There are album covers that are bad because the artwork is wrong-headed, there are bad album covers because of horrifyingly unflattering pictures of the artists in question, and then there’s…THIS.

Steven Seagal–yes, THAT ONE, the pony tailed, constipated-face of the man who has ruined martial arts for EVERYBODY decided to go and record an album.

Steve, Steve, Steve. Don’t you know that David Carradine did this first, and MUCH BETTER THAN YOU? Why did HE have to go and check out while you are allowed to torment us with this? Steven Seagal’s Songs From The Crystal Cave is not only the worst album we’ve heard all year, it’s the worst we’ve heard ALL DECADE. It has every stupid lite rock cliche flourish in the book, including the “sparkling chimes” and “the wind” woosh you hear on those Kenny G albums.

“whoooooooooooshhhhhhhhh”.

An album shouldn’t normally be dismissed as a steaming pile of horse feces without at least giving it a listen.  I naturally felt safe enough looking at this to declare it unlistenable–but in order to show I have more inner strength than Chuck Norris, Henry Rollins and Superfly rolled into one, I ACTUALLY LISTENED TO THIS before writing.

Like the climax of an H.P. Lovecraft story, I started screaming from the moment I heard the cursed recording of Steven Segal warbling his cornball Rob Thomas-wannabe vocals over the top of a barely competent guitar track (which sounds like throwaways from a session between Steelheart and Trixter trying to top each other in the love ballads department).

Throw in a little vomit-inducing overproduction in the form of some “meaningful” echoes and a lot of one-word song titles (including the creatively bankrupt “Music”) and you have all the makings of a new Gitmo torture technique just waiting to be applied to the new crop of terror suspects.

“No, General, we won’t be having Steven Segal beat up the prisoners, we just need to make them listen to him SING.”

I can’t say enough about how bad this record is. You could stab yourself in both eardrums with a pointy stick until you get gray matter on the business end and you still won’t be able to erase the awfulness. The album cover is bad enough, but the music is so much worse that maybe people should buy this to remind themselves of what GOOD music should be like. This is hands down the worst album cover of the year for no other reason than Mister Constipated’s goofy, bulbous face is on it. Continue reading WTF: Our Best/Worst Find of 2009 →