Crappy Album Covers #173 — Genre confusion

Album_Cover_Crap_287_musicforants_com This is the second album released by The Ben Folds Five, called “Whatever and Ever, Amen” released in 1997, and remastered in 2005.

The combination of seepia photos of the band members against a tablecloth background is unbecoming of an alternative record. Maybe a Johnny Cash album, if he was still alive. Or for that matter, Porter Wagoner. There is also the problem of The Ben Folds Five consisting of only three members.

The alternative “attitude” lies solely in the strength of the title.

Album_Cover_Crap_292_wikipedia_org This is one of those album covers that make you think that Mr. Pop should go back to mutilating himself and throwing himself into the audience, along with his other “neurosis-as-theatre” antics. Released just over four months ago, Preliminaires leans heavily toward New Orleans-style jazz with a toned-down rock edge.

Hear him sing songs taken from Louis Armstrong, Jelly-Roll Morton, and Edith Piaf. Quite the departure from The Stooges.

Visits: 99

Crappy Album Covers #172 — Scary warlike thingies

Album_Cover_Crap_315_inspiredology_com Let’s get something stright here. Just because there are scary warlike thingies on your album like the Transformer dude on this Linkin Park record, doesn’t mean it’s a cool record, OK? It might impress a 10 year-old, but not many older people.
Album_Cover_Crap_298_guardian_co_uk Bodies of men with heads of birds as a warlike thingie has been overdone to the point where it has lost its power to scare people, if it ever had it at all. 

There are many scary birds: hawks, eagles, but since the name of this band is called Budgie, well… three guesses as to what species these heads belong to.

Bandolier is Budgie’s fifth album, released in 1975, and combines all the worst elements of the early Yes album covers.

Visits: 105

Crappy Album Covers #171 — Pinin' for the lord

Album_Cover_Crap_244_-_Rodgers_Kenny_-_bizarrerecords_com This is Kenny Rodgers, with his 1981 open declaration of love to his saviour, “Kenny Loves Jesus”.

The next sweet odour you smell may be the sweet smell of the Holy Spirit, which will draw you closer to the Lord. It says so on the back cover of this LP.

Album_Cover_Crap_238_-_bizarrerecords_com I have resisted this crappy cover from Country Church, because, you know, this album has been shown on so many websites in the Crappy Album Blogosphere, that there comes a point where you feel that, such as it is, it already counts as too much publicity.

There is so much wrong with this cover, I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll just let it speak for itself.

Visits: 81

Crappy Album Covers #170 — Unhealthy lifestyles

Album_Cover_Crap_285_musicforants_com_mew-and-the-glass-handed-kites The idea of heads being depicted as eating other heads on this “Mew” album, as an attempt to look disturbing, fails miserably and just becomes another Photoshop hack job.

However, Mew’s CD released some time around 2007 is reputed to be a decent album content-wise.

Album_Cover_Crap_309_progulus_com Carnival in Coal was a French Death Metal band that had been together for 12 years from 1995 to 2007. For those keeping track, they mixed many avant-garde genres, but all releated to death metal.

Maybe they were tired of walking out on stage like corpses. Corpses with lipstick and mascara.

Bunk Strutts has requested at least a video, a link, something that might add another dimension to these people. I was looking at “Carnival in Coal”, and passed over titles like “Shemale Whoregasm”, and “Fuckable (live in Paris)”. Instead, I have them doing “Don’t be Happy, Worry”, a new take on an old Bobby McFerrin tune. (no longer available)

Visits: 80

Crappy Album Covers #169 — Bad Steely Dan Covers

Album_Cover_Crap_288_rateyourmusic_com You are looking at the two albums once rated by band members Walter Becker and Donald Fagen as being the two worst album covers of the seventies, bar none, according to Wikipedia. 

I disagree. I think I could come up with several seventies’ past postings that could be worse than this.

I grew up with this kind of music. I never knew what Steely Dan were about. Did anyone? Becker and Fagen never seemed to be quite sure either, in trying to define their style, which only had tenuous points of contact to rock. For this, they risked having the cover artist also unable to pictorally define their style. There is too much going on in the artwork to make heads or tails of it.

“Can’t Buy a Thrill” was their first LP, released in 1972, sounds more bluesy and jazzy than anything. It was a big album for them, having yielded their two signature tunes: “Reeling in the Years”, and “Do It Again”.

