Category: bad art

Crappy Album Covers #210 — Music From Space

Not much info on this record, or on who did the recording. The cover of “Soundproof: The Sounds of Tomorrow Today” gives the air, not of a futurstic vision of music, but rather the kind of music composed by aliens. If that is the sound of tomorrow, then it is a future dominated by an alien takeover, where we have to put up with their crappy music, and crappy album covers.For that reason alone, I would find out where the rebels are hiding and join them.

I think that the group (or series) might be called “The Sounds of Tomorrow Today”, because of this next LP …
What can be crappier than a cliche space scene than an album which depicts Santa being fired out of a cannon which he couldn’t possibly have fitted in, and being sent into orbit? In addition, the rocket launcher thingamagig they have there looks like it’s floating in the sky.Once again, “The Sounds of Tomorrow Today”, offering us an album entitled “Adventure in Carols”. Not much info on this one, either.

Visits: 74

Crappy Album Covers #209 — Keyboard Obsessions

There was a period of time that just about every “nerdy” musical act wanted to record something by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. They were the Lennon and McCartney of predictability and commerciality in the 1960s and early 70s.

While they took few artistic risks, it is not to say that they lacked originality. Their catalogue is quite diverse, ranging from “The Story of My Life” to “Do You Know The Way to San Jose?” And anyone who thinks playing Bacharach is easy hasn’t read the sheet music to the song “Promises, Promises”. Dionne Warwick sings it best.
Dick Hyman, that fella with that unfortunate name, certainly likes to tempt us, with both his name and the album title.

I included this 1965 record because in my last posting, I had “The Man From UNCLE” as a CAC, and now this. If this is a depiction of a spy, he looks like a very tired spy.

Visits: 95

Crappy Album Covers #208 — Television II

I remember seeing the title “The Man From UNCLE” in my TV Guide when I was quite young. Never saw the show, but I at least understood that it had this famous guy Robert Vaughan in the show. The acronym apparently stands for the “United Network Command for Law Enforcement”. Sheesh. 

It’s a James Bond knockoff because Ian Fleming took part in its creation. The series ran from 1964 to 1968, and selected props used in the show may now be found in the Ronald Regan Presidential Library, or so claims Wikipedia. A casual search around the Ronald Regan Library website turned up empty-handed.
This is actually the soundtrack for the Grammy-winning music by Stanley Wilson to the series M-Squad. This was a series about police officers fighting crime in the Chicago area. It ran from 1957 to 1960, and starred Lee Marvin.The entire series has been since released on DVD as recently as 2008.If anyone remembers the short series “Police Squad” which ran for a short time in 1982, M-Squad was the show they were actually targetting in their satire. The celebrated reason for ABC cancelling Police Squad was “because the viewer had to watch it in order to appreciate it.” Later that year, TV Guide took that quote as “the most stupid reason a network ever gave for ending a series.”

Visits: 86

Crappy Album Covers #207 — Television I

The 1976 movie “Logan’s Run”, of which this is the soundtrack, characterized a utopia, a domed city where everything is perfect for everybody (hardly any work, so you can pursue whatever your heart desires), except that when you turn 30 you have to die.These guys have numbers after their names for some reason, like “Logan 5”, or “Francis 7”. Dunno why. Now, some folks in this utopia thought that dying at age 30 was a dumb idea. To escape execution on the Carousel (why the heck they call it that?), you had to leave the domed city and arrive at some camp called Sanctuary, where sandmen will chase you down and put you to sleep. Sleep of the permanent kind.

We never know exactly why the community needed a dome in the first place.
Henry Mancini (1924-1994) was known for his movie soundtracks. He didn’t just do Peter Gunn, but also “Days of Wine and Roses”, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, “The Pink Panther”, “Victor/Victoria”, the Tennesee Williams film adaptation of  the play “The Glass Menagerie”, and the Arthur Hailey film adaptation of his novel “Hotel”, to merely scratch the surface of just some of what he did.Mancini was nominated for 72 Grammys, winning 20 of them over his 48-year career. He has recorded over 70 albums and soundtracks.

And for all this they give him a shitty-looking album cover.

