WTF Bad Album Covers Henry and Hazel Slaughter

I discovered this atrocity on Cheezeball.net and I think I’m sending them my doctor’s bill. The nightmares I’ll have after seeing this truly bad album cover–once more in the name of Jesus–will be in 3D, technicolor and Smell-O-Rama. Never mind the rictus grin on Hazel Slaughter’s face–the one that says “I’d rather be standing trail for war crimes in the Hague right now.” Look at Henry Slaughter’s TIE.

That’s right, it’s an effing chain link FENCE necktie. Tell me this guy doesn’t look as though he has a 14-year old stashed in a secret black light basement someplace being fattened up to be served up in a pie, Hansel and Gretel-style. I’m sure in real life, he’s a real sweetie pie, but this photograph makes Henry and Hazel look like the Honeymoon Killers.

WTF Bad Album Covers: Static-X Start A War

Our very first WTF bad album cover since Vinyl Road Rage! Don’t worry, there are plenty more Vinyl Road Rage record store review posts coming, but this week we resume our normal posts, too…and WTF bad album covers are piling up all over the place faster than I can write them up and post them.

First I’d like to say that from a visual perspective, I think this band was much better when it was called Alice In Chains. Maybe they THINK they’re Alice In Chains, but one listen to the tracks off this album and you’ll be begging for Layne Staley to dig himself out of the ground and throttle these guys to death with his bare zombified hands.

This is yet another in a long parade of nu metal “mad faces” album covers, but honestly, the cover makes it look like the mad faces are due to the fact that the hair salon won’t take them as walk-in clients rather than some kind of teeno-angst mongering.

I couldn’t figure out what it was that made me think this Static-X album cover is so wretched until I realized that the mad face dude with his mouth open (catching flies, no doubt) makes this cover look an AWFUL LOT like that Devil’s Bris album by Voltaire.

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Bad Album Covers: Cattle Decapitation Humanure

by Joe Wallace

Maybe it’s not fair to kick a band when its down. After all, Cattle Decapitation is cookie monster metal and at first glance there’s absolutely NO deep thought going on with songs like “Bukkake Tsunami“.  First impression? This is a band not reaaaallly putting a lot of time pondering artistry here from the get-go, so why pick on the poor schmucks for a tastelessy ridiculous album cover?

It’s sort of like yelling at the dog for wanting a bone. He’s just acting like a dog, the poor beast, he can’t help it, and neither can Cattle Decapitation. “Hey guys, let’s call this record Humanure! And on the record we can debate issues of moral relativism, industrial decay and its effects on the human spirit, and perhaps sing a few lines on the merits of boycotting Chilean sea bass. Awww, what the hell, let’s just do another record about poop-eating like we always do.”

Even as a doody joke, the album cover for this just…isn’t…cutting it. Maybe that’s because I keep trying to apply common sense rules about marketing music, album cover aesthetics and using the cover to sell the CONTENTS OF THE RECORD. That’s pretty pointless when dealing with a band writing songs like Cloacula: The Anthropophagic Copromantik. COPROMANTIK?

Who am I kidding with this one? It’s a locker room joke on a 12.5 inch piece of cardboard, nothing more, nothing less. Maybe it’s the cow ass that bugs me. Yeah, that’s it–a totally unnecessary bovine anus depiction right in your spotty little face. Yuck.

***UPDATE*** So on closer inspection, I have to admit that I was a bit unfair in the “No deep thoughts going on here” department–Cattle Decapitation actually do transcend the usual cookie monster rock metal nonsense to make a few social statements…these guys could be considered the cookie monster metal version of Tool  (without the heaping helping of Crowley). But that album cover is still grotty. Cow ass indeed! I modified this post slightly now that I see this band a bit more clearly. … Continue Reading

WTF Album Covers: Geraldine and Ricky

Seriously, what is with the born-again Christians and the puppets? I can’t think of anything I’d rather do less than spend 45 minutes with my hand up a puppet’s ass talking out of the side of my mouth like a third-rate George Raft. And don’t try to tell me this crap is aimed at KIDS–track two on side two is titled “The Liquor Store”. That’s where I’d be spending the meager proceeds from this vinyl abomination if I had ANYTHING to do with it.

You might wonder why I vent my bile on ventriloquists on vinyl with such…passion, until you remember that very NATURE of the ventriloquist act is that you’re supposed to SEE THE DUMMY TALK apparently ON ITS OWN. Like MAGIC. Put these people on a record and the whole point of the ventriloquist act is…well yeah, you get it now.

Like so many other things associated with right wing evangelical Christianity, this makes absolutely ZERO SENSE.

OK, I feel better now.

–Joe Wallace

WTF Album Covers: Pleasureman by Gunther

I thought Gunther was joking. Surely, I wondered aloud, this HAS to be some Saturday Night Live gag spun off into its own release. Please tell me this guy’s not for real. Pleasureman here can NOT be serious.

But he IS.

