WTF Album Covers Kids’ Corner

For some reason, WTF album art gets SUPER, er, WTF-y, when it comes to albums for and about children. Special thanks to BizarreRecords.com for two of these gems which should terrify any and everyone.

Has this guy been arrested yet?

Let’s see if this concept is understood properly. An adult male who has never been married, or is active sexually is going to…teach your kids about sex. Or teach YOU how to teach them. Not only that, the adult male in question looks like a clueless berk who just got out of a minimum security prison for forging postage stamps.

It is NEVER safe to assume that an album cover with a puppet on it is a children’s record. It’s been said before and it’s getting repeated here; if half of the whole point of the ventriloquist act is to do tricks where it looks like the dummy is talking and not the human, WHY DO A RECORD? Never mind. Just revel in the delicious awfulness.

Has THIS guy been arrested yet?

WTF Album Covers: Semargl Satanic Pop Metal

Run that by me again–Satanic Pop Metal? What? Not having heard any of this album, the title brings to mind some kind of unholy combination of New Kids On The Block and Grim Reaper.

It’s unclear what a woman’s buttocks have to do with Satan or pop metal, except perhaps as an overt statement that sexism still sells metal records. Not that album covers have to be nudity-free, not by any stretch of the imagination, but where metal records are concerned, you might just be able to say there’s a bit of a track record of paternalistic nonsense. As in, the metal genre can be as much as much of a testosterone-fueled sausage fest as any college football game.

I can already hear the wails of protest coming from Mom’s basement on this one, but I ask you, my corpsepaint loving metalhead complainers, to please refer me to a SINGLE gay-themed heavy metal outfit that could act as a counterbalance to all this?

Rob Halford doesn’t count–I’m talking about the EQUIVALENT to something along the lines of the above album cover, not just a band that HAPPENS to have a non-heterosexual in it. I’m waiting. An openly gay death metal band would be a huge blast of fresh air here–something unique, at long last! AND actually genuinely rebellious to boot. Maybe there’s a whole army of ‘em and I’m just behind the times? I’d love to know. Seriously.

Why am I on about all this? It’s the same reason I was so totally into the idea of Gangstagrass–hip hop mashed up with bluegrass music. Could there ever be a collision of styles that traditionalists on both sides of these musical fences would hate MORE? How totally awesome–and again, TRULY rebellious and not just a bit of half-ass fakery. But I’m rambling here. This album cover on its own merits is dopey enough without all the subtext. I mean, just LOOK at it…

–Joe Wallace

WTF Album Covers: Keyboards Triangle

There really is NO EXCUSE for how atrocious this album cover is. If the primary, overriding objective of an album cover is to make you interested in purchasing the album, the only thing this little wretched thing is good for is appealing to that fractional amount of music consumers who have a voracious, never-satisfied sexual fetish for knitwear:

WTF Album Covers: Remy Ma Shesus Khryst

It’s quite tempting to say “there are no words” for this stunner of a crap album cover, but any regular reader of Turntabling knows there will be PLENTY of words.

The bottom of this atrocity declares, “Yall bitches workin on yall albums go back to the studio immediately.” With a little luck they’re planning on better grammar and punctuation on their album covers than poor Remy Ma. Never mind the punctuation though, her work reveals her to be one of those monotone mouth-breathers, bragging away over four bars of drum loops and string samples that repeat ad nauseum, with the usual three or four themes (sex, money, I feel good, I love you) on infinite repeat. “Igottanothermouthful/ofrehashednonsense/anotherIwannadoit/cominatcha”.

No, those aren’t the actual lyrics. But they will be soon.

This album cover really only screams one thing–”Me too!’ Sorry, Remy Ma, but Johnny Rotten AND Britney Spears beat you to the crucifixion gag. Your insistence that “bitches…go back to the studio immediately” is advice you should be taking yourself, especially in the art department. Ahh well…if there weren’t shitty album covers, we’d have a lot more scrambling to do in the writing of this blog, now, wouldn’t we?

P.S. It occurs that since the packaging of this product refers to it as a DVD mixtape (what?), it doesn’t really count as an ALBUM cover, per se. So sue me.

Bizarre Seven-Inch Vinyl: The Triumph Of Man

The all-time best thing about this YouTube clip is the promise that “you’re going to walk through the history of man”…all crammed onto a single red-vinyl 7-inch single! Hilariously dated and cheesy in all the right ways.

WTF Album Covers: Johnny Guitar Watson

You’re reeling so hard from the sheer WTF’edness of this album cover by Johnny Guitar Watson that you won’t get the visual pun. Like those magic 3-D posters that were so popular(?) in the 90s, if you stare at it long enough, you’ll see. Not that you really need to. Or want to. Or want to need to…

WTF Album Covers: From Germany With Love?

Hey kids, look at our new, less cluttery layout! To celebrate, here’s a truly wretched album cover that evokes both feelings of WTF and RUN AWAY. Clown imagery, however displayed, is truly the kiss of death on any record cover. Even when ( or especially when?) said clowns are jammed onto a naked, willing model.

A Triple Dose of WTF

Seriously, people, what’s up with the matching outfits? If you stare at these facial expressions long enough, you might be able to detect a note of “HELP ME” in their eyes. Were these people HOSTAGES?

The word “Polka” on the title should be enough to send any sensible person screaming down the street begging for a bullet to offer merciful release from the utter terror and sonic torture that is an entire LP full of the damn things. But somehow enough polka records sold to justify producing even more. Can someone PLEASE explain what it is about the polka that makes people sit down and listen to records like this without any threat of punishment whatsoever?

And speaking of punishment…

“Um, heh heh, huh huh, yeah. It’s like, you know, METAL. And it’s like, huh huh, a WOLF. Heh heh, huh huh. Heh. Yeah. Uh-huh. Metal. Heh. Wolf. The only thing that would make this album cover any COOLER is if there were some TURDS on it. Heh heh, huh huh. Cuz that would RULE.”