed by the awfulness of the design. As for people casually browsing the racks, the artist name is tiny. This cover screams "That old guy who plays bass down the local pub with his 60's cover band has somehow sneaked his home made album into an actual record shop". Also I wonder how people browsing the Easy Listening section back in 1958 would have reacted to the cover of Les Baxter's Space Escapades. Phallic rocket? Astronauts brandishing cocktails? Women with springs on their heads? A proto goth?
Has anyone mentioned Ian Gillan’s Gillan’s Inn Of course the Temptations had a great run of art department atrocities between 69 and 73. Check out the following... Puzzle People Psychedelic Shack The Sky’s The Limit Solid Rock All Directions and Masterpiece
I see what you did there. The 'ol switcharoo. Black Flag's albums coming 15+ years after those. Good one.
