 |
Post-grunge group Caramel’s only album sports an angry cactus with bad teeth. There is a fable in this one, consisting of a “good” witch who cast some evildoer into the body of a cactus where the town lives happily ever after, but I am not sure that is what was intended.Allmusic.com places this self-titled album by Caramel at about 1998. That same year, a single called Lucy (not listed on the album) reached #35 on Billboard. The latter is more”rock” than “grunge”. |
 |
The way you are supposed to listen to “Sound Off…Softly” is to buy Gold Bond Ceiling Tile, cover your ceiling with it, and put this record on your turntable. While it is true that the composition of your ceilings and walls affect the acoustics and hence the sound of your stereo, I know of few tile manufacturers that would offer you a recording to play to prove their point.I am sure that Gold Bond won’t mind if you also covered your walls with ceiling tile. And your floors. Hell, make a whole goddamn soundproof studio out of nothing but Gold Bond Ceiling Tile. I’m sure the chicks will dig your pad. |
Tag: alternative
Crappy Album Covers #155 — Dylan in Concert
 |
In May of 2007, Rolling Stone’s web-based tentacle asked readers what the 10 worst albums of all time were, which were recorded by the great artists. You are looking at the #1 album.
While “Down in the Groove”, Bob Dylan’s 28th album has been nearly universally reviled, the problems I have with it are in the artwork. The accusation levelled at this album is that it contains, apart from a large number of collaborations, a number of cover songs. I could have told those reviewers that by looking at the album cover, a problem was iminent. Not only is this 1988 album the umpteenth album with a cover photo of Dylan in concert, it is at least the third one which sports a blurry photograph. |
 |
This, by all accounts was the second, which was his second greatest hits album. His first greatest hits album originally had exactly the same photo. Now when the first album came out in 1967, the cover photo was considered good enough to be awarded a grammy. But then he uses exactly the same photo for volume 2, released in 1971 (the photo was later changed, to a different concert photo).
This second volume had a paucity of actual “hits”, and instead had many originals which garnered hits through other artists covering him. This album can be regarded as a compilation of older material in LP form, to make up for the early 70s, which were doldrum years for Dylan. |
Crappy Album Covers #154 — The good things in life
 |
New Orleans Cajun comedian Justin Wilson has this apparently rare LP full of his cajun brand of comedy.
It is difficult to know if this is the same Justin Wilson who is both a chef and a comedian. Although it is likely that he is not Justin Wilson the stock car driver. |
 |
Native of St. Louis, Missouri John Roland Redd (1921-1988), a Latino known by many monacres including Korla Pandit, was not attempting to be convincing when he wanted himself photographed in a turban for an album called “Latin Holiday”.
Beginning his career in 1938, he is said to pre-date Liberace in that Redd played keyboard in a similar musical repertoire and has been around since the invention of television. Publicists at the time had fabricated a story about him being born in New Delhi to a father who was a Brahman priest and mother who was a French opera singer. |
Crappy Album Covers #153 — The International Language of Bad Taste IV
 |
The name of this album by Norwegians Arnold Børud and his three kids does not survive translation into English very well. The English cliche “On The Go” is what we are supposed to be reading.
The three kids are Thomas, Linda, and Ole Børud, forming the “Børud Gang” or Børud-gjengen. The group was later called “Arnold B. Family”. Arnold was a former member of the Christian supergroup Frisk Luft (Fresh Air), releasing two LPs in the 1970s. |
 |
This is Poogy’s 1974 album “In A Pita”; another of Israel’s offering in the Crappy Album genre. Clearly, when they were invited to dinner, it was not to eat, but to be eaten.
Other than mere translation, no information appears to exist on this seven-membered group. |
Crappy Album Covers #151 — Cherchez le femme
 |
Boy’s Town Gang consisted of Cynthia Manley, and a revolving door of pretty boyz. These two are most likely to be Tom Morely and Bruce Carlton, seeing that the release of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You was around 1982.
They were into the so-called “high-energy” disco, in the late 70s and early 80s, as it was on its last stages of life support.When the Village People met a quasi-demise with their musical interpretation of the film “Can’t Stop the Music”, leaving a hole in the “high energy disco written by homosexuals” market, The Boy’s Town Gang were right there to take up the slack, giving the San Francisco area a steady supply of disco. |
 |
Phillipino comedic vocalist Roman “Yoyoy” Villame (1938-2007) shows us how to get the woman we want to marry.
Villame recorded over 40 albums in his lifetime, mostly to do with political and social satire. He is admired for his sense of humor, both on and offstage. |
Crappy Album Covers #150 — When being cool is a bad thing
 |
Sebastien Tellier’s 2008 album “Sexuality” has got to be the most un-sexual of the nude albums I’ve seen. The colors are straight out of a Monty Python animation, which probably also explains the horse and rider.
This is his third album. Tellier is a multi-instrumentalist from France who sings in English, French and Italian. |
 |
The Dutch group Bonnie St. Claire and Unit Gloria features lead singer Bonje Cornelia Swart, who goes by the stage name Bonnie St. Claire, singing mostly in English. They have had several top-40 hits in Europe.
