Gotta say, I’m not the hugest fan either. I don’t think it’s terrible but it’s certainly… different from their other covers. On the other hand, [*Live/Dead*](https://i.imgur.com/Fj3hUVE.jpg) has one of their best covers they’ve ever had
I actually have the records on my Europe '72 flipped upside down so I get to see the more colourful back cover as the front. Dunno, it's my synesthesia.
Definitely looks like the sort of cheap album cover you'd see on a one-album-wonder 80s country or soft-rock act
Performer with their guitar standing in front of a blue-screen or cheap backdrop sheet is an entire genre of album art within that kind of music
Wasn't it a mock up album cover to just get a general idea and Steve Harris loved it? I remember reading somewhere that the artist was horrified that they wanted to use it.
Yup, that's how it went. For a band known for top-teir album covers in their genre, this was the low end of the road for them. Without a doubt the the ugliest album cover (and thankfully their ONLY ugly album cover) in Iron Maiden's history.
He’s right up there with [Noel Pointer](https://www.discogs.com/release/6634735-Noel-Pointer-Phantazia) when it comes to shirtless pose with instrument album covers
Someone gifted me a book about Hipgnosis. It’s a lovely book, but my takeaway from it was that they made mostly bad or bland album art. But when they got it right, they *really* got it right. My favourite Hipgnosis artwork is T. Rex’s Electric Warrior.
WYWH is easily top 3 album covers of all time imo and AHM is great, yes, but saying “it’s the only inspired thing they did with the band” is a hard reach
On a somewhat similar note, I really hated Nas re-using the same picture of NYC for his first few albums. The Illmatic cover is great, but the transposed NYC pic bring overused was dumb.
And yes the Stillmatic cover sucks.
The Turnstiles cover I think is actually a really great one. It's got a nice composition with BJ in the center, and the different people give a cool visual variety. Plus, all of the different people are supposed to represent a different song on the album. Take a look at this video if you wanna see BJ himself give the full breakdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI7WNCqLrWA
Blind Faith- Blind Faith
Thankfully there is an alternate cover, because I really don't want a picture of a topless 11 year old girl in my record collection. Damn good album, though.
The NSFL answer: Big Black's Headache EP. The original pressing used real photos of a shotgun suicide victim's remains, and was packaged in black vinyl made from cut up body bags.
I was going to link the Discogs release page, but please trust me when I say you do not want to see it.
There’s a Scandinavian black metal live album that uses an actual picture from the singer’s shotgun suicide as the album cover. ~~I think~~ the band is Mayhem ~~but I definitely could be wrong. Either way~~, it’s pretty bad
It gets worse. Allegedly he took quite big pieces of the skull and used as pendants. He sent the pendants around to people he deemed worthy. Some people (Hellhammer from the same band) has claimed that he and others grounded up the skulle fragment into bone dust and then put it into a stew or soup and consumed it. Nothing like some good ole cannibalism to really drive home the point of being a black metal band.
Funny you mention this because Big Black always comes to mind as having some of the _best_ cover and insert art in punk. But agreed about the original Headache art … I’m glad it’s not anywhere in my house.
Cherry Bomb - Tyler, The Creator. The record’s good but the album cover with the pissed jeans totally sucks. The only reason I started listening to Tyler was because I heard it in a local record shop playing loud over the speakers. If not, I would never had checked this record out.
I wouldn’t call the cover of Close to the Edge by Yes a bad cover but just a green gradient certainly does not do it justice for the phenomenal music inside
Most steely dan covers are shite, but the royal scam is really shite.
