Crappy Album Covers #116 — Banarne-Rama!

Hits: 16

Album_Cover_Crap_194_Flickr Swedish children’s entertainers Trazan and Banarne are at it again with another two records depicting a kind of  Trazan character who looks like Curious George Harrisson; and a scary looking primate called Banarne. 

Where do they find a restaurant with silverware and fine crystal in the jungle? Also, being a jungle, there would be no need of a fake potted fern when real ones are likely plentiful.

Album_Cover_Crap_193_Flickr Just to show that no animals were killed in the making of  this children’s show, Trazan and Banarne reveal themselves to be vegetarians, with their meal consisting of  a watermelon split: a half watermelon with cream on top, with cherries, pineapple and banana garnish. 

So, this means they are not strict vegetarians.

Crappy Album Covers #113 — Groovin' … or something

Hits: 25

album_cover_crap_155_showandtelmusic_com BC and Frenchy are classified by Show and Tell Music as “Hillbilly Synth Wave”. This page discusses the two musicians, Bruce (last name?) and Carroll Frenzilli. An Italian named Frenchy. Nice. 

Obiously a DIY album cover.

pic10383 Reverend Dexter Wise
Rapper In Disguise
Rappin’ with the boyz
Makin’ joyful noise
Is it gangsta rap?
He ain’t into that! 

Not sure when this one came out.

Crappy Album Covers #106 — Crappy Canadian Covers

Hits: 21

… And both of them are from that group from Montreal called April Wine. This group was really big in Canada in the 70s and 80s, and they had some of my favourite songs that I grew up with. Trouble was, while their music was really good, their record covers consistently sucked greasy cheese balls. They were flat, cliche covers that made no impression whatsoever on the buyer. Here are two of, in my opinion, the worst album covers that April Wine had offered in this vein.

Album_Cover_Crap_169_April_Wine This is their 1973 album “Electric Jewels”, which is cliche in every detail  and screams to the buyer nothing more than “this is an album with music in it”. It totally belies what is inside the covers of this album. Well, there is “Electric” in the title, so you might be expected to play this one a little louder. 

While just about every track on this record is a strong track, capable of getting you hooked, none of its three singles made the top-10 (Lady Run, Lady Hide (peaked @ 19, lasted 5 weeks); Weeping Widow (peaked @ 40, lasted 2 weeks); and Electric Jewels (never made the top 40)).

Both records in today’s posting could easily have been designed by K-Tel.

Album_Cover_Crap_170_April_Wine_2 The cover for “Live at the El Mocambo” embellishes the design on the backdrop of one of the stages of the landmark night club. The two palm trees were part of El Mocambo’s trademark. But this idea only works as an album cover backdrop if you live in Toronto. If you are from outside Toronto, or have never been in the night club, you are left scratching your head, wondering if they’ve adopted a Jimmy Buffett sound. 

The ElMo, as it is known to us locals, is located on 404 Spadina, in the middle of what they call the Computer Ghetto in Downtown Toronto. Got changed to a dance studio a few years back, then re-opened again.

The Ramones played there. So did Lou Reed, Blondie, The Police, Black Flag, Jonhhy Winter, Charles Mingus, Rush, Elvis Costello, U2, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and even Marilyn Monroe. She played there in 1958. When April Wine recorded live for this album in 1977, they were opening for The Rolling Stones.

Just like a Canadian band to take all that tradition, and all those bragging rights, and make an album cover that is as lame as you can possibly make it. Believe it or not, their concerts were not lame, explaining why they recorded 7 live albums in their tenure. This album reputedly has a killer live version of Oowatanite. But who would know? By 1979, I remember noticing piles of these albums in the delete bin.

In total April Wine had released 35 singles by 1993, and 21 of them charted in the Top 40. 7 of them were hits in the U. S., with three of them peaking on Billboard in the Top 40: Could Have Been A Lady (1972), Roller (1979), and Just Between You and Me (1981). At least 3 of their albums went either platinum or double platinum.