Visits: 57

Crappy Album Covers #206 — Strange Instruments

 This 1965 album by Count Basie (1904-1984) and his orchestra plays a few ditties made famous by the James Bond series: themes from Goldfinger, From Russia with Love, Thunderball, Dr. No, and other tunes.

Down on the right lower corner, you can see the original United Artists’ label. There has now been a re-release using the same album cover under Capitol as late as 2002.

During his lifetime, William Basie has won 9 Grammies and has had 4 of his earliest hit singles inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
This 1957 album by New York native Billy Mure is one of the “must-haves” for collectors. Rock hadn’t quite gelled with people, and much of the guitar on this album could indeed pass for rock music, due to its high tempo.

Being from 1957, it is mono, but that is not to say that it doesn’t sound good. Remember, tube amps were standard in those days, so most recordings had the benefit of a warm, loud, clear sound. Nowadays, amps like that cost thousands of dollars, and most recordings are done digitally.
This is another Billy Mure LP from 1960, called “Supersonic Guitars” Volume 2. This one is in stereo this time. I have heard that both of these titles are thought to be quite a find.

Visits: 96

Crappy Album Covers #205 — Covers that tell you to chill

Trevor doesn’t seem to be too worried about any trouble over Bridgewater. Just sitting there with his ale, smiling away. I think the reason he’s smiling is that he came up with the clever title (a play on the Simon and Garfunkel 1970 hit “Bridge Over Troubled Water”), decades before Half Man Half Biscuit did in 2000.

No other info exists on either Trevor Crozier or his Friends.
Tune In, Turn On excludes the “Drop Out” part of the Timothy Leary quotation which has become the battle cry of slackers everywhere, ever since the 60s psychedelic era. The exact quote gives it as “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out”, changing the order of the first two instructions of this Slacker algorithm.

This record appears to have a selection of “The Hippest Commercials of The 1960s”. Hear the jingle for Cool Whip; or what about the smash hit Alka-Seltzer jingle by The T-Bones, called “No Matter What Shape Your Stomach’s In” (Most of the members of the T-Bones became the soft rock quartet Hamilton, Joe, Frank and Reynolds).

There has got to be some metaphorical connection between ’60s advertising and a photo of an obnoxiously-coloured TV sitting on a barren mud flat. Hmmm…

Visits: 114

Crappy Album Covers #202 — Suggestions for New Year’s Eve

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, and of course, you may find yourselves  in need of party records that would be suitable for the occasion.

How’se about a Knees-up Party for New Year’s Eve? Well, you can rest easy, since it just means a party or dance, and it was derived from the 1938 Harris Weston and Bert Lee song called “Knees Up Mother Brown”. This song title does in fact appear on this recording. In other trivia, England’s West Ham Football Club calls its website by this song title also.

And also, the revellers on the album cover look pretty harmless.
Any record with clowns on the album cover certainly qualify as a suggested record for New Year’s Eve.

While David Rose didn’t appear to have too many hits in this 1954 recording, these were mostly original compositions. Later, he would compose a song called The Stripper, which became the cliche go-to song for sexually suggestive movies and television scenes with humorous effect. The Stripper was intended as a B-side to the single for Ebb Tide. In this case, it was the B-side that charted #1 on Billboard in June 1962 and reached gold status.

Visits: 131

Crappy Album Covers #201 — Even more Monsters!

Marty Gold and His Orchestra, with an album that more than likely hails from around the mid to late 1950s, called “Hi Fi Fo Fum”. Not sure if that is supposed to be Gold dressed as The Green Giant on the cover. This site reports that this album hails from a period when Gold’s work was the most interesting.
In April of 1972, blues artist Bill Maloney and (possibly) a few other musicians put out this album “Pleasure Pudding” under the name Sweet Pie. Recorded mostly live in Wilmington, Vermont. In view of this, the second track has the title “Vermont: A Lazy Man’s Colorado.” This would seem to work best place to buy generic viagra only if you live in the New England area. Otherwise, Colorado can be a lazy man’s Vermont.
One of the tracks is called “Too Drunk to Ball”, a song which predates the Dead Kennedy’s top 40 hit (at least in England) called “Too Drunk to F**k”. As Stewart Mason points out: “[Sweet Pie is] an appealingly freaky mixture of spoken word rambles just this side of stoned babbling and spacy piano blues that sound like what would have happened if Sun Ra had taken his outer-space parade into the honky tonks”. If you are indeed curious, you can buy and download thier music at ESP-Disk.