Album_Cover_Crap_289_rateyourmusic_com … And from “The Royal Scam”, “Kid Charlemagne” could arguably be another signature tune. 

A homeless dude asleep on a bench underneath images of mutating skyscrapers? I dunno. Doesn’t work for me, although it is supposedly an artistic attempt to shatter the Horatio Alger myth, that if everyone works hard enough, that one day everyone can own their own skyscraper (or something like that). And the imagery is of the hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-shovel variety.

Visits: 188

Crappy Album Covers #168 — Sucky Latino

Album_Cover_Crap_320_Latino_Love This is Richard Hayman’s 1969 cheezily synthesized “Genuine Electric Latin Love Machine”. Hear synthesized versions of songs like “The Girl From Ipanema”, “The Windmills of Your Mind”, and “Hare Krishna”. 

Wait … “Hare Krishna” is a Latin tune? Naw! And “Windmills” isn’t exactly Latin either, come to think of it. Looks like the robot needs to be re-programmed.

Album_Cover_Crap_295_funniez_net The Pachacamac is an ancient Peruvian site, thought to be nearly 3000 years old. Legend has it that every so often, on a clear sunny day, this dark haired guy in a tank top rises up from the Lurin River nearby and sings Latin hits. 

Of course, it is only the stuff of legend, and no one knows if it’s true.

One blog has Beto Mendez’s nationality as Ecuadorian. The album was produced likely some time in the mid-1960s.

 

Visits: 84

Crappy Album Covers #167 — Negative Brand Recognition II

Album_Cover_Crap_279_rateyourmusic_com_2001 This is the Manchester-based group, The Chameleons, with their 2001 CD “Why Call It Anything” with the world’s biggest UPC symbol to bugger up scanners all over the world. Behind that is some kind of dorky, clowny smiley thingy with too many teeth but excellent bridgework. 

What galls me is that the band, or some human, … somewhere, had to approve this album cover before it got released. It could have all been prevented, but I would say now that all those involved are covering their tracks, now.

Album_Cover_Crap_278_rateyourmusic_com_1983 “Script of the Bridge” their first album. A nice pencil crayon design that their Grade 12 art teacher would approve of. 

I have this album, and have owned a copy since at least 1984. The contents of this album are very good, and it was re-released last year with an additional bonus CD.

Visits: 75

Crappy Album Covers #166 — Negative Brand Recognition I: Weezer

Album_Cover_Crap_282_thealmightyguru_com_WeezerBlue Uh, yeah, like, we’re members of this band “Weezer”, and, uh, like, buy our record OK?

Weezer is a band that may, on some level, be authentic and earthy (in the grunge sense); but with these album covers, they just look like some guys that just came out of Starbucks to pose for a cover before going back to their lattes.

This is thier first album, self-titled (or to re-use an old joke, maybe they didn’t title it themselves).

Album_Cover_Crap_283_thealmightyguru_com The Beatles had their songs on albums referred to as “The Red Album” and “The Blue Album”, so why can’t Weezer? This is their third self-titled album, referred to as “the Red Album”, released in 2008. No matter how they dress, they still look like they are about to trot back to Starbucks to order their biscottis and doppio macchiatoes in the best fake Italian they can.

The picture-of-band-members-on-a-primary-colour-background aesthetic has, I believe, run its course, Weezer. Consider that artistic avenue explored, and move on. Please.

Visits: 80

Crappy Album Covers #165 — Just Hanging Around

Album_Cover_Crap_275_rateyourmusic_com This is the second CD released by the Toronto-based group Our Lady Peace. The cover features septuagenarian model Saul Fox, a frequent flier on many of OLP’s album covers. A combination of bad lighting and bad retouching makes it pretty clear that he is standing on the floor, giving little cause for the fear and tension in Fox’s expression. There should have been more effort made to produce the illusion of being airborne. And Fox ought to lose the mascara.

Considering that Canada has roughly the same population as California, selling one million albums in Canada alone is a rare achievement, and is awarded diamond status. OLP’s album Clumsy went diamond in 1997.

In the United States, Diamond is awarded by the RIAA for sales in excess of 10 million.

