(Images may be disturbing) Crappy Album Covers #138 — Food on Vinyl VII

Album_Cover_Crap_222_-_amright_com This is the last (I promise) of the Herb Alpert parody covers I have. 

Jabberwocky is an audio montage troupe in the tradition of Negativland and Plunderphonics. All these folks use spliced audio sequences and multi-track audio in order to make social commentary on media, popular culture, sexuality, war, and religion.

You can download the whole album (In the tradition of Plunderphonics and Negativland, audio and artwork are open-sourced) and cover art here.

Album_Cover_Crap_203_vinylhaven_com It is said that donkeys like carrots, so one can hold a carrot on the end of a stick in front of the donkey, and this makes them move forward, thus overcoming stubbornness. 

That’s the cliche I think the album depicts. The idea is that the donkey never gets the carrot, but hopes that it does. Kind of like the deal that Badfinger made with Warner at the time this album came out, 1972. This album was the last one made for Apple Records, essentially ending their close association with The Beatles.

Other bloggers have noted confusion about the name Badfinger and Ass being on the same cover. It is a pet peeve that I have had of most bands since the early 70s, in that the metaphors are so mixed up that the message is completely lost. Usually a sign of what is inside the cover.

This LP peaked at #122 with its single “The Apple of My Eye” peaking at #102 on Billboard.

Visits: 70

Crappy Album Covers #137 — Food on Vinyl VI

Bob Ralston
Bob Ralston, 20 All-Time Organ Favourites
Here is the Lawrence Welk organist Bob Ralston, who while trying to be Alpert-esque with the album lettering, has still managed to do this album cover without being covered in food, to his credit.

Judging by Ralston’s youthful appearance, this album probably dates to about the same time as “Whipped Cream”.

Album_Cover_Crap_225_-_amright_com “Sweet Cream and Other Delights” is a 1978 album by the all-girl funk/soul trio from Detroit called Sweet Cream.

When working as backup singers, they would be featured on many albums as “The Ridgeway Sisters” or “The Ridgeways”.

The three Ridgeway sisters (Gloria, Esther, and Gracie) have been singing as a group since age 4, 6 and 8 respectively. At most recent report, only Gloria has survived the three, the others having passed on in this decade, while still in their forties.

Visits: 119

Crappy Album Covers #134 — Still more frickin' sunshine

Frickin’? Friggin’? I wish they had a dictionary for the correct spelling of expletives.

Album_Cover_Crap_156_showandtelmusic_com_Greatest_Picks Lillian Southard Robinson looks like a kindly enough elderly woman in the picture. The kind that would give an extra quarter to the paperboy, and who would visit shut-ins twice every week. In the middle ground of the photo is a quote from the Gospel of St. John 4:35, which she quotes as: “Look on the fields/They are white to harvest”.Funny. My copy of the Bible (NAV), says the fields are “ripe to harvest”. Finding the word “white” required me to dust off my wife’s King James Bible.

I was almost willing to forgive her for this almost white supremacist-sounding reference, until I discovered that the very next verse talks about the Grim Reaper receiveing his “payment”…

Hoooo—kay… Next album …

Album_Cover_Crap_174_Flickr The Summons Team (?) is here to proclaim their belief in “The Man of Reality”.Now if only the record cover reflected some reality: where do they plan to plug in their electric guitars and keyboard? Also looks like the dude in the foreground lost his drum kit. It happens, you know. Some thief sneaks into the studio, stuffs the drum kit, seat, and bass drum in his shirt pocket, and escapes through the door un-detected by security cameras. Happens all the time. So the drummer had to force himself to smile in this photo.So, I guess that means this is the first ever record album to come without batteries. (A strained pun, I know).

Visits: 62

Crappy Album Covers #133 — Hicks from the sticks

Album_Cover_Crap_164_showandtelmusic_com Felix Lorentz will sing your requests whether you want him or not. He comes out of his shack near the lagoon to the bar in the nearby village and rips the mike out of the hand of the entertainer that was scheduled to arrive, and yells out “I take requests!”After a few moments of stunned silence, someone says in a timid voice: “Can you sing ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips?'” 

Someone else pipes up: “Happy Birthday To You!” “Row, Row, Row your boat!” It was then Lorentz realised that he had barged into an old folks home, an the bar was next door.