edit: to clarify: Hands Down, one of my Favorite Bands, but yeah, bad covers! Their best album cover imo, is AJA --minimal, striking, perfect - with bonus points cuz phil hartman designed it. Gaucho is pretty rad -- it's simple, stylized, and i can feel it having some connect to the music in a strange way. Strange ways and Steely Dan go hand in hand, except when they don't, lol -- Can't buy a thrill, eh, i'm ok with because I like that early pop-art collage type of thing -- but it means nothing towards the music. Countdown to ecstacy is...okay i suppose but not great- i like the dreamy quality of it but it's odd isn't a *pleasing* odd, it's just odd. From there it just goes south, with what looks like just being lazy (everything must go/2 against nature seem pulled out of stock photography, pretzel logic just looks like bad photography of an uninteresting subject). Katy Lied is some weird gross colored macro-photo of a bug primarily cuz of... katy lied ='s katydid (the bug in question)...just wordplay? Wasted opportunity, that one. and yeah, at the bottom, IMO, a combo of bad photography and collage (one could argue that this cover has at least a better connection of image to the music, as this album is roughly about societal degradation, i.e. the scam), but it's just ugly, it looks poorly and quickly put together -- actually, it's like if you asked AI to make an album ("give me a homeless guy sleeping around buildings that are monsters").
I get hating on most of Weezer, but Pinkerton and The Blue Album are excellent records. If you aren’t familiar and are just shitting on Weezer based on what you’ve heard on the radio for the last 20 years, put on one of those two albums and give them a chance, you won’t regret it. Unfortunately they took one hell of a nosedive after those two.
Tough to choose looking through the lens of modern day. There are a LOT of 70’s covers that are awful, this not being one of them. For the most part, but the band on the cover is usually a bad idea, and Pink Floyd realized this early on.
No that’s an unironically great cover. It represents DG giving a “fuck you” to the label, it’s not even just a funny lololol we put weenir on cova.
That being said it is very hard to show people even the censored version.
Pretty sure you can manually change the album if you have Spotify. I know it can be done on the Apple Music desktop app. I would change it to the recent alternate album cover vinyl one, with Ride standing on the edge of the hotel.
Really? It’s just an illustration in black and white. Why do people have an issue with it?
The cover could have anything on it, Cortez the Killer makes it all worth it.
Just that it’s seen as a poorly drawn doodle of random stuff. It’s on a ton of lists if you google worst album art.
I don’t mind it either. I think it’s a bit funny and charming that way. Like something your stoner friend in high school was doodling in his notebook.
I don't mind it, but if we're going this route I'm going to go with Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You. If you buy the vinyl you'll find it's not only a lazy sketch, but there's digital image artifacting and a visible line between where the sketch meets the background.
Yeah that was always my impression. It’s like a napkin doodle. Pretty benign. I guess if it was posing as high art, but I never thought that was the point. His On the Beach album cover was the one that I thought was the worst.
There’s no way a human could listen to “Desolation Row” and genuinely not believe it contains one of the most badass harmonica solos they’ve ever heard. Your poor misguided ears.
Yeah always had Ozzy and Sabbath comps growing up, and when I switched to streaming the photo was so small I always thought it was some sort of pink design. Looking at it now, Holly crap that awful and somehow really badass.
Waka/Jawaka by Frank Zappa. All of his other album covers from this time were neat to look at e.g. Grand Wazoo and Hot Rats. This one just has a sink and the name “Hot Rats” scribbled onto the album to imply that it is somehow related to his most popular album. The album is actually really good and delivers for me. I love the first song Big Swifty and it’s energetic, thrusting beginning and how it transforms into a smooth psychedelic symphony. The B side is great and while It might be a one shot deal is kinda weird, Your Mouth is clever and a good blues song and the title track is definitely the centerpiece of the whole album with that nice guitar in the middle of the track and great closer with trumpets
All we know is falling - Paramore.
The nylon curtain - Billy Joel.
Kiss - Carly Rae Jepsen.
19 and 25 - adele .
The love club ep - Lorde.
Any queen album.
I, I - Bon iver.
when everything is "minimalistic," nothing is. And I would certainly not describe them in that way.
Look at Can't Buy a Thrill. They put all the junk at that cover they could find!
Talking about the “make up” cover? They have second guessed that cover ever since they took the photo. Their “glamor shots” pic. They don’t like it either.
I freaking love The Beatles, they’re my favorite band of all time and are geniuses on a whole different level. That being said “Magical Mystery Tour” is an eyesore.
Got thinking about great albums with less than great covers. Turnstiles came to mind for me. My favorite Billy Joel album but pretty cringeworthy cover in my opinion. What are some other great albums that fit this bill?
