Category Archives: WTF?

WTF: Roy Harper Wears the Emperor’s New Clothes

February 3, 2010WTF?bad album art, bad album covers, Roy Harper, WTF?Joe Wallace

Bad album covers rule. Especially THIS one. We already know what’s going on here, but it’s the MESSAGE here that is the real head-scratcher. The artist seems to be saying, “Why yes, I AM a wanker. I’ve proved it with this here album cover.”

Now here’s the real mystery. Guess how much this album is selling for on Amazon. Just you TRY to guess. I don’t care if the guy DID do the vocals on Pink Floyd’s “Have a Cigar”, there’s no reason for the compact disc of this album to sell for $50. Is there? This album is standard folkie finger twiddling and caterwauling. It’s not Johnny Rotten’s secret outtakes from an unreleased collaboration with Joe Strummer we never knew about or anything.

And to hear this music while staring at this album cover makes the entire affair seem kinda sad. “Here’s me with no clothes on. And my music sounds about the same. Please like this record!”

Ahh well.

–Joe Wallace

WTF: Cher Take Me Home

January 27, 2010WTF?bad album art, bad album covers, bad albums, cher, cher cheesecake, cher costumes, cher take me homeJoe Wallace

Cher…one of the OG one-name celebs. Surely this proto-Madonna would know better than to let something as ridiculous as this be foisted off on an unsuspecting public? This album cover is giving me a mental picture of “Flight of the Valkyries” happening in a trailer park.

Can you hear the conversation about this one? Chances are poor Cher wasn’t even consulted about this one, they just dreamed it up in some art department and showed it to her later.

“Yeah, Sal, I’m telling you…Wagner is big, baby. Real big. I think we should get Cher into one of those kooky viking getups. Something where you can see, you know, her boobs and stuff. Guys like boobies, right? Don’t they?”

“Hell, I don’t know, she’ll go for it. You can’t SEE anything really, it just looks like she’s some kinda Mad Max escapeee that wants to get it on.”

And folks, Take Me Home by Cher is still available for sale over at Amazon.com. It’s such a priceless artifact of musical history that they’re flogging it for under FOUR BUCKS, brand new. But you wanna know something really scary? Somebody at Amazon is selling a double album version of this (along with the Cher Prisoner album) for over$75.

I think they’re going to be waiting a LOOOONG TIME for that one to sell. Call me crazy.

“Sal, come ON, I know the album’s called ‘Take Me Home’. The idea is that there’s this contradiction, see? You get one look at that scary headgear of hers and you don’t WANNA take her home. You wanna turn her loose on those motorcycle punks that have been revvin’ up at 3AM.”

WTF: Cartoon Disco

January 24, 2010WTF?bad album art, bad disco, bad records, bad records disco, Cartoon Disco, disco, disco LPs, WTF?Joe Wallace

To be fair, the bad album art is really not the main event here, though if you were going to try to sell an LP full of already unlistenable crap repackaged as disco dancefloor hits, you’d probably want to show some people actively engaged in, oh, I don’t know, DISCO DANCING?

The cover photo for this looks like the woman just brushed off a drunken groper in some sleazy snack bar; if these two are supposed to be having a good time listening to a disco-fied “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” it’s impossible to tell. The grimace on her face alone says “bowel surgery” instead of “hot disco fun”.

Now to the realy question. WTF made ANYONE think an album of disco versions of The Woody Woodpecker song would actually SELL? “Hey guys, here’s a great one, let’s spend $70 grand reworking Popeye The Sailor Man into a Studio 54 staple.”

The group that recorded this musical death rattle? Disco Band. they thought so much of themselves that they took the first name that came out of the engineer’s mouth. “Hey, Charlie, what do we call ourselves on this piece of crap, anyway?”

For my money, the song to kill yourself to on this record would be Chim Chim Cheree, which I’ve hated since the first time I heard it as a child. But then again, I hated cartoons at an early, early age (single digits, folks) because–get this–they weren’t VIOLENT ENOUGH.

No wonder I hate THIS with such a passion. And I LIKE disco cheese. But the idea of listening to ten seconds of Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah for any reason at all gives me the makings of my very first seizure.

-Joe Wallace

WTF: Shrinebuilder

January 15, 2010WTF?bad album art, bad album covers, Shrinebuilder, WTF?Joe Wallace

Bad album covers and PR artwork both come in a variety of flavors, but the category “Ill-Advised Band Photography” is one of my favorites. The ones I see where I can hear the band talking to the photographer in my head? Priceless. This is what I heard when I spotted this winner from Shrinebuilder.

“Ok, first, like, we’re not Christian rock even though our name sure sounds like it. Second, like, make our tats really prominent in this photograph, dude. It will distract people from thinking this guy on the left looks like Janeane Garafolo.”

“Now, I’m gonna arrange my hair and hold my chin out LIKE THIS so I look exactly like Viggo Mortensen. We’re big fans of those damn hobbit movies.”

“Yeah, we KNOW these two other guys look like a high school shop teacher and Emo Phillips. Just make us two tattooed dudes look badass and we’ll call it a day.”

“Yes, Janeane Garafolo here has an I-Ching tat. Ain’t that something? He got it because that’s the sound he makes right before we start playing. He kinda hawks up a loogie and goes “eeeeee-shinnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggg!”

“Ok, now take that damn picture and make sure we got our mad faces on first.”