But sometimes, you get albums with titles like “The Rock Goes On”, which makes little sense. This “Best-of” compilation could not have been released prior to 1972. |
Crappy Album Covers #149 — Women perpendicular and parallel
 |
Bob Geldof to deals with the three dominant sources of insecurity, satisfaction and anxiety for the human species in his 2002 album, “Sex, Age, and Death”.
While this photo had to be part of the best photo shoot ever for the photographer, it reduces the theme of the album to a cliche. Many others probably thought the same, since there is no record of the album or its hit single, an anthem to “Pale White Girls”, charting. Since then, he had met a fork in his career path, and has seemed to have chosen activism. Geldof was the former frontman for The Boomtown Rats, and has received many awards and honorary degrees. I don’t think this record cover influenced anyone’s decision to give him accolades, though. |
 |
And you see, the band Louis XIV charted this album at #24 in 2005. Any elements from the album design made it possible? Both have nude/semi-nude women on the cover. That’s old-school. This woman is parallel to her photographer. Is that it? Naw…
Hmm… Oh, yes! This one has a “Parental Advisory/Explicit Lyrics” sticker on it. That has to be the reason. Just having naked women on the album cover doesn’t cut it anymore, folks. Those warning stickers have made many a mediocre act skyrocket to fame and glory. Geldof ought to get with the program. This album, called “The Best Little Secrets are Kept” has an otherwise un-original concept with the playlist once again written on the skin of the model posing nude for the album. To be fair, there was the Hoover, Alabama Board of Education in the Southern US who stopped them from playing in Hoover, because the lyrics were too explicit. Leave it to school boards such as the Hoover, Alabama school board to provide the kind of publicity that could never have been bought at any price. |
Crappy Album Covers #148 — Seeing things from a different perspective
 |
This album, I suppose, teaches us men that if women were allowed to paint the center lines on a highway, they would do it in pastels. Such is the fantasy foisted by Tee Vee International in this various artist compilation of 18 disco and not-so-disco hits from 1978.You get the greater works of that Bee Gee hanger-on Samantha Sang; Gloria Gaynor; The Emotions; David Soul, and the list goes on. Most of the rest of the record could be classified as “rock”.
It isn’t so much the Daisy Duke lookalike on the cover; the bigger problem is the surroundings. It was done so hastily and childishly that it would have been better to leave it blank. I have seen it on various sites, sold for $20.00 or more. |
 |
This 1972 record by Soul Generation has given many soul fans a case of vertigo by looking at it.You look up at a building; you see the sky. And you see these four dudes looking back at you as if the side of the building was level ground. Well, physics will tell you that their bodies and souls should go in opposite directions, in that case.
It appears as though that while their hit single “That’s the way it’s got to be (Body and Soul)” peaked at #27 on theR&B singles chart, their album never charted at all. The album has been re-released as a CD with bonus tracks. |
Crappy Album Covers #147 — Blunders by Major Acts
 |
People old enough to remember Abbey Road when it came out engaged in speculation as to why Paul crossed the road barefoot for the album cover.So, I would like to continue the pointless speculation, and begin the discussion as to why Hillel Slovak (1962-1988) refuses to wear a hat.
However, it’s nice to know that the two guys in the middle like to share their socks among all four members and go barefoot for the good of the band. |
 |
I think they mean “Scandanavian”. Either that or they were playing in “Sockholm”.A CD was released in 1988, but the subtitle “Live In Stockholm” was not added until a 2005 re-release, upon finding the master tapes.In fact, I would speculate that this cover was from 2005, since there is clear evidence of Photoshop at work. The light is coming from the wrong side, and is black and white (seepia, actually), while the light above the mike seems to have arisen from a lens flare effect in Photoshop. Photoshop wasn’t around in 1988.
The originating concert was broadcast in 1970 for Swedish National Radio. |
Crappy Album Covers #146 — MS Paint Massacre
 |
Well, no, this wasn’t MS Paint. You can tell that a toddler was set loose on a piece of blank ruled paper with markers.Wikipedia makes no mention of whose toddler it was that did this, but does say that this 2004 album was critically well-received, and debuted at #7 in the US.The Cure’s 12th album has been inflicted on over 2 million fans worldwide. |
 |
Frank Black’s “The Cult of Ray”, was recorded in 1996, three years after The Pixies broke up. But this record is not mentioned on the Frank Black website. It is mentioned on the Black Francis website. Why there are two websites referring to the same person, I’ll never know.Frank Black, who also goes by a third monacre, “Black Francis Black” — frig it, let’s keep it simple and call him Charles Thompson. Chuck, you see, released this third album to negative reviews, and had gone on releasing many more albums garnering only but a shadow of his former glory under The Pixies.
In fact, that was the state of affairs by the time this album came out. They were punishing him for overuse of the cut-and-paste tool on MS-Paint. Allmusic.com has it that The Pixies have reunited as of 2003 and have started touring again. I don’t know of any new albums by them except for “best of” compilations released by 4AD. Chuck’s “Frank Black” website, however, has a list of tour dates. |