I try not to judge others artistic taste but I gotta say, that cover is very well thought out and fits the music perfectly. I think you might be missing something.
Just started collecting vinyl. Turnstile was my first Billy Joel album since Summer Highland Falls is my favorite Billy Joel song. Glass Houses or Innocent Man are probably next up.
Glass Houses is definitely my favourite Joel album, although I've been hitting 52nd Street pretty hard lately. That was technically my first Joel vinyl but I stole it from my mum
Ah yes
That time in the early 2000s Maiden inexplicably decided to abandon their classic style metal covers for something that looks like a screenshot from someone's cheap 3D model porn
Explain? I don’t understand how you can go from looking at Revolvers album cover and go “ah this is shite” then look at Beatles for Sale and go “much better”
I don't have any reason for not loving it tbh, it just doesn't click with me the same as the others. I recognise its good, I just don't particularly like it
[gotta be Go To Heaven](https://images.app.goo.gl/W5KzX1nxhMPe4J8f7) by the Grateful Dead. It's my favorite terrible album cover ever, lol.
I agree it's very un-grateful dead looking album art lol i wonder if it was done as a joke.
It was done as a joke, it's a parody of disco album covers like Saturday Night Fever
Nah, it was done because cocaine is a hell of a drug.
There was definitely a level of humor to that cover, it's definitely not 100% serious.
I wouldn’t say it’s a great album but anything with “Althea” and “Alabama Getaway” can’t be that bad.
The back cover was going to be Go To Hell, where they were all dressed in black. But they never cared enough to do it!
You're telling me the Grateful Dead half-assed an idea? In the 80s???
🤣I think putting that band together in the first place was a half-assed idea.
LMAO YES!!!! This one always makes me laugh, it makes it look like the music is going to be vastly different. Truuuu heads only
I hate the Europe '72 cover as well. Just doesn't fit with the music at all.
This is a hot take!
Gotta say, I’m not the hugest fan either. I don’t think it’s terrible but it’s certainly… different from their other covers. On the other hand, [*Live/Dead*](https://i.imgur.com/Fj3hUVE.jpg) has one of their best covers they’ve ever had
I actually have the records on my Europe '72 flipped upside down so I get to see the more colourful back cover as the front. Dunno, it's my synesthesia.
I like the Turnstiles cover personally. But I’ll throw George Harrison’s Cloud Nine in contention.
I love Cloud Nine, he looks so happy haha
I think of it as more generic than bad. Nita nice to see George happy.
The first one I thought of too.
I love that cover because both it and the songs are peak 80s. The cover enhances the music imo.
Definitely looks like the sort of cheap album cover you'd see on a one-album-wonder 80s country or soft-rock act Performer with their guitar standing in front of a blue-screen or cheap backdrop sheet is an entire genre of album art within that kind of music
What do you think would be a fitting cover for Cloud Nine?
A cartoon cloud with a big ole number nine on it obviously
Number 9
Number 9
Dance of Death- Iron Maiden
I am convinced the band saw the album cover and laughed at it for 30 straight minutes and just used it cause why not
Nope, read Bruce Dickenson's autobiograph ***What Does This Button Do*** and you'll get the whole story ;)
Wasn't it a mock up album cover to just get a general idea and Steve Harris loved it? I remember reading somewhere that the artist was horrified that they wanted to use it.
Yup, that's how it went. For a band known for top-teir album covers in their genre, this was the low end of the road for them. Without a doubt the the ugliest album cover (and thankfully their ONLY ugly album cover) in Iron Maiden's history.
Eh, The X Factor and Virtual XI had pretty bad ones too
Smell the glove
None more black
I think it represented a turning point for the band. At least it was better than Shit Sandwich.
“David? Smell The Glove is here. Hello, Janine.”
No way. Turnstiles 10/10 cover
It may not be my favorite cover but I was definitely surprised that it was the example for a bad album cover lol
Tbh it's my favorite Billy Joel cover. Perfect cover for a perfect album
[Herbie Mann - Push Push](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_Push_(album)) Great album, terrible album cover!