Visits: 187

Crappy Album Covers (sidebar) — The (belated) Furr Shrine

Fans of this blog may recall that venerable, but enigmatic group of CAC makers from who-knows-where called Furr. As you can see clearly, they are pretty derivative, and the cover shown here dates back to 1977  (so I was close), according to this CAC blog.

Also, according to the same blog, some visitors categorized their music as bubblegum. Hmm… sounds believeable.

But their song titles (these guys have a track listing!) still sound like titles pulled out of the Kiss reject bin: “Sister Honky Tonk”, “Wow, yeah”, and “Goin’ Down the Road” are examples.

But if we are to believe their other links to Amazon (which I don’t), they are now called “The Furr”, hail from Winnipeg, and have a current 2007 demo released on places like Amazon and CD Baby, entitled “Furr is Murder”. CD Baby has a short bio of The Furr (if they are from Winnipeg, then why does the Canadian Amazon site list them as an Import?). It would appear from their bio that “The Furr” did not exist before 2005. Since this is a 1977 album, either the bio is wrong and they’re all old geezers (I wouldn’t want to be a geezer in all that getup), or we are talking about two different bands.

The Furr are also on Facebook. They have reportedly broken up. But, looking at a recent picture of Matt and Darcy (two of The Furr’s  former members), they don’t look a day over 25. They would have been born 5 years after this album came out. I rest my case.

Visits: 126

Crappy Album Covers #195 — How a CD was made back in the day

The Swedish group The Spotnicks made this album called Out-A-Space back in 1962. They were among the first really successful Swedish group to exist on the international scene, in the same way that The Ventures and The Shadows did in the late 50s.

Unlike The Ventures, I know of little indication of them making it big across the pond, but they did score many UK hits in their tenure. The space suit gimmick was part of their trademark, and they appeared that way in all their concerts.

Making a CD was hard work, back in the day. You take these metal tongs, clasp the CD in between, then hold them over this shaping tool, then you stick it in the fire until the metal starts to glow and get soft. Then you pit it for the audio tracks with a hammer and chisel.

Uh, a really small hammer and a really small chisel.

Hey, it’s a living.

Croatian MiÅ¡o Kova? was the biggest selling singer from the former Yugoslavia, selling over 20 million records, cassettes, and CDs to date. He had won the Yugoslavian Split Festival 5 times up until 1980, more than any other to that  day. While Wikipedia gives a detailed biography of him, it does not mention this single. Translated, “Za Tvoju Ljubav Sve Bih Dao” appears to mean roughly : “For Your Love I Would Give”. The other side of this single, “Tužno Srce Moje“, translates to roughly: “Sad My Heart”.

 

Visits: 84

Crappy Album Covers #194 — Cliche Clowns

See this clown? Look how much fun he’s had! Fun, fun, fun! So much fun, the entire circus collapsed around him, and now he’s having no more fun. His former employer sold the junk for scrap, and once in a while he comes over to the junk yard to rekindle old memories. Otherwise, he panhandles on a street corner downtown. No more fun! Boo hoo hoo!If they are going to entitle this record “A Day of Fun at the Circus”, then why in the h-e-double sticks was this picture chosen?
That’s the panhandler from across the street.  At least he bothers to crack a smile, with his album “When The Children Sing” (Cuando Cantan Los Ninos). The ultimate cliche hobo clown, smoking a stogie and looking dapper in his kid gloves, Red Skelton style.No other information was found.

Visits: 95

Crappy Album Covers 193 — Tackiness past and present

Other blogs have already commented on Brooke Hogan’s 2009 CD The Redemption, especially AOL Radio, who has declared this cover the #1 worst of 2009. True, it would look tacky on the side of a van, let alone a CD, but it has a trailer trash groove about it that befits the daughter of Hulk Hogan. 

