Music

Twitter Users Are Sharing The Worst Cover Art Of Excellent Albums, And It’s Real Good

Normally we'd say don't judge a book by its cover, but here, judgement is justly deserved.

by Jared Richards  25 May 2018

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

Twitter users are sharing the God-awful artworks of albums they otherwise adore — and while normally we’d say don’t judge an album by its cover, sometimes judgement is justly deserved.

Andrew Marle, a UK music columnist for The Guardian, kicked things off yesterday by asking his followers to share their pick of terrible covers on amazing albums.

Marle chose Irish new wave band The Undertones’ 1983 compilation album, All Wrapped Up, which ran too far with its title only to land on the befuddling literal and surreal meat-dress:

Needless to say, there was some pretty fierce competition. In terms of decades, the ’60s reigned supreme, as labels seemingly went wild with power, or just stuck whatever photo of the band on the cover they had on hand.

Take the Beach Boys’ inexplicable cover for Pet Sounds, where the band feed deer. Cute, save for the giant white doe’s ass, which is front-and-centre:

Then there’s the ‘too many drugs’ haze of the late ’60s — while The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album cover is an intricate, colourful and conspiracy-theory inspiring delight, the band’s next release, the LSD-inspired Magical Mystery Tour is more on the messy side.

To be fair, if you read it as a prophetic image of Microsoft Paint-made eyesores, it’s decades ahead of its time.

There’s something deeply unsetting about the shading of the ass on The Velvet Underground’s iconic live album with Lou Reed.

Some began to dive into the deep and rich tradition musician’s obsessions with bad-ass felines, from ’90s psych-rock to L.L. Cool J’s cover for Walking With A Panther, which prompts the chicken-or-the-egg question of whether the album was written around just this one photo.

This canine version by ’80s punk band Hüsker Dü doesn’t quite carry the same gravitas:

Some are proof that a terrible cover can sink an album — admittedly, the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s fourth album Mosquito isn’t up to par with the band’s earlier rock-shifting releases, but generally speaking was fairly overlooked in 2013. We wonder why:

Some covers, however, we have to disagree with: for example, Black Sabbath’s cover for 1975 album Sabotage tells you everything you need to know about the musical journey that awaits.