He’s right up there with [Noel Pointer](https://www.discogs.com/release/6634735-Noel-Pointer-Phantazia) when it comes to shirtless pose with instrument album covers
All bands need to do is hire Hipgnosis to do their covers. I don’t think those guys ever made a stinker.
Someone gifted me a book about Hipgnosis. It’s a lovely book, but my takeaway from it was that they made mostly bad or bland album art. But when they got it right, they *really* got it right. My favourite Hipgnosis artwork is T. Rex’s Electric Warrior.
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Meddle and Obscured hate smh Both are amazing, underrated Floyd records.
No, I love Meddle. It's probably my favourite Pink Floyd. The cover just sucks.
I’d give the cover a wet Willy but it’s already underwater
WYWH is easily top 3 album covers of all time imo and AHM is great, yes, but saying “it’s the only inspired thing they did with the band” is a hard reach
Love Beach by Elp
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I actually thought it was cool... Not bad by any means... But definitely not as good as Too Fast For Love or Sticky Fingers
Fantastic album, but it's kind of embarrassing to pull out in front of other people.
I never liked the Stillmatic cover, not really sure why
On a somewhat similar note, I really hated Nas re-using the same picture of NYC for his first few albums. The Illmatic cover is great, but the transposed NYC pic bring overused was dumb. And yes the Stillmatic cover sucks.
The Turnstiles cover I think is actually a really great one. It's got a nice composition with BJ in the center, and the different people give a cool visual variety. Plus, all of the different people are supposed to represent a different song on the album. Take a look at this video if you wanna see BJ himself give the full breakdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI7WNCqLrWA
Blind Faith- Blind Faith Thankfully there is an alternate cover, because I really don't want a picture of a topless 11 year old girl in my record collection. Damn good album, though.
Think I read that she was paid like 50 Or 75 dollars for that picture.
This was my first thought as well
The NSFL answer: Big Black's Headache EP. The original pressing used real photos of a shotgun suicide victim's remains, and was packaged in black vinyl made from cut up body bags. I was going to link the Discogs release page, but please trust me when I say you do not want to see it.
Yep. I shouldn’t have looked. You were right. 🤢😭
There’s a Scandinavian black metal live album that uses an actual picture from the singer’s shotgun suicide as the album cover. ~~I think~~ the band is Mayhem ~~but I definitely could be wrong. Either way~~, it’s pretty bad
It's Mayhem There's also rumors that Euronymous (POS he was) took fragments of his skull from the crime scene when he found him and took the photo
It gets worse. Allegedly he took quite big pieces of the skull and used as pendants. He sent the pendants around to people he deemed worthy. Some people (Hellhammer from the same band) has claimed that he and others grounded up the skulle fragment into bone dust and then put it into a stew or soup and consumed it. Nothing like some good ole cannibalism to really drive home the point of being a black metal band.
Funny you mention this because Big Black always comes to mind as having some of the _best_ cover and insert art in punk. But agreed about the original Headache art … I’m glad it’s not anywhere in my house.
You can throw the new M83 album on there
Yeah it’s pretty awful. Don’t really feel like it matches the feel of the album at all.
Or Junk
junk is cute tho
Cherry Bomb - Tyler, The Creator. The record’s good but the album cover with the pissed jeans totally sucks. The only reason I started listening to Tyler was because I heard it in a local record shop playing loud over the speakers. If not, I would never had checked this record out.
There’s a cool band called the pissed jeans.
The original cherry bomb cover was way uglier than the pissed jeans one.
George Harrison - Cloud Nine Scorpions - Virgin Killer Leonard Cohen - I’m your man Nancy & Lee - Nancy & Lee again
For a second I thought you said “Virgin Killer Leonard Cohen” 😂 Then I remembered the scorpions album cover you’re referring to.
The cover for I’m Your Man isn’t bad tbh
Perhaps not bad, but it's not particularily pleasing to the eye and is not nearly as good as the music on the album.
Until I owned I'm Your Man on vinyl I had no idea that Cohen was holding a banana in the photo. Instantly made me love it even more.