Let’s consider the album as a unified concept for a moment–the images, the song titles, the face of the dork on the cover. You get Gunther’s faux-sexy “the Metamucil isn’t working” grimace, but you ALSO get staggeringly smooth and sophisticated tracks like Ding Dong Song. We’re talking high class material for the jet set here. Oh yes indeed, you ought to wrap your ears around this so you can get SUPER sexy before you go out on that blind date and turn on charm.

Tell me how you’ll be sustaining your arousal level without chemical assistance after listening to this nonsense. This stuff sounds like a VERY low rent Hyperbubble ripoff without the fun or canny observances of social phenomena (hear Pictures of Paradise for some great multiple entendres and commentary.

I do like the fact that Gunther is fondling himself on this album cover…indicative of what he did through the entire recording process in one way or another.

WTF Bad Album Covers: No Commentary Necessary

I’m not saying a DAMN THING about this one. Do I really need to? Times like these I wish I could turn off the non-stop Beavis and Butthead episode playing in my brain, but I can’t, OK? Just snicker along with me and let’s call it a day and nobody make the joke about playing this album only once per month. Effing tasteless.

WTF Bad Album Covers Lil’ Flip The Leprechaun

What in the world were they thinking on THIS one? One music blogger writing for the Houston Press declares this the WORST hip hop cover in the history of the Houston scene. We’ll go that one better and say that this is simply one of the worst album covers, like, ever. Nothing says, “Hey, take me seriously” like a guy dressed up like the Lucky Charms mascot.

Gotta give Lil’ Flip points for originality in one respect–he’s not pointing a gun at the cover, standing against a brick wall with his arms folded and his chin stuck in the air like a weathervane, or making some ding-dong finger exercises that are supposed to indicate which side of the street he lives on. So good on you for that.

Ever since Lil’ Kim gained traction in the music industry, hip hop and related sounds has suffered from a veritable flood of “me too” rappers and hip hoppers all trying to get some of that “lil” magic to rub off on them. Seems pathetic, doesn’t? Lil Flip is only one of a shameful crop of intellectually bankrupt me too-ers. My question for all these Lil’ guys–do you want to be known as Lil ANYTHING when you’re FORTY? I didn’t think so. We can NEVER forgive Lil Kim for unleashing this torrent of Lil knockoffs.

Behold the list of the damned, courtesy of Wikipedia.

• Lil’ 1/2 Dead, American rapper
• Lil Bastard, American wrestler
• Lil’ Boosie, American rapper
• Lil’ Bow Wow American rapper and actor
• Lil’ Brotha, American rapper
• Lil’ Cahill, Garage MC in Jersey, Channel Islands,
• Lil’ Cease, American rapper
• Lil’ Chris, British pop singer
• Lil’ Flip, American rapper
• Lil’ Fizz, American rapper and actor
• Lil’ J, American rapper
• Lil’ Jon, American music producer
• Lil’ Keke, American rapper
• Lil’ Malik, (today Mr. Malik) American rapper
• Lil’ Mama, American rapper
• Lil’ Mo, American singer
• Lil Poison, Professional video gamer
• Lil’ O, American rapper
• Lil Rob, American rapper
• Lil’ Romeo (today only Romeo), American actor and rapper
• Lil’ Ronnie American music producer
• Lil’ Scrappy, American rapper
• Lil’ T, Danish rapper and singer
• Lil Wayne, American rapper
• Lil’ Will, American rapper
• Lil’ Wyte, American rapper
• Lil’ Ye, American rapper and all-around entertainment mogul
• Lil’ Zane, American rapper and dancer
• Lil’ Buster, Moroccan rapper , From 4Styles Crew

Hows about somebody calling themselves Lil Dumbass?

WTF Bad Album Covers: The Worst So Far?

by Joe Wallace

There are some people who tell me that picking on rap albums is like shooting fish in a barrel. There are so very many bad album covers in the rap, hip hop, metal, and singer/songwriter genres that it’s almost a cop-out to post one in any of these genres. You wouldn’t believe how many album covers I turn down for posting here because they just aren’t rotten enough.

And then there’s this one. Another example of truth in advertising in the genre, the band has the word “dumb” in its name so you already know what to expect–contentwise we’re probably talking the equivalent of a lyric sheet from any Blink 182 record. You want deep thoughts? Go read some James Joyce. If you’re looking for utter bewilderment, this is a fine and dandy album cover to gaze upon.

What’s the deal with the dude holding the machete? The One Way sign over the thanksgiving turkey makes me think of food poisoning for some reason…and the tilty baseball caps make these gents look like grade school kids out ready to go running after the ice cream truck. Hard core street survivors? Not on this album cover. More like Leave It To Beaver. Tomorrow I’ll look at this and think that the guy on the bottom left looks like Cat from Red Dwarf, but today it’s all about the ice cream truck. Maybe I’ve been listening to far too much KLF for my own good.

I imagine the conversation about this picture going something like this. “Hey, we gotta get a COVER on this mess. What do you want to put on it? I’m thinking about turkeys. And place settings. And big fluffly clouds. But make sure you get some mad faces on there too so people don’t think we’re a bunch of sissies.”