Album_Cover_Crap_162_showandtelmusic_com_Greatest_Picks Ahh, the games you can play with a title like “Wild Country”. A hootenanny gone wild…wild music by wild musicians….Your wildest guesses won’t know who is on the playlist. Wild musicians: “Your Cheatin’ Heart” played by Jimi Hendrix. “Achey Breakey Heart” played by AC-DC. “Till I Gain Control Again” by Pink Floyd. 

None of them made it to the sessions for this album, but thank you for your purchase of this fine vinyl record album, and thanks for coming out.

Visits: 75

Crappy Album Covers #132 — More happiness

cover6 Another album cover which has been fodder for the CAC blogs, “Return to Oz”, from a Leo Sayer wannabe named Dardy. I can’t for the life of me find any info on him. If anyone can tell me something biographical about Dardy, drop me a comment.
Album_Cover_Crap_161_showandtelmusic_com_Greatest_Picks This dynamic fun machine also produces happiness. Every home should have one. This one has a flat tire, so it can only produce mild sanguinity. It’s all you can do until the Dynamic Duo purchases a tire tube at Wal-Mart’s next clearance sale.

Visits: 121

Crappy Album Covers #131 — Are you happy?

Album_Cover_Crap_157_showandtelmusic_com Get ready for a feeling of bliss that is beyond belief … The Young Believers are going to impose cheer and goodwill whether you like it or not. Rise and shine! Up with the crows! The happiness you have demanded all your life is now mandatory.
Album_Cover_Crap_158_showandtelmusic_com And after you have complied with the minimum requirements for happiness, you get to consume special pills and fly into a perfect utopia where the food is great, the sex is better, and the best thing about this epic voyage is that you don’t even have to leave the room.

Visits: 68

Crappy album Covers #130 — More Do-It-Yourself Covers

Album_Cover_Crap_166_showandtelmusic_com_Greatest_Picks A recurring rule of CACs is that if you don’t want to make your album cover crappy is occasionally in the attempt to overvalue the art of their children and make their art. The motorhome (bus?) looks like a hot dog on wheels.No information on “Sounds of VIctory” (or is the band name “Jesus Freak?) that I could find.
Album_Cover_Crap_165_showandtelmusic_com_Greatest_Picks You certainly can’t possibly get more late ’60s than this design. These ladies were from The Vassar College Glee Club in Rhode Island.They sing “America”, “White Rabbit”, and other 60s contemporary (at the time) hits from folk and acid rock genres.

The G-Stringers have been in existence since at least 1965, and various incarnations of them have performed at Carnegie Hall.

Visits: 69

Crappy Album Covers #129 — Atomization and Anomization

Album_Cover_Crap_167_showandtelmusic_com_Greatest_Picks Jim Haun, known as Rouvaun (pronounced “Rove-On”) (1932-1975) was a famous tenor, born in Utah. This is likely to be his first album. Wikipedia says that while he was an unknown woodworker studying voice, he relased this album after becoming an overnight sensation at The Dunes hotel in Vegas. Already with this album we can see that he is billing himself as “The World’s Greatest Singer”.

Well, I guess you are in for some notoriety when your vocal trainer was Mario Chamlee, who had to take over the contract at The Metropolitan Opera house in New York, succeeding Enrico Caruso, who died in 1921. That could give anyone a swelled head.

Listen to Rouvan sing The Impossible Dream, and sing The Lord’s Prayer, using his supreme vocal skill:

The Impossible Dream:

The Lord’s Prayer:

Album_Cover_Crap_151_showandtelmusic_com_Greatest_Picks With Rouvaun, it was all “ME, ME, ME!!!”, wasn’t it?

With the Musical Four, we get the other extreme: Atomie. Lookit, I’m a fan of Emile Durkeim, the founder of Sociology. He wrote of anomie, a dissolution of character as a result of a lack of social norms; and of atomie, which is a condition where the individual blends into to rigid norms so much that he loses all sense of self. Not enough norms lead to alienation from others; while too many norms lead to a lack of sense of self and eventually an alienation from self. Get it?

Well we see The Musical Four as actually 5 people. Individuality matters so little to them that, hey, who cares if there are 5 people? Maybe 5 is just an augmented version of 4. Atomistic in the extreme.