A Do-It-Yourself Indie Band Album Cover

Hits: 30

  1. Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random… Read More”, or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. Or alternatively, pick a band name using the band name generator and word of your liking at bandnamemaker.com (my preferred method). Warning: to my knowledge neither method will generate a band name such as “Jesus of Kapuskasing”. That name was pure invention. Jesus is, well, Jesus; and Kapuskasing (pronounced cap-us-KAY-sing) is a small town in northern Ontario. I used it because “Jesus of Montreal” was already taken (it is the title of an independent film). Wikipedia has that title.
  2. Go to “Random quotations” or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. In both cases above, I used the Wikipedia titles from rule #1 to title the album.
  3. Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days.  The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. I threw less caution to the wind and looked a little harder.
  4. Use photoshop or similar to put it all together. Make sure it’s a square. 500 x 500 pixels is ideal. I require a square image too, but I do not have “ideal” limits. Whatever the size, it ends up on my blog as 300 x 300.

How to Make Your Own Indie Band Album Cover

Hits: 19

  1. Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random… Read More”, or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. Or alternatively, pick a band name using the band name generator and word of your liking at bandnamemaker.com (my preferred method). Warning: to my knowledge neither method will generate a band name such as “Jesus of Kapuskasing”. That name was pure invention. Jesus is, well, Jesus; and Kapuskasing (pronounced cap-us-KAY-sing) is a small town in northern Ontario. I used it because “Jesus of Montreal” was already taken (it is the title of an independent film). Wikipedia has that title.
  2. Go to “Random quotations” or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. In both cases above, I used the Wikipedia titles from rule #1 to title the album.
  3. Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days. The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. I threw less caution to the wind and looked a little harder.
  4. Use photoshop or similar to put it all together. Make sure it’s a square. 500 x 500 pixels is ideal. I require a square image too, but I do not have “ideal” limits. Whatever the size, it ends up on my blog as 300 x 300.

Crappy Album Covers #101 — Latest religious messages

Hits: 17

album-cover-crap-49_thriftstoreart_com No idea of the artist, but I guess that the lesson here is that a fascination with morbidity affects us in different ways. Some of us contemplate death; others form a heavy metal band; still others punk rock; some write about what the experience must be like, and some people, like these folks on this CAC, enjoy walking around on graveyards wondering where the heck they are.

And that is the question, isn’t it? These folks, like many of us, often have unfinished business with such people for which inconveniaces such as untimely deaths create obstacles for us. If you found such a dead person, say, sitting at a bar, wouldn’t you like to give them a piece of your mind? Or tell them you’re sorry? Or forgive them for something?

album-cover-crap-8_lp-cover-lover An album title which has many meanings, depending on how you emphasize the words. Such as:

“What’s your name?”

“My name is Al Kaseltzer”

“Jesus! What a name!”

Crappy Album Covers #100 — Monsters!

Hits: 22

album-cover-crap-55_thriftstoreart_com Barry Louis Polisar is another one of many CAC makers that appear to have one solution or another to deal with rebellious children. And you know, it is something that no parent I know has ever thought about: Threaten to eat them! 

Eating children has been advocated throughout history as the remedy to one social ill or another. If you recall, Jonathan Swift, when he was still a newspaper editor in Ireland sometime in the late 1600s, wrote A Modest Proposal, which advocated the consumption of children for food. But only the poverty-stricken children, so that it would put an end to the problem of poverty-stricken children in Ireland. It was a clever idea, but sadly however, the urgings of newspaper editorials rarely make it into the cornerstone of Irish public policy (or policy elsewhere, so I hear).

It is nice to know that Polisar is willing to take Swift seriously and put himself on the line for the greater good. Of course, the difference is, Swift was only joking to make a point about poverty.

album_cover_crap_163_showandtelmusic_com Let Ron “The Terminator” Curtis show you the Sounds Of Love, as soon as you tell him where you’ve hidden Sarah Connor. 

Does Ron look like he’s in a loving mood? Would you trust him to show you what love sounds like? Is that an Uzi he has in his pocket or is he happy to see you? You can’t tell with these cyborgs. Just stay clear, is all I can say.

