Category Archives: album

WTF Album Covers: Christmas At The Devil’s House

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by Joe Wallace

Let’s start with the obvious. This may look, feel, and SMELL like a Creed record, but it’s not. Wait–you mean the guy on the left ISN’T a cartoon rendition of that whiny lead singer with a pair of horns on?

Oh, sorry then.

But if you actually heard this record, you’d SWEAR it was Creed–it’s every bit as wretched and filled with half-baked, warmed over doofus-shite. Some might argue that it’s not a fair comparison to put Creed side by side with Christmas At The Devil’s House, but lest we forget, Creed was responsible for bringing generic guitar twaddle with what sounds like Eddie Vedder’s untalented half-brother at the mic.

And they had a right-wing “family values” type songwriting agenda which makes all their lyrics as suspect as John Travolta’s motives for making “Battlefield Earth”. Whenever you hear “I love you,” lead singer boy is probably talking about Mister God. Yuck.

Christmas At The Devil’s House is every bit as uninspired–it’s that “Let’s play classical music with metal guitar noises” crap that makes people vomit uncontrollably after exactly ten seconds.

The album cover itself is merely goofy–but it promises something the record itself won’t deliver. WHERE ARE THE SATAN-THEMED CHRISTMAS SONGS? It’s almost July at the time of this writing, which means Christmas in July sales and other nonsense to do with Santa wearing a bathing suit.

But there’s no real presence of Satan on this album unless you think a metaloid cover of “Greensleeves” is a secret message from The Dark Overlord commanding us to slaughter our neighbors and make love to the parrot.

This album wouldn’t really make it into the Turntabling WTF gallery of crap record covers except for the fact that you really, really expect the record to have more Satan on it. Instead, you wind up feeling cruelly misled by the crude artwork. And maybe that’s the Devil’s trick; if you were dumb enough to PAY for this you got what you deserved?

WTF Album Covers: Star Wars Christmas

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by Joe Wallace

There are no words. Wait, yes there are.  Just LOOK at this damn thing, which I might add sells on Amazon new for nearly $200 in some third-party shops (!!!).

The cover of this nightmare is hilarious enough, but the backstory of this album is even better. First, take a look at the bottom where the text proudly announcing the “original cast” appearing on this holiday atrocity.

Hey kids! This record features the voice of C-3PO, Anthony Daniels, plus R2D2–who as we all know did all his own voice work and stunts. (I think R2D2 is now a Hollywood producer doing three feature length bondage fetish porn movies a year starring soap opera star lookalikes and retired standup comedians. “Holiday IN The Stars” was the name of his very first production.)

And then there’s the presence of a young teenager named Jon, who started out his career as a janitor, as the legend goes, at a New York recording studio where the Holiday In The Stars album was being recorded. Somebody at the studio put in a good word for the 18-year old cleanup guy, he wound up singing lead on one of the songs featured on this Star Wars holiday record, and just a short time later–so the story goes–the kid was cutting a demo.

That demo led Jon Bon Jovi to his first record deal in 1983.

So you have George Effing Lucas to blame for both Jon Bon Jovi AND Jar Jar Binks. Really, they’re one in the same if you ask me.

(P.S. If the Bon Jovi story is just another urban legend, don’t correct me–I don’t want to know. I like having George Lucas to blame for all those god-awful singles in the 80s from Slippery When Wet and other intellectually stunted albums.)

YouTube Vinyl Junkies

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by Joe Wallace
I was contacted earlier this week by a fellow vinyl junkie and YouTube poster about a growing community of vinyl collectors who post video clips about vinyl collecting, their latest finds and other topics. I had no idea this sort of thing was happening on YouTube–I usually go there for exploitation movie trailers and related ephemera.

So it was with great delight that I found a massive trove of posts about vinyl, collecting, finds, etc. These aren’t produced or slickly done with titles and effects, etc. Just people who LOVE the format, the discoveries, and the excitement of being involved in a community like this.

Here’s a sampling of some of those videos, but there are MANY more online waiting to be discovered. One of the very best vids I’ve seen so far (by poster MrHoffame) who shares some really important information about insurance specifically for your vinyl record collection. Amazing, and VERY good to know. Did you know some vinyl insurance policies are SUPER cheap and have NO DEDUCTIBLES? See MrHoffame’s clip “Vinyl Collectors Should Know” below–it’s the third and final one on the page. Viva Vinyl!