Album_Cover_Crap_265_funkyjunktrunk_com This lady likes to hang around too, although she looks more relaxed, and besides, she seems to have bagged a couple of hunters for herself. And while she doesn’t look like a “big dame”, I am sure most guys won’t mind her size at all. My only fear is that she might end up on some guy’s mantle as a trophy woman.

This is put out by “Sounds of A Thousand Strings”, although there are many blogs and sites selling used/reissued copies of this LP that claim it is by Art Neville, the New Orleans-based studio musician. Not much other reliable information seems to exist, such as what year this album was made. I am getting years in the 1980s and 1990s, likely the year of reissue. However, the depiction of late Nebraskan model/actress Irish McCalla (1928-2002) places this LP solidly in the mid-1950s.

 

Visits: 83

(Adult Content) Crappy Album Covers #164 — How they do it

Album_Cover_Crap_300_guardian_co_uk This is a 2005 album by Coco Rosie called “Noah’s Ark”. We see unicorns having a threesome over here (a slight departure from Genesis). My impression was that this album was some kind of progressive/heavy metal/grunge/experimental album. However, this is far from the case. Coco Rosie plays folk. Freak folk, to cite Wikipedia.Coco Rosie is a French-based female duo Bianca “Coco” Leilani and Sierra Rose “Rosie” Casady.
Album_Cover_Crap_291_rateyourmusic_com_cooked I put the black bars there myself, and consider it an improvement. The band name and title say it all anyway, doesn’t it? Their oeuvre deals mainly with taboo and edgy subjects ranging from drug addiction to necrophilia. Their approach is rarely serious; mostly absurdist. “Jim Seed Collector” is the name of a seven-inch single, released some time back.Smell & Quim are a British experimental group, performing in England as late as 2007.

Visits: 86

Crappy Album Covers #163 — Lacking a Certain "Je ne sais quoi"

Album_Cover_Crap_200_musicforants_com In a failed attempt to “Out-4AD” the album designs of other groups signed to that label, The Mountain Goats approved this supposedly muted-but-proggy album design. 

You place a cartoony stock image of a boxer painting on top of a splattery concrete background that the Cocteau Twins probably rejected, then place the album and band name somewhere on the cover, and ya gotchyerself a 4AD album all your own. Easy as pie.

Their 2006 album “Get Lonely” was their 15th to be released, but their fifth album on 4AD. It reached #193 on Billboard’s Top 200 that year.

Album_Cover_Crap_202_uncoached_com There is little information on Rulli Rendo’s Orchestra and Chorus. But for those interested, he has a very current website. He has been over 40 years in the music business, and has lived most of his life in Mexico. He currently is residing in Peru, his native country.

Visits: 178

Crappy Album Covers #161 — The uses of recycled curtains

Album_Cover_Crap_213_-_worstalbumcovers_com June Mary Gough (stage surname is Bronhill) (1929-2005) sports a long dress made from curtains taken from a rummage sale at the Sydney Opera House. 

She is a renowned operatic soprano, and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. She is here posing outside of an opera house in her native Australian state of New South Wales.

Album_Cover_Crap_214_-_worstalbumcovers_com These neatly dressed lads and curtain-wearing ladies probably have no connection to this Canadian rock group that shares their namesake. 

In fact, there are a number of current bands that share this name. One of them is an Irish trad band that sings such ditties such as “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour on The Bedpost Overnight?” That version of the Black Diamonds has no women in it. Needless to say, I couldn’t find any straight information on this group.

Visits: 110

Crappy Album Covers #160 – Elvez Prezley

Album_Cover_Crap_212_-_kristianhoffman_com This would be the soundtrack to Elvis’s first comedy, GI Blues, released in 1960 by Paramount Pictures, where he acts as Tulsa alongside some token girl named Juliet Prowse, who plays Lili.
Album_Cover_Crap_211_-_kristianhoffman_com This is not Elvez, but “El Vez” (The Time), played by Hispanic smart aleck Robert Lopez. He is not strictly an Elvis impersonator, and has been known to do covers of other artists.Lopez was born when the original album was created, and this parody was released almost 40 years later, in 1996.

