WTF Bad Album Cover: Dan Nicoloff Everybody’s Pink Under The Skin

There are bad album covers…and then there are LP covers that make you want to penetrate your own skull with a claw hammer because they’re so mind-rottingly awful. There’s not much to day about this that you haven’t already been thinking to yourself. Dan Nicoloff’s Everybody’s Pink Under The Skin is a sort of lame-o take on Clive Barker’s Books of Blood quip; “Everyone is a book of blood. When we’re opened, we’re red.” But Barker, even in his most feverish moments, could never have envisioned something like this.

It’s art design so staggeringly lame that you KNOW someone got PAID to do it. Look at the malice aforethought going on here. This cover looks like a photograph that someone actually staged and lit properly for EFFECT. I shudder to think about the time and effort that went into this. And I sit here wondering if it’s actually something WORSE–a photorealism PAINTING of some kind that a human being actually LABORED OVER to get JUST RIGHT.

That’s a thought my poor brain can’t quite get behind. … Continue Reading

WTF: The Bad Album Cover Odyssey Of Ted Nugent

Alas, poor Ted. A post like this would be harder to write in good fun if he didn’t take himself so seriously or carry himself like a man utterly convinced that he’s right…about everything. But since he DOES give off that Rush Limbaugh-esque bouquet, he’s fair game. After all, who can look at THIS with a straight face?

The real question here is, who in this picture does the album title refer to? I’m voting for Ted. Could it get any more swishy with song titles like “Savage Danger“? I really truly think it could replace YMCA as “Song most likely to be sung by drunk, closeted people of all persuasions.” Maybe Ted’s secretly thinking Dan Savage Danger.

Dan’s got a great column, but I bet he’d be horrified to think Ted’s harboring a schoolgirl crush.

Don’t misunderstand me here, there’s nothing WRONG with swish. Speaking as a  Pet Shop Boys fan myself, my real issue is that Ted’s trying really hard to get us thinking about Playboy centerfolds…why all the effort? You don’t have to prove anything to us here, jungle boy.

And then there’s this…

Oh, wow. This pretty much sums it all up, doesn’t it? A cowboy hat, a Madonna headset mic, and a half-enthused bikini girl showing the world that she really, really DID shave her armpits that day. No peach fuzz for Mister Ted.

Now what exactly is going on here? We have a passed-out woman in red trunks, presumably overcome from the volume levels from Ted Nugent’s amplifiers. Or maybe she’s just had too many cheeseburgers and wants to sleep.

OK, you have to hand it to the Nuge here…he had the Metallica look long before THEY did. Except the expression on his face here says either that a cat has just poked its head up Ted’s rectum, or perhaps there’s a hunting arrow stabbing him somewhere equally inappropriate.

OK, I’ll admit it. If you HAVE to own a Ted Nugent album, this is probably the only one you need. It does have its moments, and he even approaches something that could be considered proto-speed metal with Violent Love. But the front cover isn’t the worst….the back is REALLY the stuff dreams are made of. If you have dreams of Ted putting the moves on you as a flamenco dancer, that is.

OLE!

OK, all in good fun, right? We’re not suggesting you HATE Ted Nugent, and while he can make his fingers go up and down the fretboard of his guitar really fast, it’s clear he’s not quite as nimble in the art department.

Ted fans will no doubt post angry, hate-filled missives after reading all this nyuk-nyuk good fun, but I think Ted’s big enough to take it. Don’t get all peeved, now. But somebody ought to whisper in Ted’s ear that his most understated cover was probably the right idea all along.

WTF: Steve Walsh Glossolalia

by Joe Wallace

Normally, when I write up these bad album cover posts, I go into an extended rant about how silly the artwork is, or how goofy the clothing featured on the cover might be, perhaps taking time to savor a ridiculous facial gesture or some badly arranged hair styles.