Crappy Album Covers #99 — Creepy Sexuality

Hits: 25

album-cover-crap-60_playmates This is the 1958 record which started their short career in singing, being the first of four albums for the American novelty act The Playmates. The single “Beep Beep” lasted 12 weeks on Billboard, peaking at #4. The lyrics mention a Cadillac and AMC’s Nash Rambler, which caused sales of the Rambler to skyrocket. 

When the single crossed the Atlantic, the Brits had laws against product placement in the lyrics, so the British single had no mention of specific brand names in the single.

The playmates broke up in 1964.

album-cover-crap-78_lpcoverlover_com I am not sure who recorded this or what label it was on, but, hey, does it matter? The title tells us right away that this is not a singing record. 

To make picking up girls easy, life experience tells me you need to have a lot of money, job security, and looks come second. Actually, this has been proven to be true cross-culturally, and is believed to be a survival tactic of our species that choices of mates take place in this manner.

But this album came out before we knew any of that, more than likely. And someone likely made a mint off of people’s ignorance.

Crappy Album Covers #98 — Still More Belly Dancing

Hits: 22

album_cover_crap_119_-_belly_4 One idea I haven’t yet explored is a blog of belly dancer favourites; a kind of “belly dancer top 40”. I don’t know if it will catch on, though.When you buy a record, its about the music. But if a guy says that he likes belly dancing, it probably is not about the music.

However, this record could be about what the belly dancers like. They may like music that has little to do with belly dancing. This could get interesting …

album_cover_crap_118_-_belly_3 Artie Barsamian currently leads the Boston Big Band and Swingtet. Barsamian is an afficionado of the Big Band sound in the tradition of Benny Goodman, and has been following that tradition for over 50 years.Very little info appears on the album “The Seventh Veil”.

Food Researchers announce new genetically-modified fruits

Hits: 34

Researchers in the field of genetically-modified foods will announce in an up-coming issue of The Journal of Food Science a new breakthrough in the genetic technologies responsible for the growing of some of the basic fruits and vegetables we put on our table. These technologies will literally change the shape of the fruits and vegetables we put on our table every day. These shocking photos were first leaked to the blog “After These Messages

The above gallery depicts three fruits which were candidates in the pilot project spearheaded by an undisclosed transnational fruit company. The banana depicted shows the true power of genetically-modification to add company logos as part of the new design of these fruits. This opens the door for future use of the banana peel for the sale of advertising space for humanitarian organisations like ChildFind. The next banana you eat might have pictures of missing children grown into the banana peel.

One also cannot deny that the shape of these fruits — like that of a cube or rectangular prism — makes it easy for companies to package and ship, and also make it easier for consumers to place in their grocery bags.

The same will be happening to other fruits and vegetables. Spokespeople for the food industry say that nature does not provide us with fruits and vegetables that come in shapes that are convenient for us to carry from the market. The strawberry, like the banana, has an irregular shape, and giving it a cubic shape results in less bruising during transport. While there still needs to be some care taken for the packaging, some care still needs to be taken, since these fruits are soft and fleshy. Researchers are working on a more dense fruit and also on a banana which can be harvested in the ripened state so that consumers need not wait for days to eat under-ripe bananas, a sore point which has hurt banana sales in the past.

Researchers have also changed the shape of kiwis into small prisms, roughly the size of kid’s drink boxes. With an added artistic flair, and to reduce processing costs, they have also found a way for kiwis to grow their own straws, greatly reducing manufacturing costs at the plant level. One disadvantage is that kiwis are apparently resistant to genetic modification of its outer surface for placement of things like the company logo or the product name. This is largely due to its fibrous exterior. Strawberries face the same problem, having seeds on its exterior.

Sources at various fruit growing companies such as Chiquita and Dole vehemently deny any attempt to change the shape of fruits, which they say are trusted products which consumers have been familiar with for generations.

Many thanks to After These Messages for the photoshopping of those photos.

Rube-Goldberg Machines V

Hits: 14

Another one. A couple of years ago, this was a Honda Accord commercial, and it caused quite a sensation when it got released. It took over 606 takes and cost over 6 million dollars to make. Any minor misfirings resulted in having to set everything up from scratch, all over again. It was a 2-minute ad spot which was released in the UK in 2006.

