Visits: 57
Category: album covers
Crappy Album Covers #231 — Chicks as Marketeers
A staple of CAC blogs is this 1955 record, entitled “Music to Remember Her”, whose cover features the disembodied heads of attractive women. It is a concept we’ve seen before on this journal, with similar creepy results.
Jackie Gleason (1916-1987) was best known for his role as Ralph Kramden in the sitcom The Honeymooners, as well as his role in the 1961 film The Hustler, playing the starring role of pool shark Minnesota Fats. He is less known as a musician, but for over a decade, he lent his talents to his penchant for romantic Jazz numbers, which this particular record is a likely example. |
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Another frequent flyer on the CAC blogosphere, is Cher’s 1978 Pop/Disco album “Take Me Home”. The main criticism I have read others as saying is WTF about that ridiculous costume she’s wearing.
But slow down a minute. Look at her. She could wear a Glad garbage bag over her body and still look hot. Sorry for breaking ranks with the rest of you guys. I would GLADLY buy the record, pin the cover on my wall, and throw away the vinyl (I hate disco anyway). That being said, I don’t get much of an impression of this record being a collector’s item, despite the fact that the album went gold, and has Gene Simmons on backing vocals. The gold status is widely considered to be due to the “viking” outfit that Cher is sporting. Remember the Universal Law of Selling Records: scantily-clad women never cause a drop in record sales, even if their presence has little to do with the record’s theme or concept. |
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Crappy Album Covers #230 — Riding on the coattails of the famous
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Crappy Album Covers #229 — Dummies and their Ventriloquists
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Crappy Album Covers #228 — Music for fitness and recreation
Jack La Lanne is still going strong with his fitness business. If you check his website, you will be assaulted by a patritotic call to arms to get off your lard ass and start excercising.
I’m not sure of his public speaking skills, but he seems to think he has it. And hey, thinking you have it is half the battle, isn’t it? He still sells his Moulinex-like power juicers, too, for as low as 99 bucks, as seen on TV. |
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No idea who composed or performed on this LP, but at least it’s easy to tell what it’s about. |
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Crappy Album Covers #227 — Songs about being s**t out of luck
Porter Wayne Wagoner (1927-2007) seems to be well-known for his hard luck songs, like the one that makes the title to this LP. “The Cold, Hard Facts Of Life” is exactly about what is depicted on the photo. Hubby comes home earlier than expected, and finds his wife fooling around with another guy. Nowadays, it would be more like “Guy and gal get married, they honeymoon, then Guy finds the gal is a guy.” Introducing the new cold hard facts.
Wagoner ushered in the career of Dolly Parton and hosted the Grand Ole Opry for many years. He has reportedly had over 80 hit singles on the country charts. |
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More down-and-outer music can be expected from Latino Joe Bravo in the name of Skid Row Joe. Porter Wagoner actually wrote a song about Skid Row Joe, and in this LP we find Joe doing a cover version.
Now you can hear both songs and become depressed in two different languages: |
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Crappy Album Covers #226 — The Demon Alcohol
Gertrude Behanna bears witness of the healing power of God to her admirers at an AA meeting. The recorded speech made some time after 1970 is reportedly quite memorable and witty. Reportedly, she is a a very human personality that emerged from “a miasma of glamour, sex, liquor, and irresponsibility.” It’s always the good things in life that f**k you up, isn’t it? | |
I would come out and say how ugly the above buy tramadol for dogs cover is, if it wasn’t for the existence of this cover. “Amazing Grace” by “The Celebration Road Show”. It looks like it was put together by the guy sitting next to the trashcan in that blue photograph. Or it could just as easily been put together by the toddler in the color insert. If only he were old enough to spell. |
Visits: 139
Crappy Album Covers #225 — Generic music for generic people
As Show and Tell Music tell us, this cover is for real. It was pressed some time in the 1980s, and has addresses of the performers in the Northern Alabama area for you to call if you want one of them to perform for you in person, which they would do as part of their ministry. I take it you need to be reasonably handy to Northern Alabama to take advantage of this deal. Here is a part of their notes from the back cover. | |
Dixieland Jazz, played by a band of eight Shriners who call themselves “The Eight Balls”. These Shriners hail from Lexington, Kentucky, and appear to consist of a dead guy on trumpet, with 7 onlookers. |
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Crappy Album Covers #224 — No-Name Album Covers
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Crappy Album Covers #223 — More Bodily Functions
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Crappy Album Covers #222 — CAC Makers with a Few Fries Short of a Happy Meal
http://foodsci.info/other/04_-_go_to_rhino_records.mp3
Somtimes being crazy means you are some kind of mad genius. Sometimes it just means you lost it; you’re off your chumps; a few cards short of a deck ; a few fries short of a happy meal; you’re just plain crazy. “Go to Rhino Records(Live) on Westwood Boulevard! Go to Rhino Records on Westwood Boulevard!” If you sing the above lines multiple times in a music-less, out-of-tune voice while clapping your hands, you have a good idea of the “music” that lay within this 1969 double LP. Rhino didn’t exist in 1969 you say? No problemo! We have a YouTube video from 1969 below, produced by Zappa himself. Double LP. Lord have mercy. Frank Zappa himself was the talent scout that got this guy signed on to the Bizarre record label. It is likely to be mostly due to his association with Zappa that this used double LP has sold on Amazon for $84.00. A true collectors item, since Frank Zappa’s estate is expressly not considering releasing this on CD. Must have had something to do with the time that Fischer was allowed to hang out at Zappa’s house and started to make an ass of himself and trash his house. I guess if Zappa were alive, he wouldn’t release it on CD either. |
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Sometimes being a mass murderer means you can sing birthday tunes. This is John Wayne Gacy (1942-1994), otherwise known as Pogo The Clown.