Obviously, Sybil Godwin had enough of that crap, and hired a lawyer to force the group to say “With Sybil Godwin” whenever “The Musical Four” was mentioned in any publicity. The other four thought quietly to themselves, “God will get him for his vanity”.

 

Visits: 129

Crappy Album Covers #128 — Channelling the Great Rock Legends

Album_Cover_Crap_168_MinstrelOTMorning_John_Bayley The design element (there is only one) that John Bayley uses combines all of the most incoherent elements of late-60s album design, hoping it will amount to something, for this 1976 album, “Minstrel of the Morning”.Lessee … what do they throw in? A clay tiger, a kid in a lotus position (who will surely become warped when he gets older), a nearly comatose woman in a flowing dress (the feeding tube was temporarily disconnected for the photo shoot), a sitar, a mandolin, John Bayley channeling Mr. T, and a Wal-Mart circular rug, curtains, a painted over Roman blind, and some artificial plants.

A copy of this was sold on E-Bay last year for $75.00

Album_Cover_Crap_171_Flickr The closest explanation for this disaster of an album cover is … okay, some guy goes to the Harlem branch of the Salvation Army store in New York City, buys a random mixture of men’s, boy’s and lady’s clothing, then goes to the neighbouring soup kitchen at the Habour Light, and tells four jobless hoboes that he is willing to pay them two cases of beer each if they will dress up in these clothes for an album cover. At this point the hoboes still hadn’t bargained for mascara being part of the deal. But hey, there’s two cases of beer on the line. Each! That wasn’t so bad, but then the photographer told them they had to bathe first.One of the hoboes angrily responded “What’s wrong with our personal hygeine? We take a bath every February 29th whether we need it or not!” That was almost the last straw, and after nearly an hour of thinking about it, they realised that they won’t be able to afford that much beer for a very long time, so they grudgingly obeyed.

This is why “They have got to rock and roll.”

Visits: 131

(May be disturbing) Crappy Album Covers #127 — Plastic Surgery Disasters II

Album_Cover_Crap_186_Flickr This is the kind of thing that gives the LGBT community a bad name. Don’t know the artist, album or anything else about this disaster of an album design. 

This is worse than an album cover, because it is a picture disc. Notice the hole punched in the center, near the price tag? Yeah, you take this, put it on your turntable, and watch this guy/girl/whtever rotate as he/she/it sings you some tunes.

Don’t picture this as a rotating CD, because CDs rotate too fast. You need to imagine this rotating at 33 1/3 rpm, where you could still make out some of the details as it spins.

I am usually a curious hound for finding out about most CAC’s but the blog I got this from also didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

Album_Cover_Crap_159_showandtelmusic_com_Greatest_Picks This appears to be by a member of the profession that is responsible for disasters like the one above. 

With this album design, I would say that John Butterworth should stick to medicine.

Visits: 109

Crappy Album Covers #122 — Unpopular instruments

Album_Cover_Crap_182_Flickr It is unclear to me whether this “Scottish Sing-A-Long” uses the bagpipes, but the album cover makes it clear that the reactions to bagpipes is still felt by many.This drawing was made after someone probably catheterised one of the pipes from the bagpipe to his nether region, so that every time he blew, … well, you can figure it out.
Album_Cover_Crap_173_Flickr In the grand tradition of Joseph Pujol (known as Le Petomane), Mr. Methane is an expert in farting controlled anal voicing. How does he do it? Apparently, he can take in air through either end of his body, and expel it again.He would blow audiences away with his rendition of the classics.

Mr Methane plays his, uh, “instrument” on a promotional video:

more about “Fart Videos | Farting Movie Clips | A…“, posted with vodpod

Visits: 127

Crappy Album Covers #121 — Phallic Symbols III

Album_Cover_Crap_178_Flickr Whirlwind Heat formed 12 years ago in Grand Rapids, Michgan, and continue to make recordings of their own unique brand of alternative music. 

For their 2006 offering, their second full-length album, they find that this young lady closes her eyes when she licks her wood. Or maybe she was told to. You never know with these photographers.

Album_Cover_Crap_175_Flickr This is another woman who likes to close her eyes. There is also something that appears to be smoke rising from the banana. Or steam. 