Crappy Album Covers #86 — Bad Hair II

Hits: 34

album_cover_crap_121_-_hair_franklarosa_com I have no idea how many remakes of the Hair soundtrack there were. You know, this hippie chick looks like she has a case of running out of conditioner and shampoo. While this doesn’t hurt album sales in the least, it is still part of the problem.
Once again, we see a gorgeous naked woman but for her hair, “Hair” in large letters and “Music from” in small letters. In the same small lettering are the performers, called “The Sunshine Generation”.Would you rather hear songs like Aquarius and Good Morning Starshine from The Sunshine Generation or from The 5th Dimension and Oliver respectively?
album_cover_crap_109_-_howtosaveamarriage This was not going to be a bad hair album until I realised that the lady in this photo is wearing a wig.

The plot line to the movie is something like: A bachelor tries to save a friend’s marriage only to end up getting married himself, I think, to the friend’s mistress. This is a soundtrack to this 1968 comedy starring Dean Martin opposite Stella Stevens, with music by Micheal Legrand.

 

Crappy Album Covers #85 — One up for the ladies

Hits: 11

album_cover_crap_115_-_ragtime Never mind what the (usually male) record company exectives tell you. The real record salesmen are women. All they need to do to sell a record, regardless of its quality, is take off some or all of their clothes and pose for the album cover. Too bad the ones in this blog are entry are nameless, as they are most of the time.
album_cover_crap_111_-_dances This model  remains possibly clothed and looks suggestively at the camera lens. Definitely a “money shot”. Believe me, I have nothing against women who play no part in the music performance on album covers, but what makes this cover crappy is that it has little else going for it. Just a spinning globe in the forground to keep the guys guessing.

Crappy Album Covers #80 — Wanna Come to My Place?

Hits: 35

bongodate This is Jazz artist Mike Pacheco with his 1957 LP “Bongo Date”. Back then, there was the fascination with Beatnik culture. It was the Hip-Hop of the 1950s. 

Guy says to the girl: “Wanna come to my place and I’ll show you my instrument?” And the pick-up line actually works! It’s a date! Or maybe the girl is saying it to the guy. For me, it works both ways in this photo. Cherche la femme, indeed!

harmonicagang Johnny Puleo (1907-1983) was a pantomine artist, dramatic actor, and in his later years, master of the harmonica. He has recorded at least two albums with “His Harmonica Gang”, and has had at least two solo efforts. 

He’s the short guy in the foreground. Standing at 4′ 6″ tall (1.37 metres), he would show up on Ed Sullivan playing a bass harmonica that was almost the size of his head. He started in Vaudeville playing all of the large night clubs in the United States. His last performance was on television in 1982, when he appeared once on SCTV.

Crappy Album Covers #79 — Crappy to Infinity

Hits: 24

album_cover_crap_105_blonde_redhead-23 Proof that the lady on Blonde Redhead’s 2007 album “23” has an infinite number of legs: 

1) This woman has 4 legs

2) 4 is an even number

3) 4 is an odd number of legs for a woman to have

4) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity

Therefore, this woman has an infinite number of legs.

Tennis, anyone?

I have this one in my collection. The contents are pretty good, and the CD has had great reviews. 23 was one of the top 10 alternative albums of 2007. I’ve heard comparisons with other bands; but no — they stand on their own. They are very melodic and very listenable.

I think the reason for the crappiness of this cover is that, on one hand, it doesn’t look “alternative”, but it doesn’t look terribly normal. It’s a cover which confuses its audience. It also is not really an indication of what is inside. What’s inside is pretty consistent, well-done, and not so “weird” as this cover would suggest. The cover has since been modified.

album-cover-crap-107_-_polka_disco_franklarosa_com As was mentioned by this blogger, with this 1979 album by Jimmy Sturr and his Orchestra, we witness the union of the two most repulsive words in music. 

And to make things worse, it is actually a double album. But one has to realise that this album wasn’t made to further tighten the noose on disco; it was done to popularise polka. Jimmy Sturr still makes music and has his own website, sponsored by Mrs. T’s Perogies.