Visits: 146

(Adult Content) Crappy Album Covers #159 — Another rule: Male nudity doesn’t work as well

Album_Cover_Crap_319_Yes Men and women both buy records. With this idea in mind, I have no idea why it is that female nudity sells even the crappiest records, while male nudity doesn’t. I am not a marketing psychologist, so I have no idea why that is. Yes’s 1977 album “Going for the One”, which sold certified Gold, depicts a naked man in front of L. A.’s Century Plaza Towers. The towers are surreal and distorted, and it has all of these dotted and solid lines that make little sense. Chalk one up for the overly self-indulgent side of prog rock. Despite the album cover’s tastelessness, the album’s contents are considered among Yes’s finest work, and marks the first of many times Rick Wakeman had returned to the group.

This recording has been reissued in 2003 by Rhino Records with a large number of added tracks.

Album_Cover_Crap_276_rateyourmusic_com This 1994 EP, released by Unrest on Teenbeat Records before the time they were signed to the 4AD label, also shows why male nudity is just, well, … limp.

Unrest has had dozens of releases of original work as well as compilations. They started in 1982 in Washington, DC.

 

Visits: 174

Crappy Album Covers #158 — Ladies of the low-rent district

Album_Cover_Crap_206_bad_hair_-_worstalbumcovers_org Harris Glenn Milstead (1945-1988) was a transvestite entertainer, whose live CD “Born to be Cheap” was issued posthumously in 1994. 

He died a week after the release of the movie Hairspray, which he acted in. He was going to audition for Fox’s Married with Children, but died of an enlarged heart before arriving. The people at Fox sent flowers, with a note wryly joking “If you didn’t want the job, all you had to say was ‘no'”. He counted Elton John and Whoopi Goldberg among his friends. They each sent a bouquet to the funeral.

There is a currently-released documentary called “I am Divine”, directed by Jeffery Scwhartz for Automat Pictures, which was released on July 30 of this year.

Album_Cover_Crap_209_-_wikipedia_org Intending to look loud and attention-getting, but ending up looking like a picked-through remaindered album at Wal-Mart, the reality is that this album never even made it to North America, except as an Import, since back in 1999, they no longer had a North American distributor. 

The Swedish duo Roxette, consisting of Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson, enjoyed worldwide success in the decade from the mid 80s to the mid-90s, releasing about 8 albums during that period. “It Must Have Been Love” gave me one of my nicer memories of 80s music, and was re-used in the soundtrack to the film “Pretty Woman”.

Visits: 101

Crappy Album Covers #157 — Full-cover faces

Album_Cover_Crap_305_minnesta_public_radio_org Paul Simon’s 2006 album “Surprise” has a baby’s face with the requisite surprised expression. Probably surprise at having the top of its head cut off by the upper photo, which is a depiction of some kind of bluey-watery-reflection thingy. Who knows what that’s supposed to convey? Hydrocephalism? 

The album boasts participation from big talents such as Brian Eno and Herbie Hancock.

Album_Cover_Crap_277_rateyourmusic_com This 1981 album from former Genesis member Phil Collins was the first of a line of albums which alienated prog rock audiences and attracted more general audiences to his music. Thing is, these facial close-ups, at least for me, usually make everything about the album seem too melodramatic. 

In this album, we get the much-overplayed “In the Air Tonight”. In later years we would be inundated with a string of equally overplayed hits, including the irritatingly successful “Sussudio”.

All I can say about Sussudio is what I remember reading, I think in a National Lampoon comic (of the single-frame variety) back in the 80’s. It depicted an angry guy knocking on an apartment door with a loaded rifle in his hand. He yells: “Sussudio all day long! Sussudio all night long! You want Sussudio? I give you some goddamn Sussudio!”

That comic writer knows my pain.

Visits: 79

Crappy Album Covers #156 — Sounding Off

Album_Cover_Crap_252_blogspot_com 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”.
Album_Cover_Crap_241_-_bizarrerecords_com 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.

Visits: 94

Crappy Album Covers #155 — Dylan in Concert

Album_Cover_Crap_290_thomstonemusic_com 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.

Album_Cover_Crap_318_Bob-Dylan 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.

Visits: 161

Crappy Album Covers #154 — The good things in life

Album_Cover_Crap_240_-_bizarrerecords_com 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.

Album_Cover_Crap_248_bizarrerecords_com 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.

Visits: 111

Crappy Album Covers #153 — The International Language of Bad Taste IV

Album_Cover_Crap_237_-_bizarrerecords_com 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.

Album_Cover_Crap_249_bizarrerecords_com 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.

Visits: 91