I have no information on the group Bananas or their recording “Get it & Come” “Come & Get It”. It’s probably a rock album. Most rock albums have something to do with the sex act or with getting laid in general, don’t they?

Visits: 101

Crappy album Covers #120 — Plastic Surgery Disasters

Album_Cover_Crap_177_Flickr Just before work ended, there was this explosion at the Red Rubber Coating factory, and this poor fella couldn’t escape in time.  This is Tripping Daisy’s 1995 offering, called “I Am An Elastic Firecracker.”

What seems a little more worrisome is the skin tone of the fellow underneath the read paint.

Album_Cover_Crap_176_Flickr This is the 1991 single from Aphex Twin, called Window Licker. Aphex Twin is the brainchild of Richard James, a Welsh artist who has been making records since 1991.

My experience with AT is that there is not much about them that is danceable, but this one has its moments. The video generally centers around the theme of picking up whores in some undisclosed location.

I couldn’t understand the first part of the video. It seems that for about the first 2-3 minutes the dilogue cosnsisted of two coloured guys in a car repeating the word motherf***er over and over with a few extra words thrown in to make it sound like they were speaking English to each other. When the prostitutes were encountered, the words varied a little more, but the hoes saw through them, and didn’t believe that they had any money.

The tranny groove on this single comes from something that happens part way thru the video where the second customer, who is of the sort that drives a stretch limo with a bazillion windows (namely, our hero Richard), gets out of the car and starts some kind of a mating dance requiring a suggestive use of an umbrella. That’s when the prostitutes start growing beards, and looking like Richard. Creepy.

Visits: 151

Crappy Album Covers #119 — From Here To Paternity

Album_Cover_Crap_197_Flickr Not much is known about Fontanna and His Orchestra. But the guy on the cover of “Music for Expectant Fathers” seems a little presumtive. He seems to be all geared up to have a boy, but how does he know that? I am guessing that this LP came out before the days of ultrasound.
Album_Cover_Crap_196_Flickr Germans Ralf Bendix and the voice of a little baby girl named Elizabeth made a worldwide smash hit in 1961 with Babysitter Boogie.

When the single came to North America it was played without any translation. It didn’t need any. It was a delightfully funny novelty song. Bendix made me laugh when I first heard it, and I don’t understand a word of German, or for that matter German baby-talk (which I would suppose is the same in all languages).

Here is Babysitter Boogie, with a much older Ralf Bendix (and, uh, the baby looks older too) from 1979:

Visits: 128

Crappy Album Covers #118 — More Chix With Guns

Album_Cover_Crap_189_Flickr They have seemed to have Cha Cha Cha albums for every occasion. Now they have one based on westerns. 

For this remake of High Noon, it’s not Will and Harv in a shooting match, but Will against a topless woman in high heels. I guess it’s the only way to go, if you have to die.

Simon (“Si”) Zentner and his Dance Band makes this their second out of a string of 34 albums released over his career, which started in 1959. His last known non-compilation album was a Frank Sinatra tribute released in 1998. A compilation was released in 2007.

Album_Cover_Crap_188_Flickr Liz Anderson, with her 1970 LP “Husband Hunting”, shows that she knows how to land her man. The single that bears the same title as the album, peaked at #5 on the Top 40 country and western songs that year.

Visits: 258

Crappy Album Covers #117 — Scantily-Clad Ladies Reclining On Top Of Things

Album_Cover_Crap_191_Flickr I chose these records because both women have similar poses, except this one is more clothing-challenged. 

What this lady doesn’t seem to know is that Cerrone keeps more ladies in the freezer she’s reclining on. Cerrone has used nudity on several of his records. When being marketed to his more uptight American audience, the nudity had to be greatly subdued, or covered up.

French musician, talent scout, and stud with the ladies, Jean-Marc Cerrone, marks this as his fifth album out of 26 he has made in total since 1972, the latest one, “Cerrone XXIII”, being released in 2009.

Album_Cover_Crap_190_Flickr The lady may not be nude in this second album, but it has every other element needed for proper seduction: a piano, a waiter to keep up the flow of booze to reduce the inhibitions, a smoky bar. I have to admit, however, the lights are a tad bright. 

While I can’t think of any women who would be interested in listening to ragtime, Eddie “Pianola” Barnes proves with this 1957 release that, by playing ragtime tunes on his piano, he can play ragtime on his piano and still be a hit with the women.