Crappy Album Covers #78 — Crappy on many levels

Hits: 10

tubby_boots I can’t resist adding this second Tubby Boots album, called “Goes Topless”.Whoa. 

This one is crappy on so many levels. Recall in our first Tubby Boots record shown last week that he thought he was a hipster. Now he thinks he is a female stripper. A female stripper wearing a Roman war helmet. And pink underwear with a bearded man drawn over his crotch. And, of course, the pasties.

On the bottom it says: “For the Mature-Minded Adult”. I am unsure how many “mature-minded” adults would be seen with this record. But if you are an adult and not mature-minded, you are obviously spared from having to buy this record.

cartyparty Bill Carty’s album here is also crappy on many levels. Imagine pulling up your blinds, to be confronted with this guy staring back at you?We have already seen Carty’s head go into orbit with the last album we saw, when we witnnessed him as the world’s first suicide bomber. Now his head is landing in front of your window. 

His eyes popping out of his head could be a mirthful look, or it could be hyperthyroidism. Or it could be his forever frozen look of surprise when he found out all he needed to set off the grenade was to pull the pin.

Crappy Album Covers #77 — Big Heads II

Hits: 24

billbarner1 Comedian Bill Barner was a comedian for a short stint in the Florida area in the 1960s. His comedy records are one of the earliest to appear. However, his career didn’t go too far, according to my informants (actually, it was from an interview between Woody Woodbury and WFMU in New York, which was podcasted). 

You can see clearly this is some kind of ’60s anaesthetic aesthetic. A woman is showing herself off, and Barner seems to show his appreciation.

Barner had to travel to San Francisco to get this recording made, signing up with Arrow Records. Lots of hints that this is from SF: Recording is done in “Mirth-Quake”; and Barner is standing (sort of) on a trolley.

billbarner2 Perhaps Duo and Arrow Records are the same company, since both have the “Mirth-Quake” monacre, and both have mostly the same messages on top and bottom as a whole. Both also show the same love for excessively large heads in the album artwork. 

Barner apparently plays piano, and does so live in front of a night club audience (as was the above album). They don’t say which night club allowed them to record. It would have been great publicity for the night club. But for all we know, a laugh track may have been his only audience.

He has released six other albums that I am aware of. Those lack the requisite big heads to be in this entry, but they are still pretty bad. One of them is a sequel called Trolley Bar Party II. Some of these records, depending on the condition, are collectors’ items.

Crappy Album Covers #75 — Big Heads I

Hits: 26

album-cover-crap-95_lpcoverlover_com 1960 crappy album cover (CAC) maker and, oh yeah, comedian to boot, Bill Carty has a variety of albums which all fit the high standards of crappiness that gives this blog such longevity. Here, we see a standard technique for CAC making that has been imitated by many CAC makers in many countries worldwide: thoughtless photo retouching.Workers at a construction site on the other side of Pompano Beach were probably scratching their heads after it appeared that ten of their blasting caps went missing.If Bill Carty is really “Blasting Off”, it’s only his head that is blasted off. Spectators below stare aghast at this horrid spectacle. This would mean that the late 60s the audience in The Space Sattelite Motel in Pompano Beach, Florida were witness to the world’s first suicide bomber. In those days, they didn’t have Homeland Security, either.

The Space Sattelite Motel, which was located in a city located north of Miami and closer to Fort Lauderdale was the epitome of 50s kitch. Carty would have been placed on a stage in the middle of an audience and a bar which surrounded the stage. The motel does not show up anywhere I have looked in the Pompano Beach area, and it may no longer exist.

lpcoverlover.com says this is from “Stere Oddities”, but I think that on seeing another record from the same label, I think it should be “StereOddities”.

ninonanni_bighead This is the other record I saw. See? The words are closer together. StereOddities just seem to love big heads on their records. And there are more. Many more. CAC collectors even have a special section for albums depicting disproportionately big heads (or disembodied big heads) of the artist on their covers. This is true for lpcoverlover, and it is also true of another account of a curio record store in the states that I have heard about.Nino Nanni (b. ?- d. circa1991) was another comedian on the same label. Both Nanni and Carty are mentioned in WFMU’s Beware of the Blog as “Nobodies”. Nanni did in fact have a great braritone voice, and perfect enunciation, apart from his talent with the piano. The main attraction from Stereoddities will be presented later in this series.