However, when it comes to former Kansas singer Steve Walsh and his album Glossolalia, I can’t really do that. Instead, I’ll just have to settle for this:

I’ll gladly pay the sum of one million dollars in Monopoly money or its equivalent if someone can please explain to me exactly WTF is going on in this album cover. I am at a total loss to make hear or tail (heh) of it, and I am afraid to stare at it any longer–my brain might just turn into tapioca.

This album cover is so brain-rottingly dumb that I would have mistaken it for a Ted Nugent album if it weren’t for the Steve Walsh thing stamped on this–like he’s PROUD of it, or something. I think Walsh is a talented singer, but when it comes to picking the album art, maybe he should let a drunken sailor do it or something.

For the record, let me just state that I am NOT making fun of surrealism. I LIKE Dali. I LIKE M.C. Escher. I don’t think you have to “understand” art in order for it to be GOOD. But THIS crap? Um…well, I think there’s some kind of veiled Christian anti-evolution agenda going on here (Glossolalia means ’speaking in tounges” and I think Talking Heads should sue on this basis alone–brand integrity has definitely been damaged.) But I’ll be damned if I can get past the hardy-har joke on poor old Darwin to find the deeper meaning (?) of any of this nonsense.

I really admire Steve Walsh for having the cajones to go through with this–NOBODY GETS IT, STEVE. This album is one of the all time greats. I love it. It’s number one in dumb and I wish I could find one so I could frame it. Really. I’d pay up to five bucks for it. Drop me a line in the comments section, cuz I am a HUGE fan of misguided crap like this.

WTF: At Play With The Playmates

I don’t want to know what the boys in THIS band were thinking when they approved this unfortunately candid shot for At Play With The Playmates. The facial expressions alone are priceless. Look at “Lucky Pierre” in the middle there, he’s clearly the only one enjoying himself here…take that however you please, but the guy in the rear has “new hernia” written all over his face, while the gent in the front seems to have a sort of Glenn Beck outrage going on, combined with a case of sudden nausea. “Did you just touch my buttocks?”

At Play With The Playmates? This album has a sort of sub-par Four Seasons vibe to it, and it quickly wears out its welcome unless you’re a fan of the genre–and I’m definitely not. I’ll pass on the adenoidal shrieking, thanks very much. This album cover is damn amusing though. Just what ARE The Playmates playing at? It look suspiciously as though they’re all trying to cop a cheap jolly off the vibrations of a poorly tuned up moped.

–Joe Wallace

WTF: Bad Metal Album Covers

Metal bands seem to be particularly challenged when it comes to the cover art. It’s hard to find a truly GOOD album cover by a metal band. Some bands are so impressed with themselves for actually having the stick to finish the album that the artwork is pure afterthought…and it shows.

“Dude! We were so drunk when we made this record! How did we finish? I don’t know how we did it! Party on, Wayne! Party on, Garth!”

The first mistake the band Exciter made was naming themselves after a piece of studio equipment. There are two cliches that noob bands fall into–one is having a band photo of themselves with a brick wall in the background, the other is naming a song or the band itself after a piece of studio gear in a non-ironic or unintentionally amusing way. (The exception to this rule is keyboard references, for some reason, especially when it comes to Moogs.)

Depeche Mode is probably the most high profile band to make this painful gaffe..and strangely enough their mistake is the same as this band’s. Why would ANYONE call a song, album or entity, “Exciter”? It sounds like a 4th rate sex toy imported from Malaysia in a broken carton.

Exhibit B–the name of this album is “Warmasters”. But instead of seeing an actual warmaster (whatever that is) what you GET is this dork who lives in his mom’s basement pretending that it’s Halloween for the 99th straight day in a row. Hey, bud, that scowl on your face does NOT disguise the fact that it takes you all day to get out of bed and that you’re completely out of breath by the time you’re done tuning your guitar. Warmaster? Try a THIGHMASTER.

Witchfinder General? More like, Adam Ant. These guys aren’t “Friends of Hell”. They’re friends of SATIN. And taffeta.