So I now stand corrected. In this article, where I write a short article about him, I claimed that he never made records. But I found this one. This record cover shown was found on Myspace.com. A birthday record with piano accompaniment by Lucille Adams. There is a serial number on the upper right that says “JWG-33-1994”. I would suppose the the “JWG” in the serial number (Pogo’s Initials) would make that a vanity pressing. “33” are the number of people he murdered; and “1994” was the year he was executed by lethal injection. |
Wildman Fischer, from the aforementioned double LP, on YouTube:
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Crappy Album Covers #221 — Unique Reiligious Concepts
“I stood at Calvary in a business suit, but no one told me that they were gonna have a toga party” is how I paraphrase one MSN blogger who discussed this album. But this could also be one of the earliest depictions of Supply-Side Jesus in a business suit.
No one would crucify Supply-side Jesus, according to his biographer and publicist, Al Franken, as when the choice was given to the multitudes as to whether to release Supply-side Jesus or Jesus of Nazareth from the sentence of death by crucifixion, the people chose Supply-side Jesus, since he offered the public 20 sheckels to anyone who voted for him. This historic act is depicted here for all to see. |
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I don’t care if it rains or freezes, s’long as I have my 8-bit Jesus playing on my iPod in my car. Our Lord and Saviour meets Mario Brothers.
These ditties by Doctor Octoroc may be downloaded again from a web page that touts it as the “second coming of 8-bit Jesus”. |
Visits: 228
Crappy Album Covers #220 — Poorly thought-out concepts
This is an awfully dry album cover for the former members of The New Pornographers and Wolf Parade. I mean, a courtroom? In their 2009 album “Enemy Mine”, it is not clear if there is any connection at all between this cover and the album’s contents.
Apart from that, this kind of art might be OK for a newspaper courtroom artist who wants to capture the likenesses of large numbers of people. Unless your album is about famous or notable court cases, courtroom art is a bad idea. |
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This album is an improvement over Swan Lake due to the lack of a courtroom image.
Al Jolson was known for his imitating a black singer by covering his face in black makeup, but it appears as though this black guy covered his face in even blacker makeup. But alas, it looks like a wax carving. Some amusing tidbits: I found a larger image than this in a place called the “Uncyclomedia Commons“. The web page containing the image declares that “This image or article is a copyright violation”. Then in small print, it continues: “Luckily, nobody cares.” The link on “nobody cares” points to an aticle in the “uncyclopedia” called “nobody cares“. The Uncyclopedia is touted as a “content-free” encyclopedia, but it appears to be satire. |
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Crappy Album Covers #219 — Beefcake or fruitcake? You be the judge!
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Crappy Album Covers #218 — Old-School Telephones
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Crappy Album Covers #217 — Too much for metal
The only thing this album has going for it is the “Explicit Lyrics/Parental Advisory” sticker that tells adolescents that these are the only kinds of recordings they should buy.
The Metal parody group Steel Panther currently play weekly in Los Vegas and Los Angeles. They must be metal, because their website overuses gothic fonts and umlauts above every occurence of the letter “o”. “Feel the Steel” was released in the UK June of 2009, and a few months later in North America and Australia. Previous albums included spoken-word comedy tracks, but this one is just the music. Their website features this CD and sells it bundled with a T-shirt for around 26 bucks. CD is 11 bucks. |
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Metal, mullets, tattoos and babes the trappings of the CD design for Reel Big Fish’s 2009 CD “Fame, Fortune and Fornication”. The guy on the cover is actually not a member of the band, but Brian Klemm of the group Suburban Legends, wearing the same clothing (or not) as he had on the album cover of “Let’s Be Friends” from the previous year. Klemm acts as a guest backing vocalist on the LP. No one knows who the token female is.
The entire album consists of cover ska versions of songs done by John Mellencamp, Van Morrisson, The Eagles, Tom Petty, and Poison. |
Visits: 99
Crappy Album Covers #216 — Stereotypes and other things that bug me
Come to Sweden, “… where the facts of life are stranger than fiction.” “The most permissive state in the world!” (sez the cover) Well, that’s got to mean only one thing, folks. That they’re all a bunch of debauched perverts, and the rest of us uptight Westerners should pass up this film or become debauched ourselves. Oh! Our virgin ears! Our virgin eyes!