Honky Tonk Piano is listed on some websites as a jazz album.

Visits: 115

Crappy Album Covers #116 — Banarne-Rama!

Album_Cover_Crap_194_Flickr Swedish children’s entertainers Trazan and Banarne are at it again with another two records depicting a kind of  Trazan character who looks like Curious George Harrisson; and a scary looking primate called Banarne. 

Where do they find a restaurant with silverware and fine crystal in the jungle? Also, being a jungle, there would be no need of a fake potted fern when real ones are likely plentiful.

Album_Cover_Crap_193_Flickr Just to show that no animals were killed in the making of  this children’s show, Trazan and Banarne reveal themselves to be vegetarians, with their meal consisting of  a watermelon split: a half watermelon with cream on top, with cherries, pineapple and banana garnish. 

So, this means they are not strict vegetarians.

Visits: 75

Crappy Album Covers #115 — Trophy animals and trophy women

Album_Cover_Crap_195_Flickr First, let’s talk about trophy animals.Kind of reminds me of the 1986 college radio smash hit “All I Got Were Clothes For Christmas” by Happy Flowers.

Also, looks like the musician is getting friendly with his trophy deer.

There is no info on who this person is or why he has the logo for the American Lung Association painted upside-down on his forehead.

Album_Cover_Crap_192_Flickr Everything was going romantically until Ethel noticed trophies of a beheaded blonde and redhead on the wall, and remembering she is a brunette, she concluded that George must be a collector. Things became tense after that.Yes, trophy women. That is, women’s heads as wall-mounted trophies. This should have been the album cover for Fine Young Cannibals’ “Hunters and Collectors”.

Elliot Lawrence was an American Jazz Pianist and band leader during the late 1950s. He won two Tony Awards for his compositions in TV and film in the early  1960s.

Visits: 215

Crappy Album Covers #114 — Cows and Cliches

album_cover_crap_140_cendella_com Moving Geltine Plates (MGP) was, according to this bio from progweed.net, was one of France’s finest progressive rock bands. This album, released on CBS Records in 1972, was their second album, and the critical high water mark of their career. Poor distribution was blamed for the fact that this record didn’t fare well in the stores, and the band soon folded afterward.

I would also blame the album cover which was designed for it. At the time of the first writing of this blog article, I mindlessly thought that this was the head of a cow. Problem is, how many cows are hairless? This one also has half-closed eyes. Like a pig. The ears are cone-shaped like a cow. I’m totally screwed up here.

Lookit. I’m not dumb. I know my cows. Here’s a cow:

HappyCow

What’s so funny?! It’s a goddamn cow! I know my cows!

album_cover_crap_141_cendella_com Former member of White Witch, Ron Goedert recorded “Breaking All The Rules” in 1980, a couple of years after the band broke up. White Witch opened for a lot of seminal 1970s acts, includng Alice Cooper and Grand Funk Railroad.

Allmusic.com makes scant mention of them, except to simply have an entry for Goedert and his record, the only one allmusic.com mentions.

Maybe the fact that one of the members was wearing a yellow sleeveless jumpsuit on the album cover had something to do with it.

 

Visits: 242

Crappy Album Covers #107 — The International Language of Bad Taste III

album_cover_crap_142_cendella_com Here is Mylon, being photographed for his 1977 LP “Weak at the Knees” while trying to get a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken out from between his teeth. While he is from the Southern US, I claim that his French name qulifies as international (hey, it’s my blog, I can do what I like!). 

Mylon LeFevre was a top-selling songwriter, having had many of his songs sold to the likes of Elvis Presley. He is credited with recording with The Charlie Daniels Band, and Sammy Johns. In the 1970s, can i buy viagra members of his group Broken Heart went on to form The Atlanta Rhythm Section.

album_cover_crap_143_cendella_com At least you may not need to understand Hebrew to get that this is likely comedy album. Otherwise, I can’t explain the use of a telephone as a musical instrument. 

Hagshash HaHiver, literally “The Pale Trackers” is Israel’s offering to the world as a major comedy group. At least they were big in Israel, adding many phrases to the Hebrew lexicon.

The HaGashashim wish you to “drive in peace; the keys are locked inside”.

Visits: 112