Crappy Album Covers #321 — From sketchy to artless

Barr is a Swedish group, which released this album with a rather austere and bleak album cover. But the YouTube video below shows that you can’t judge a record by its cover. Barr has had an undeservedly small following, and are relatively unknown internationally. In fact, it gets me into one of my rants where I preach about the fact that popular (top 40) music has only gone to the dogs only because singles are never released of any good music done by musicians with any real skill these days. Just don’t get me started. I can go on all day about it.

“Skogsbo is the place” is a classical/folk album released in 2008 by Barr.

Mystery was a band covered in the last post. Given the choice between adolescent art and a Bryce rendering of geometric and humanoid shapes, it is difficult to wonder which is worse.

This is from their 1992 self-titled debut album.

Here is Barr, doing a track from “Skogsbo is the place”, called Moonfall

Visits: 142

Crappy Album Covers #320 — Painfully Unoriginal

Danish prog rockers Royal Hunt released their sixth album in 2001, called “The Mission”, a nod to Ray Bradbury. 

There isn’t really much to the Bryce rendering, just a knock-off to say that this album is “interesting”, and you’re supposed to listen to it an think about it a lot. It is highly likely that it is a near copy of the album cover below, from an album released a year earlier by Canadian prog rock group “Mystery”.

Royal Hunt’s most recent album is “X”, released earlier this year.

Canadian prog rockers “Mystery” had this design for their 2000 LP, “At The Dawn of a New Millenium”. While I don’t think anyone cares about stealing the jacket design, I am sure it ruffled a few feathers in the Quebec-based group. 

They have borne comparisons to Yes and Journey, and it had been recommended by many in the CAC Blogosphere that if you wanted to get to know their music, this album is actually a great place to start. “Dawn” is actually a compilation of their three albums prior to this one. So, while it doesn’t exactly qualify as a “best of” album, it makes a decent sampler.

As for a comparison to Yes, one of their lead singers, Benoit David, has been touring with Yes as a replacement for Jon Anderson since 2008. He is now an official member of the group. That said, he still had time to release another album with Mystery earlier this year, called “One Among The Living”.

 

Visits: 148