Both of these albums are rare, and are discussed at length, halfway through this WFMU podcast, starting at about 30 minutes:

(Adult Content) Crappy Album Covers #74 — Why sex is like chocolate in record cover design I

Hits: 21

You have heard that some women think that chocolate is like sex. Well when designing crappy album covers, the reverse is true: sex is like chocolate.

For one thing sex sells record albums.

For another, when a food goes rancid one can cover up the rancidity by covering the food in chocolate. Similarly, nudity can be used to hide the fact that an album cover is otherwise artless.

album-cover-crap-92_lpcoverlover_com This is a rare cover for Kool and The Gang’s 1971 album, their second before there was any hint of a commercial breakthrough. The one that shows up on Wikipedia is a more “normal” album cover, with some artfulness within the realm of a “typical” disco album.I’m not sure their cover of   “Wichitaw Lineman” works as a disco tune. 

But they needed more than sex to sell, since this album was a commercial flop.

album-cover-crap-101_lpcoverlover_com You know, if you are not really The Beatles and you are making a tribute album, the only way you can make people buy this record is to put “The Beatles” in large lettering, the word “Tributing” in small lettering, and get a young lady to pose topless for the album cover and hope that no-one notices that this is not a Beatles album.What better analogy to chocolate can there be? You know this album is going to sound a bit “off” and will most likely have third-tier Beatles imitators at best, but having a semi-nude on the cover makes it palatable.

 

(Adult Content) Crappy Album Covers #72 — Crappy Classical

Hits: 62

album-cover-crap-97_lpcoverlover_com The Eastman-Rochester Orchestra wanted to portray Pinocchio in an innocent way, but I’m not sure. First of all, he doesn’t look all that friendly, and something about him looks larger than life. Kind of like “Pinnochio attacks Manhattan”. 

Imagine a giant Pinnochio, tall as a skyscraper, dancing and causing havoc in a metropolitan area. “I got no strings,” indeed. When I look at this Pinnochio, I can’t get that image out of my head.

Now, that’s something to set to classical music.

All of the photos for today are from LP Cover Lover.

album-cover-crap-96_lpcoverlover_com Relaxation therapy, from Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman and Bill May.
To be fair, this album has strong followers. Just read this promo. But I’m not sure if I want to wrap myself in cellophane (that’s not water!) and lie in a river for any amount of time. What would the police say if they pass by? 

This is what makes me think that she looks like a murder victim who just washed up on shore. Looks like a case for CSI.

Another possible scenario for this photo is that this chick on the cover works in a Glad Wrap factory, see? Then, she gets caught in a roller, and she gets wrapped up in the stuff. Nobody notices, so they ship her out, and when she gets to Receiving at a warehouse, guys look at what they ordered, and see this chick hanging off at the end of the roll, semi conscious. No-one in receiving could find a semiconscious woman on the packing list or the invoice, so she and the roll are shipped back to the factory, where she is finally revived by paramedics to everyone’s … Peace of Mind, which is the title of the record.

album-cover-crap-102_lpcoverlover_com2 Classical artists try. They really do. What they need is their own “decade”. The fifties was a decade for jazz and blues; the sixties and seventies were owned by rock. In recent decades, I can’t think of any particular music that has dominated. 

Naked/topless women have been tried on many classical album covers, with uneven levels of success. A couple of my friends got together one time and someone talked about how the rapper 50 Cent got to be a big seller. Sales skyrocketed after he got shot in a gang dispute. Apparently, being shot several times gives rappers something called “street cred”, which boosts album sales.

So, the conversation turned to how fewer kids are being turned on by classical music. Packaging of classical music albums are often dry and stodgy. But even when they get seductive like this cover, album sales still remain low. The idea we had was to go into various classical studios where the musicians were, and shoot all of the performers, and see if their now-earned street cred makes their record sales go up. Late into the night, we gave up on the idea.

 

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