This being Brooke Ellen Bollea’s second album, she has already made the cover of FHM (anyone surprised?), has had her own reality TV show where her father sometimes appears, and even has her own YouTube account, BrookeStarTV.
I had to rename this graphic so that I could remember that Don Elliott’s album “Music for the Sensational Sixties” was released in the 1950s. 1958, to be exact. Elliott was likely betting that, in two years’ time, they would be driving their Vespas through the Milky Way while listening to 5-time Downbeat award winner Don Elliott and His Orchestra serve some tunes that would go nicely with the space age. Coming at you, Jetson-style, in “Stereo-Spectrum”, whatever that means.

Visits: 50

Crappy Album Covers #192 — Non Sequiturs and Weirdness

Album_Cover_Crap_401_fischerspooner-the-entertainer Let’s  see if I can figure this out … Dusan Reljin Fischerspooner wears a top hat (of the vaudeville variety) attached to a metal cage extending the height of his forehead; the hat is somehow connected to two bungee cords which also are tied to hs neck; and finally the top of his hat is attached to what appears to be a circular flourescent lamp. 

This is as close as one can get to a Gary Numan imitation in Fischerspooner’s 2009 album, “Entertainment”. AOL Radio has rated this CD cover as the #2 worst cover of 2009.
Album_Cover_Crap_349 No information exists on these adorable, slightly mischievous children, and even less on the little girl plugging her ears. She doesn’t look too happy with the choir’s singing. Nevertheless, I am left scratching my head wondering why they chose that photo to promote the record?
Also, no info on the album “Merry (Music for) Christmas” either.

Visits: 96

Crappy Album Covers #191 — Slightly creepy

Album_Cover_Crap_403 I am not sure why it matters that a record album be advertised as “full color” high fidelity, but that is the kind of thing that comes with this compilation of “Rock and Roll Party Oldies and Goodies”, I suppose. 

I am not sure which is dorkier: the guy hopping up and down and not being sure whether he is actually enjoying himself; or the barefoot young girl parachuting down with her skirt fully airborne. I think the reason for the pained expression on the guy’s face is from the fact that they bailed out of a plane from 5 miles in the air without a parachute, and they are about to become sidewalk souffle.
Album_Cover_Crap_405_thunder-thighs-blowupdoll This one comes from Bunk Strutts, who posted it before I did. 

Thunder Thighs are a group of three British female backup singers who apparently were well-known in the industry. They decided to make a record of themselves, and got Lynsey de Paul to write their first hit single “Central Park Arrest” in 1974, which made it to #30 on the British Charts that year.

They had previously provided backing vocals to the likes of Lou Reed, Mott the Hoople, and Jerry Lee Lewis.

 

Visits: 178

Crappy Album Covers #190 — I Can’t Count

Album_Cover_Crap_328_Cool_Five Hiroshi Uchiyamada (1936-2006) and The Cool Five are a Japanese group that proves that not knowing how to count is not merely a symptom of brainless white North American schoolchildren anymore, if it ever was. Determined to smash through Oriental stereotypes (after we sing a tune, join us for some Calculus!), the Cool Five have always boldly portrayed themselves as six people. No “Asian fail” for these folks! They get the White fail! 

Even after Hiroshi’s death, they searched around for a sixth member to fill up the Five, and found Kiyoshi Maekawa to join up with Etsuro Miyamoto, Masaki Kobayashi, Masashi Osawa, Ryoma Nishida, and Tetsuya Yamagami.

Since 1969, their total sales nearly exceeded 6 million units. Maybe that’s the only math that really matters.
Album_Cover_Crap_404_purgatorio_com Can’t count to 4. There yuh go. White fail. 

Please God, let the patron saint of mathematicians (whomever s/he may be) come down to these people with their blessings and maybe knock some math sense into them. Amen.

 

Visits: 75

Crappy Album Covers #189 — Faerie Dust

Album_Cover_Crap_348 This is likely a late 70s release from the Hungarian prog rock group Omega. If it makes you feel any better, there is a 2002 album by them called Time Robber where they are all dressed in black.This is supposed to be spacey and experimental and the cover makes it look like some of the members have spent too long under the blow dryer.
Album_Cover_Crap_400_super-animal-brothers-iii-ear-pwr “Psychopharmaceutical Monopoly” is played with as many players as you want. Everyone must bring their own stash of drugs. Instead of a bank (as in real monopoly), you have a “psych ward” where the new drugs are dispensed into circulation to the other players. Players are allowed to consume their drugs during play to prevent their opponent from taking them. However, consumed drugs are considered no longer in play, and the player who consumed the drug(s) has to still have the competence to roll dice and move his piece around the board correctly, otherwise, he is out, and his remaining stash sent back to the psych ward.That is the idea this cover seems to convey, with “Ear Pwr’s” 2009 album “Animal Brothers”. AOL Radio has declared this cover to be the third worst of 2009. The other two will come in subsequent postings.