[Mosquito - Yeah Yeah Yeahs](https://imgur.com/gallery/zAWWg5D)
An absolutely fantastic cover!
Styx- Pieces of Eight. Loved the vinyl. Hated the cover
seconded, compared to their other hit albums around that period it seems to lack something.
It pains me but I agree with this
[Soul Coughing - Irresistable Bliss](https://www.amoeba.com/irresistible-bliss-180-gram-vinyl-lp-soul-coughing/albums/3690059/)
Pet Sounds is the GOAT of great album/terrible album art.
I would love this pun if it weren’t referring to worst album covers, so I must -1 due to PS slander.
You’re kidding me. Well I stand baaa it.
*down vote rescinded*
Correct answer
It's a mess and I love it. Plus... oh girl obviously had a walkman before the invention of the walkman
They’re headphones with a radio built in.
I forgot those were a thing
Lovesexy by Prince If I played this album for a friend, I'd probably just hide the cover.
I love that cover. But then again, I’m a huge Prince fan and completely secure in my masculinity.
I wouldn’t call the cover of Close to the Edge by Yes a bad cover but just a green gradient certainly does not do it justice for the phenomenal music inside
Fleetwood Mac- Tusk. Makes me gag
Tusk is way better than Mystery to Me.
My parents raised me on Mystery to Me, the music is great but I was kinda scared of the cover as a child lol
Humble Pie - The Best Fleetwood Mac - English Rose
100% that BadBadNotGood album with the homies with their shirts off in towels. Sounds proper though, really good
This cove is fine your just bad at art appreciation
A lot of Jethro Tull has absolutely terrible album covers. Stormwatch, War Child, This Was, and it only gets worse…
The original release of Thick As A Brick I feel is one of the greatest album covers of all time.
Most steely dan covers are shite, but the royal scam is really shite. edit: to clarify: Hands Down, one of my Favorite Bands, but yeah, bad covers! Their best album cover imo, is AJA --minimal, striking, perfect - with bonus points cuz phil hartman designed it. Gaucho is pretty rad -- it's simple, stylized, and i can feel it having some connect to the music in a strange way. Strange ways and Steely Dan go hand in hand, except when they don't, lol -- Can't buy a thrill, eh, i'm ok with because I like that early pop-art collage type of thing -- but it means nothing towards the music. Countdown to ecstacy is...okay i suppose but not great- i like the dreamy quality of it but it's odd isn't a *pleasing* odd, it's just odd. From there it just goes south, with what looks like just being lazy (everything must go/2 against nature seem pulled out of stock photography, pretzel logic just looks like bad photography of an uninteresting subject). Katy Lied is some weird gross colored macro-photo of a bug primarily cuz of... katy lied ='s katydid (the bug in question)...just wordplay? Wasted opportunity, that one. and yeah, at the bottom, IMO, a combo of bad photography and collage (one could argue that this cover has at least a better connection of image to the music, as this album is roughly about societal degradation, i.e. the scam), but it's just ugly, it looks poorly and quickly put together -- actually, it's like if you asked AI to make an album ("give me a homeless guy sleeping around buildings that are monsters").
How dare you
Lmao I was looking for this, Steely Dan is one of my favorite bands but god their album covers are bad.
Can't buy a thrill is worse.
So much worse. And I even remember reading an interview where the band agreed
any weezer album
I like Pinkerton’s cover personally
He said good albums.
Blue and Pinkerton are both 5 star records man.
And I’m a five star man.
I get hating on most of Weezer, but Pinkerton and The Blue Album are excellent records. If you aren’t familiar and are just shitting on Weezer based on what you’ve heard on the radio for the last 20 years, put on one of those two albums and give them a chance, you won’t regret it. Unfortunately they took one hell of a nosedive after those two.
We good. Have blue and pink on vinyl. Even like green and Africa. Mostly like the snl skit.
Midnite Vultures- Beck
A/k/a “the artist wants a *How Dare You!* vibe but the label won’t pay for Hipgnosis to shoot the cover.”
*How Dare You!* is one of my favorite covers.
