This does NOT look like pasta sauce. It looks like Pat Cooper has committed seppuku in a gigantic pile of spaghetti. It really ought to be re-titled, Pat Cooper Commits Ritual Suicide For Laughs In the Catskills.
The cover is a riff on a Herb Alpert album cover that was popular in the day, for reasons that should be fairly obvious. Even my parents owned a copy. But then again, they also owned the soundtrack to Victory At Sea, so I shouldn’t be very surprised.
And then there’s THIS:
The Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers was released in America with a cover designed by Andy Warhol, the iconic “zipper” cover which originally had a real, working zipper.
Warhol biographies say two models were used to shoot the cover image–the zipper unzips to reveal another crotch clad in boxer shorts–and nobody was definitively told whose (covered) junk it is. Hope that doesn’t keep you up at night…some sources say Warhol actor Joe Dellasandro and Warhol boyfriend Jed Johnson are the crotches in question.
But for the Spanish release of Sticky Fingers, a less “pornographic” cover was required…so what THOSE lucky stiffs got was this vaguely Burroughsian (to me) cover…
The original Spanish edition of Sticky Fingers, in addition to the alternate cover art, omits Sister Morphine (can’t imagine why, heh). Some sources say the Warhol zipper cover had its problems in some American chain stores because of the prominent outline of the model’s junk.
Seeing a prominent bulge in a pair of jeans was apparently was enough to send some uptight dingbats into a frenzy of moral outrage. People were dumber back then.
–Joe Wallace
This installment of WTF Album covers is brought to you by racism, bad taste, and misguided youth. We present you three eyeball-searing album covers that beggar logic and make us seriously reconsider whether music is a good thing or not. “Do you like music?” Well, WE do, but the people who made these album covers clearly DO NOT.
This particular series was discovered at the COMPLETELY awesome site Glorify The Turd, which as far as website names go is one of the greatest in history. Normally we try to avoid sourcing images like this, but Glorify The Turd has some of the most truly obscure and brain-jerkingly horrific album covers that we couldn’t resist paying tribute to them here with these three starting with a quartet of truly misguided born-again metalers.
The fine print there at the bottom reads, “This album is dedicated to those who have not yet received the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. We’re Coming.” Oh dear. One thing this bunch of born-again Klangmeisters does have going for it is a bit of rare multi-culturalism. But the hairdos and stage clothes have GOT to go. These lads have been shopping for their gear at Forever 21, as evidenced by the polka-dot dude here on the bottom right. Nice one, man–raid your little sister’s wardrobe AND tell me about Jesus.
Next, a move in the opposite direction. These gents aren’t into JESUS…they want to go a bit further SOUTH:
Um…res ipsa loquitor.
Your attention might not be directed to the bottom half of this album cover, but you’ll discover the REAL HORROR of it once you detect the bobbing head. OK, I’ll be the first to say it (maybe not). If our society is going to evolve past its racial tension problems, we have to progress to the point where we are either not afraid or or hurt by at all of the N-word or any other slur or nickname, or NOBODY GETS TO SAY THEM EVER. It’s one or the other, folks.
I know what you’re thinking. And you’re right. There’s no real point in wasting time pointing out that a Britney Spears album cover is crap. The contents are crap, the “artwork” will be wretched as well. But there’s something really galling about Britney Spears aping Johnny Rotten. Behold:
This image really irritated conservatives in Britain at the time…but who cares? Such narrow-minded folk are born to be tormented by people like John Lydon, it’s the natural order of things. And then there’s this:
Dunno if this is the promo artwork for a single, an album or some other nonsense–I can’t be bothered to investigate Britney Spears for a second longer. But I am amused that somebody somewhere thought it would be a good lark to put her on the cross…see, people instantly associate the crucifixion imagery with Jesus and Christianity, but in a historical context, the lowest of the low got crucified.The dregs. Common, dirtbag criminals and people the Romans didn’t think enough of to put into forced labor.
And musically speaking, that’s exactly what’s going on here. Britney has at last found her place with the rest of the human refuse in the music industry. I know that sounds a bit harsh, but it makes me laugh. As does this:
At first I thought perhaps this was Britney’s final freakout–that this artwork was an ad for some kind of new white supremacist tea party nonsense. But we would have heard about that by now. Nope, this has to be something else. It’s not an ad for her new gig at Hats Unlimited, so it MUST be an album cover.
A stupid, stupid album cover.
“Hey look, folks, my head can be used for more than just a battering ram. It’s also a HAT RACK. Now buy my single.”
–Joe Wallace