There are far too many bad metal album covers to include in one post…this could go on all YEAR, this stuff is PRICELESS. I love these bands for having the balls to be so damn corny. Rock on, dudes. I wouldn’t listen to these albums for pleasure, but they’re an endless source of entertainment and America is a better place because of them. More, please.

WTF: Bad Album Art Doublevision

Bad album covers seem even worse when they’re foisted on unsuspecting record buyers by people who market their music using only their first name. What possesses people to release songs under ONE NAME ONLY? No ideas here, but I can tell you the one-name LP is a recipe for disaster. Today we bring you not one, but TWO abominations for the price of one. Behold the horror that is…KEN and JOYCE.

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WTF: Swing That Gospel Axe

I wonder if when gospel bands are praying to Jesus, if their lord and savior couldn’t take five seconds to have a word with them about their lame-ass album covers. I mean, come ON, now, Jesus…can’t you spare a COUPLE of moments for these poor dorks?

Let’s pass Go AND collect $200–the first thing this album cover says to me is that a slasher movie moment is in the offing here–the Gospel Axe is going to wind up in the back of that chick’s SKULL.

“Hey guys, what do you want to call this band?” Bruce Yelton asks the others. “We’re singin’ about Jesus here, so why don’t we give it some kind of dorky name that sounds like it’s SUPPOSED to be hip and happening, but is really some kind of dumb-ass made up word that doesn’t actually MEAN anything.”

To which the woman in this group replies, “You just said “dumbass”. You’re a sinner and you’re going to hell straightaway. The REST of this band is ‘upbound’ but not you.”

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WTF: Pantera Doesn’t Want You To See This

I admit it, I have a thing against a lot of the hair metal and post-hair band metal albums. Let the reader beware, it all sounds like the Cookie Monster with a backup band to me. With that caveat in mind…

Once upon a time, the name Pantera was synonymous with large music industry dollars…or so it seemed, anyway. They were EVERYWHERE. You couldn’t see for the forest of Pantera concert shirts, and if you asked anybody in a truck stop ANYWHERE what they listened to, it was inevitably, “Payanterrra”.

Where are they now? Who cares? To some of us, this sort of record sounds like this:
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WTF #3: Millie Jackson Squeezes Out a Few Hits

If there is a Hell, it’s reserved for the people who thought THIS ALBUM COVER was a GOOD IDEA.

Let me see if I understand this situation correctly. Millie Jackson, having quit her day job and staked her future on a singing career, looked at all her album cover options, and after due deliberation decided this photo of her on the crapper was THE BEST way to represent the recorded material.

How’d that singing career work out for ya, Millie?

On the other hand, maybe this album cover is the god’s honest truth; perhaps the album sounds like shit and this is just a rare instance of truthful packaging.

Just LOOK at that picture–this woman positively DWARFS that toilet. She must be linebacker-sized, and I shudder to think about the aftermath of this photo shoot. The expression on Millie Jackson’s face lets you know you’ll wear a similar grimace once the needle drops on this steaming turd of a record.

WTF #2: Religious Cougar Seeks New Prey

Sometimes I run across others on the web who collect wretched albums or, at the very least, the godawful art that disgraces the covers of those LPs. My newest find is LP Cover Lover, and my only gripe with this site is that you can’t listen to the awfulness, you can only look.

The amount of cluelessness on display with THIS particular album is staggering. Just look at that gravity-defying hair! In spite of the TWO bibles on display on this LP cover, I find Mattie McFerrin sending mixed messages. Is that some kind of backwoods “come hither” look she’s giving us here? And check out the threads on this Bible studyin’ throwback of love…she’s got her shirt partially unbuttoned in a wanton display of sexual abandon matched only by the vest, which has even MORE buttons unfastened…trying to lure young devotees to her study with her sexually charged musical gyrations, no doubt.

Keep a lamp shining bright, if only so Mattie McFerrin can do a slow, religious striptease for the flock…this Christly cougar is on the prowl!