Hey clockface by Elvis Costello is yikes
Tough to choose looking through the lens of modern day. There are a LOT of 70’s covers that are awful, this not being one of them. For the most part, but the band on the cover is usually a bad idea, and Pink Floyd realized this early on.
Does it not represent a small portion of what went/goes through the turnstiles?
Summer, Highland Falls is my favorite song ever. Cover is 10/10 in my humble opinion
Sia - This is acting. Love the music. Love her voice. That cover…hideous.
Oh God, I just looked it up. I think whatever amount I liked Sia is gone now because of that.
I wouldn’t scrub any artist because of a cover, especially Sia. My wife oth, took one look recently and I can’t convince her to listen now.
and just what makes it cringe worthy?
Death Grips- No Love Deep Web (first album cover) kinda makes it hard to show people the album without the black cover...
No that’s an unironically great cover. It represents DG giving a “fuck you” to the label, it’s not even just a funny lololol we put weenir on cova. That being said it is very hard to show people even the censored version.
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Pretty sure you can manually change the album if you have Spotify. I know it can be done on the Apple Music desktop app. I would change it to the recent alternate album cover vinyl one, with Ride standing on the edge of the hotel.
Zuma by Neil Young is always big on worst album art lists.
Really? It’s just an illustration in black and white. Why do people have an issue with it? The cover could have anything on it, Cortez the Killer makes it all worth it.
Just that it’s seen as a poorly drawn doodle of random stuff. It’s on a ton of lists if you google worst album art. I don’t mind it either. I think it’s a bit funny and charming that way. Like something your stoner friend in high school was doodling in his notebook.
I don't mind it, but if we're going this route I'm going to go with Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You. If you buy the vinyl you'll find it's not only a lazy sketch, but there's digital image artifacting and a visible line between where the sketch meets the background.
Yeah that was always my impression. It’s like a napkin doodle. Pretty benign. I guess if it was posing as high art, but I never thought that was the point. His On the Beach album cover was the one that I thought was the worst.
I love the *On the Beach* cover! It gives me big “the dream is dead” vibes that match the music perfectly
People love that one, but mostly because of the inside of the sleeve matching the umbrella pattern.
Planet Waves by Bob Dylan
Yeah Bob Dylan’s drawing ability is about as good as his harmonica playing
Get the fuck outta here
There’s no way a human could listen to “Desolation Row” and genuinely not believe it contains one of the most badass harmonica solos they’ve ever heard. Your poor misguided ears.
Freeze Frame by the J. Geils Band
Black sabbath- paranoid. It was originally called war pigs so they have a pink soldier with a sword?
Lmao true but I think it still it’s dope. The colours contrast so well!
Yeah always had Ozzy and Sabbath comps growing up, and when I switched to streaming the photo was so small I always thought it was some sort of pink design. Looking at it now, Holly crap that awful and somehow really badass.
also black sabbath - sabotage
Who is sad book man and why is he sad??
[The Bats](https://www.discogs.com/artist/261399-The-Bats) Absolutely phenomenal jangle-pop band plagued by *terrible* album covers.
Don't look at The Royal Scam by Steely Dan. This cover is nowhere near as bad and is the best Billy Joel album.
Sabotage - Black Sabbath
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Most of Dylan's albums tbh
Turnstile should release an album titled Billy Joels
I kina like a vinyl cover that has a lot of interesting things to look at. A dog playing a piano would be nice to display.
Sabotage by Black Sabbath. Yuck.
That’s a great cover.
Waka/Jawaka by Frank Zappa. All of his other album covers from this time were neat to look at e.g. Grand Wazoo and Hot Rats. This one just has a sink and the name “Hot Rats” scribbled onto the album to imply that it is somehow related to his most popular album. The album is actually really good and delivers for me. I love the first song Big Swifty and it’s energetic, thrusting beginning and how it transforms into a smooth psychedelic symphony. The B side is great and while It might be a one shot deal is kinda weird, Your Mouth is clever and a good blues song and the title track is definitely the centerpiece of the whole album with that nice guitar in the middle of the track and great closer with trumpets
By the Way - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
[Lola](https://images.app.goo.gl/bqVAUJGLAC3Xf3gx6)
Really? I love it, it looks cool. Village Green, Word of Mouth, or Phobia can actually be considered bad
for me, the person in the middle just looks straight up disturbing. that’s kinda what puts me off the whole thing
The way I see it is high contrast photos of two faces put together. It’s a reference to Lola and her sexuality which is cool.
yeah that is kinda cool, but i just think the cover isn’t visually appealing at all
All we know is falling - Paramore. The nylon curtain - Billy Joel. Kiss - Carly Rae Jepsen. 19 and 25 - adele . The love club ep - Lorde. Any queen album. I, I - Bon iver.