I guess no film has ever lost money over simplistic stereotypes. Avco Embassy Pictures made mediocre to half-decent movies. They filmed The Graduate (1967), and The Producers (1968) for example. Later films included Blade Runner, and This is Spinal Tap. Avco changed hands and names several times over the decades. The 1968 film “Sweden Heaven and Hell” is not listed as one of Avco’s “Notable Films” under Wikipedia. The “Hit Single” “Mah-Na-Mah-Na” never made the Billboard Top 40 (peaking at #55 in the US in 1969), but was later used on The Muppet Show and Sesame Street. Don’t remember the song? Oh yes you do! Scroll down, plress “Play” to hear the Sesame Street version on YouTube. It won’t leave your head for a week! I guarantee. |
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Here are more things that bug me… Bugs!
Hi-Fi bugs are a class of “bug” species that all point to Magnetic North whenever they hear the key of Middle A, as depicted in this real-life nature photo. Pete Rugolo was born in Sicily on Christmas Day, and has spent most of his life in Califronia. He played in a band with Paul Desmond druing World War II. Since 1949, he was hired as the East Coast music director for Capitol Records, backing and arranging for such notables as Mel Torme, Nat King Cole, and Peggy Lee. During the 60s and 70s, he contributed music to a number of TV shows, including “Leave it to Beaver”, “Felony Squad” and “The Challengers”. His most recent work was for music to the the 1997 movie “This World, Then The Fireworks”, an adaptation of a Jim Thompson novel. |
Mah-Na-Mah-Na was on Sesame Street at one time, apparently:
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Crappy Album Covers #215 — Your Miranda Rights
You have a right to remain silent, while Carmen Miranda has a right to sing her fool head off. It almost isn’t fair, is it? Here she is depicted as being attacked by a fruit bowl, and you stand accused.
She’s smiling because she’s hired the best lawyer in the business, and this is how she finances her jewellery. Portuguese-born Maria do Carmo Miranda de Cuhna (1909-1955) was a Broadway singer and actress, and many believe she was the highest earning woman in the United States during the 1940s. She grew up in Brazil, earning her nickname “The Brazilian Bombshell”. Below, the Lady in The Tutti Fruitti Hat sings the title track to this album. |
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Dick Schory and his merry band of percussionists and other musicians made this LP in 1958 or 1959 depending on what website you are looking at. I’ve seen it categorized as Easy Listening and as Space Age Pop. Either one would be possible for that period.
The music has faded into mediocrity (answers.com gives it only two stars and a lukewarm review), but the crappy album cover lives on in our collective memory. This vinyl LP, whose cover depicts Dick Schory crawling out from underneath a pile of percussion instruments, is considered a collector’s item, with Amazon selling a used copy for around $280.00 WARNING: The picture on the Amazon site, on close inspection is of a 1996 German import CD, not a vinyl LP — Not sure if that is something I would pay close to $300 for. A giveaway is the jewel case, but an even bigger giveaway is the “Compact Disc” logo on the back cover. While there is no overt attempt by Amazon to obscure this (it is listed as a CD), Vinyl Renaissance sells the original vinyl LP used for $55. |
Carmen Miranda, “South American Way”
Here is an English translation of the same song by The Andrews Sisters:
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Crappy Album Covers #214 — Where they learn to dance
Cuban born Perez Prado (1916-1989) showed himself as the Head Honcho of Mambo University. I guess it was the Latin kind, not the horizontal kind. During his tenure, Prado was known as the King of Mambo.
Living for most of his life in Mexico, he had a long recording and performing career which extended from the 1940s to the 1970s. One of his most famous recordings has the unfortunate name of “Mambo #5.” While it’s not on this record, I thought that I would include a video of the original 1950 tune, followed by a cover version of the song (below) done by the Horizontal Mambo Man Lou Bega, performed 50 years later, around 2000. You are guaranteed not to be able to get the Bega version out of your head. |
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Many of us recognise the name Arthur Murray as being the name behind the international dance lessons franchise. Now, how do you “learn” to dance to Rock and Roll and “do your own thing”?
Big Dave and his Orchestra could be accused of cashing in somehow with some kind of bandwagon, but in fact, Murray picked out the tracks himself, and there was a serious intent to “teach” rock and roll dance to customers. Speaking for myself, I dance like a 3-legged cow, but if I wanted to pay for dance lessons, I don’t think I would go for something free-form like Rock, but with something more structured that takes somewhat more effort, like tango, foxtrot, or that kind of stuff. |
Mambo #5 by Perez Prado
Mambo #5 by Lou Bega
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Crappy Album Covers #213 — More TV and Movies
Cushy job there, Dean.
Dino Paul Crocetti, known as Dean Martin (1917-1995), played secret agent Matt Helm in the 1966 movie The Silencers. I can’t see Matt Helm’s agency remaining secret if he continues to chase women. |
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This looks like the second redesign I’ve seen about the movie Peter Gunn. Same artist, same movie. |
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