Bad Album Covers

Bad album covers are a fact of life. There are the stunning music recordings that are wrapped in amazing, legendary artwork and design, like Sgt. Pepper, Abbey Road, Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zeppelin, British Steel, Master of Puppets, and so on. But how about the crappy album covers out there?

So bad that it's good? This was among my first records when I was a teen,

so I've learned to live with it in a weirdly affectionate way all these years

Regardless of the quality of the music itself, good or bad or whatever, there are some weak and weird examples of album art that I'd like to talk about. I'm going to try and steer away from the universally agreed upon bad album covers (like those by the band Riot, Millie Jackson's Back to the S**t, Manowar's Anthology) and instead browse my own CD and record shelves, and maybe add the odd other thing not in my collection.

I want to start off with an album by one of my all-time favourite bands, Rush. The offender is their twelfth album, released in 1987, Hold Your Fire. Here's an example of a pretty weak album, musically, that also boasts a super lame album cover. It is the most dull album art in all of Rush's large discography. Three small red balls floating against a plain red background. The Rush "logo" font is boring, as is the font of the title of the album. Okay, it may be a bit of an in-joke that only uber-fans (like me, maybe) who know that Rush had a thing about red in some of their song titles and lyrics (Red Lenses, Red Barchetta) back in the 80's. And maybe the three balls represent the three members of the band. Could be, but it's really uninteresting to look at, if not cryptic beyond belief. If anything, the inner photo of the guy juggling fireballs would have been a better choice for cover art.

Borrrrrrriiiiinnng....

So what were they thinking when they okayed this underwhelming image for the front of Hold Your Fire? Long-time Rush visual artist and graphic designer Hugh Syme created this... so what went wrong here? Syme's many other cover art contributions for Rush are considered classics. Anyway, this one is a head-scratcher. It's visually boring and bewildering.

Next up... Pet Sounds, by the Beach Boys. Yeah, we've all seen this one before, and perhaps it's on some "bad album cover" lists, but I've always wondered about the decision to go with such a strange band photo on the cover. Band photos generally aren't a good idea for album covers, as they either look too posed, or awkward, or will become dated very easily when fashions change.

Stoooooopid...

But feeding a bunch of goats? Really? The title Pet Sounds makes me think of dogs, cats, birds, fish, domestic household animals like that. At least if the band were playing with dogs and cats, it might have felt a bit more appropriate, but definitely not goats. Come on.

I own a very odd-looking version of Beethoven's 9th symphony that I'll bet very few people have ever seen. I even had a tough time tracking down this exact issue online. The musical performance itself is fine, an enjoyable interpretation, if not my favourite, of the immortal classical piece. But the front cover... again, what were they thinking? It's a black and white photo of a massive crowd of young men (I think it's all guys - hard to distinguish since they all have long-ish hair) in the rain, and it looks like it's from a UK soccer match or Woodstock or something. What has this got to do with Beethoven and his 9th symphony? Nothing I can see. A weird and stupid choice for album cover right?

What the... ?

Okay, so now to finish off with something different. As you read the first paragraph above, your eye was likely drawn to the bizarre and colourful album cover pictured below it. Yeah, that's the one... with the four wacky characters comprising Max Webster. High Class in Borrowed Shoes was an early-ish music purchase when I was a teenager - on vinyl record, so I got the full effect of the large photo of the off-kilter band dressed in embarrassing garb. Max Webster's music won me over from day one, when I saw them perform at my high school (back when bands did that; thank the lord I got to experience that). The concert was an eye-opener... when these guys hit the stage in what looked like women's pyjamas and nightgowns, I was taken aback. But the music was heavy and rockin', and the singer had a fun, if strange, patter between songs.

On to the High Class album cover. Yes, it's a group shot, but if they were wearing business suits (think Dressed to Kill, by Kiss), it wouldn't be such a big deal. Some might call the cover ugly,  ridiculous, or just plain bad. But man, those billowy red pants, the zig-zag patterned women's crop-top, the purple short-shorts, the floral (I think) decorated women's stockings. I won't even mention the use of make-up or the high-heels. Those were kind of de rigueur in the 1970's for adventurous rock bands. Then there's the judo uniform and the "dandy" tuxedo get-up. Quite the menagerie. A bit shocking to see today, and it wasn't exactly commonplace back in my little hometown in the late 70's.

Yet, as weird - or bad - as it looks, it's so out there, so avant-garde, that it's kinda cool. And I like it for what it is. That was the band, and that "dated" snapshot put their stamp of far-out progressive hard rock on the music scene. They certainly stood out against the landscape of jeans-and-T-shirt rock musicians of the era. So there.

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To read about my favourite album covers, check out this post here.