Visits: 185

Crappy Album Covers #188 — Sex Education

Album_Cover_Crap_347 The sexual education of our young is the one touchy point in our society.  And whether parents are really saying the right things is what worries counsellors and psychologists all over the world.

 

Look at the father on the left presumably talking with the young boy. Hopefully, the father is not “showing him the moves” with his right hand, since I don’t think that kind of sex ed is what anyone intended.
Album_Cover_Crap_344 I would guess that this is how young girls end up if they don’t have sex ed. Like Nancy Walker here.It is equally likely that you can turn the logic around and say that Nancy was the victim of too many men who didn’t know what to do with their trumpets. Could there be anything worse?

 

Nancy Walker directed in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, as well as showing up as Ida Morganstern in the spinoff sitcom Rhoda.

 

Visits: 171

Crappy Album Covers #187 — Food on Vinyl IX

Album_Cover_Crap_343 Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen to the sub-series that never ends! FOOD ON VINYL!Martha and her ugly sister greta were in bed sleeping when they were awaken by a rumbling outisde their room. They followed the rumbling to the kitchen, when, suddenly, they were attacked by snacks! Marauding hamburgers, with evil eyes, flying through the air.This is a cover for the U. S. release of the 1981 album from Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, which was called “Ismism” elsewhere, but they thought “Snack Attack” would work better for North Americans. It yielded one top-40 single on Billboard: “Under Your Thumb”. The title track never charted.
Album_Cover_Crap_381 Gershon Kingsley is the composer of  this classic tune that no conscientious tacky ’70s synth collector should be without. He recorded it in 1969, where it broke wide open in Europe. Hippies and nerds alike copped to it. Hot Butter records it in 1972 and even kids as young as 5 got into it. And of course, it was of that certain genre of music that made it into more than one K-Tel compilation.The album cover could have been designed by Andy Warhol, but I doubt it.

Visits: 133

Crappy Album Covers #186 — A Parent’s Horror

Album_Cover_Crap_341 A parent’s horror: Ukuleles. On tour, no less. Pay admission, you get to hear a whole orchestra of them.Few people can make a ukulele sound good.  This is an elpee’s worth of toons from a group of classmates, possibly from Halifax, by Order of Canada recipient J. Chalmers Doane and a group of his pupils. This was Doane’s second recording, released in 1974, of a total of 9 albums of children and their ukeleles. This was reportedly recorded during a tour of Quebec and Ontario.
Album_Cover_Crap_345 Another horror: Babies crying! For forty-five solid minutes! Can you stand being in a room that long while this is playing? On a more solemn note, what did the guys in the studio do to make the babies cry? Take away their rattle? Slap them up’side the head? Electric shock treatment? You got to wonder.

Actually, you need not. These are recordings of  more than 20 different kinds of diseased babies, so that physicians can tell the kind of disease by the kind of cry the baby makes. Recorded in 1971 by a South African doctor, Dr. Eugene Weinberg. Hear babies with Chronic Asthma! Cystic fibrosis! Severe Pneumonia! Cri du Chat! Hydroencephaly! You’ll never mis-diagnose again!

Visits: 128

Crappy Album Covers #185 — Family Bands II

Album_Cover_Crap_346 Available for $21.00 on some websites, this 1977 album features siblings Rick, Jack, Toby, Jill and Carrie who hail from Minneapolis, and according to Bizarrerecords.com (click on image) they still are performing as grownups.
Album_Cover_Crap_342 Comedians John and VickiJo Witty are here with their album called “Family Portrait”. Not sure about their style of humour (haven’t heard of them), and info is hard to find online; although I have found this album for sale in some places. 

 

The Groucho glasses gag is old by several generations, and I hope that is no reflection on the originality of the humour within. I have found it on sale from a few places in my online searches.

Visits: 116