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: 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.”

WTF Album Covers: Lil’ Wayne Tha Carter IV

Seriously?

Oh, the prison tats on the little kid…I’m sure SOMEBODY thought that was CUTE. How cute is it? Well, let’s see what that bastion of accuracy Wikipedia has to say:

“The teardrop tattoo or tear tattoo is a symbolic tattoo that is placed underneath the eye. It has no fixed meaning but almost all meanings have some connection to prison. In the United States, it can mean the wearer has killed someone and the number of teardrops may indicate the number of killings. It can also indicate the number of years served in prison or the loss of a loved one or fellow gang member.

In at least one prison, (Oaxaca State) it indicates that the wearer was raped in prison.”

Ohhhhhh dear.

WTF Album Covers: Mew And The Glass Handed Kites

The WTF factor on this album art by Mew is so high that you might get a nosebleed while contemplating its awfulness. Fortunately for this band, the music itself does not choke the way the cover does.

And The Glass Handed Kits features music that sounds a bit like a more pop-oriented (and less uber-trippy) Gang Gang Dance. There’s an epic quality to many of the tracks on this record that are totally misrepresented by this violently awful cover. Though it has to be said, they manage to veer excruciatingly off into Neil Young “Harvest” territory at times…and do we really need anybody besides Neil Young warbling away like that? Er, not realllllly.

Ignore the cover and try to head toward the experimental pop portions of this Mew record. You can preview bits of all tracks at the Mew And The Glass Handed Kites Amazon page.

WTF Album Covers: Space Age Bachelor Pad Sexism

I’m sure Elliot Lawrence didn’t think he was a sexist pig when he saw the cover for his own album, Music For Trapping, sitting there in the shrink wrap. But it’s hard to imagine the era where this sort of nyuk-nyuk lunkhead imagery didn’t even raise an eyebrow even a LITTLE.

The trophy heads are SO Norman Bates…this guy definitely seems like a serial killer in the making. He’s one step away from an episode of Dexter, to be sure. If Dexter had a time machine and a martini shaker, that is.

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