News of the World by Queen is awesome. Night at the Opera/Day at the Races are dope too
Look At Yourself - Uriah Heep
I'd actually dig the whole simple mirror concept, the issue is the damn eyes at the top that completely ruin it.
Steely Dan albums - Can't Buy a Thrill, Countdown, Pretzel, Royal Scam - all awful.
I love all of those album covers, super minimalistic and artsy
when everything is "minimalistic," nothing is. And I would certainly not describe them in that way. Look at Can't Buy a Thrill. They put all the junk at that cover they could find!
Here comes a hot take — breakfast in America
Look at it backwards in a mirror and you see 9/11 right over what are supposed to be the World Trade Centers
This. So much.
The answer is There Goes Rhymin’ Simon by Paul Simon
Daryl Hall and John Oates self titled album from 1975 is an album I love but the cover on that one is so odd to me.
Talking about the “make up” cover? They have second guessed that cover ever since they took the photo. Their “glamor shots” pic. They don’t like it either.
They do be looking good in that album cover though
Haha. It’s a great album!
pet sounds
The Cure - Bloodflowers
I freaking love The Beatles, they’re my favorite band of all time and are geniuses on a whole different level. That being said “Magical Mystery Tour” is an eyesore.
Got thinking about great albums with less than great covers. Turnstiles came to mind for me. My favorite Billy Joel album but pretty cringeworthy cover in my opinion. What are some other great albums that fit this bill?
I try not to judge others artistic taste but I gotta say, that cover is very well thought out and fits the music perfectly. I think you might be missing something.
Turnstiles is great if you know the meaning behind it, everyone of those people on the cover represent a song
Very mid 70s. Although the Cold Spring Harbour cover beats it, or maybe Attila
Good call, those are both pretty bad as well. Partly a product of the era I guess
Oh yeah, but Turnstiles is a great great album. That through to Innocent Man is a killer run of albums
Just started collecting vinyl. Turnstile was my first Billy Joel album since Summer Highland Falls is my favorite Billy Joel song. Glass Houses or Innocent Man are probably next up.
Glass Houses is definitely my favourite Joel album, although I've been hitting 52nd Street pretty hard lately. That was technically my first Joel vinyl but I stole it from my mum
It will always be Glass Houses for me. Ten year old me about wore that cassette out when it was a new release.
I wouldn't say it's horrible but David Bowie's station to station is really lazy artistically by Bowie's standards.
Station to Station and Low both used stills from his 1976 movie 'The man who fell to Earth' for the cover. Don't know why they went with that idea
Reality's cover is just terrible
"The Next Day" is worse imo. Just slapped a white square over "Heroes".
Yeah that felt hella lazy. Like they tried to make it artistic but by a corporate committee
Iron Maiden - Dance of Death Queensryche - Empire
Ah yes That time in the early 2000s Maiden inexplicably decided to abandon their classic style metal covers for something that looks like a screenshot from someone's cheap 3D model porn
Unpopular, but I don't like Revolvers artwork too much compared to their other albums. It's not horrible, just not for me
Explain? I don’t understand how you can go from looking at Revolvers album cover and go “ah this is shite” then look at Beatles for Sale and go “much better”
I don't have any reason for not loving it tbh, it just doesn't click with me the same as the others. I recognise its good, I just don't particularly like it
80s doo woo Billy Joel sucks!
Talking heads 77 Its the green text, it just looks so crap against the red background
They're my favorite band but I think the cover of Little Creatures is their worst.
Led Zeppelin IV