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: 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: Batman For Mature Audiences Only

This bad album cover is brain-meltingly perverse in all the right ways. There’s no real commentary on this one, simply because…well, just LOOK at this! It’s a masterpiece of surrealism, OR it’s the dumbest piece of art designed to sell products ever.

The longer I stare at this, the funnier and more incomprehensible it gets. This is the El Topo of album covers. … Continue Reading

WTF: Roy Harper Wears the Emperor’s New Clothes

Bad album covers rule. Especially THIS one. We already know what’s going on here, but it’s the MESSAGE here that is the real head-scratcher. The artist seems to be saying, “Why yes, I AM a wanker. I’ve proved it with this here album cover.”

Now here’s the real mystery. Guess how much this album is selling for on Amazon. Just you TRY to guess. I don’t care if the guy DID do the vocals on Pink Floyd’s “Have a Cigar”, there’s no reason for the compact disc of this album to sell for $50. Is there? This album is standard folkie finger twiddling and caterwauling. It’s not Johnny Rotten’s secret outtakes from an unreleased collaboration with Joe Strummer we never knew about or anything.

And to hear this music while staring at this album cover makes the entire affair seem kinda sad. “Here’s me with no clothes on. And my music sounds about the same. Please like this record!”

Ahh well.

–Joe Wallace

WTF: Cartoon Disco

To be fair, the bad album art is really not the main event here, though if you were going to try to sell an LP full of already unlistenable crap repackaged as disco dancefloor hits, you’d probably want to show some people actively engaged in, oh, I don’t know, DISCO DANCING?

The cover photo for this looks like the woman just brushed off a drunken groper in some sleazy snack bar; if these two are supposed to be having a good time listening to a disco-fied “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” it’s impossible to tell. The grimace on her face alone says “bowel surgery” instead of “hot disco fun”.

Now to the realy question. WTF made ANYONE think an album of disco versions of The Woody Woodpecker song would actually SELL? “Hey guys, here’s a great one, let’s spend $70 grand reworking Popeye The Sailor Man into a Studio 54 staple.”

The group that recorded this musical death rattle? Disco Band. they thought so much of themselves that they took the first name that came out of the engineer’s mouth. “Hey, Charlie, what do we call ourselves on this piece of crap, anyway?”

For my money, the song to kill yourself to on this record would be Chim Chim Cheree, which I’ve hated since the first time I heard it as a child. But then again, I hated cartoons at an early, early age (single digits, folks) because–get this–they weren’t VIOLENT ENOUGH.

No wonder I hate THIS with such a passion. And I LIKE disco cheese. But the idea of listening to ten seconds of Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah for any reason at all gives me the makings of my very first seizure.

-Joe Wallace

WTF: Shrinebuilder

Bad album covers and PR artwork both come in a variety of flavors, but the category “Ill-Advised Band Photography” is one of my favorites. The ones I see where I can hear the band talking to the photographer in my head? Priceless. This is what I heard when I spotted this winner from Shrinebuilder.

“Ok, first, like, we’re not Christian rock even though our name sure sounds like it. Second, like, make our tats really prominent in this photograph, dude. It will distract people from thinking this guy on the left looks like Janeane Garafolo.”

“Now, I’m gonna arrange my hair and hold my chin out LIKE THIS so I look exactly like Viggo Mortensen. We’re big fans of those damn hobbit movies.”

“Yeah, we KNOW these two other guys look like a high school shop teacher and Emo Phillips. Just make us two tattooed dudes look badass and we’ll call it a day.”

“Yes, Janeane Garafolo here has an I-Ching tat. Ain’t that something? He got it because that’s the sound he makes right before we start playing. He kinda hawks up a loogie and goes “eeeeee-shinnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggg!”

“Ok, now take that damn picture and make sure we got our mad faces on first.”

–Joe Wallace

WTF: Crying Demons LP

Bad album art? Well, hell son, YOU be the judge. This album cover does NOT depict a 12-year old Mos Def doing a prank record…instead it’s made for suckers who think they’re going to hear real live demons talking through their halpless victims. But let’s not get carried away, WTF is all about the LP cover art and what artwork this is.

What in the WORLD is going on here? The album is called “Crying Demons” but we see a grinning cross-eyed partygoer with one too many Bud Lights with Lime in him instead. Or maybe it’s nitrous oxide. Perhaps our cover model is fresh out of a car accident and he’s got some horrific head injury we can’t quite see…whatever is going on here, it’s pretty far away from demonic possession. Where’s the green pea soup spewing?

I LOVE this album cover to DEATH. I need to OWN this masterpiece, and you can actually PURCHASE IT ON AMAZON albeit at the insane collector’s price of $27.86 for a used copy (at press time. Who knows what one is going for now??)

I won’t say that I’d SELL MY SOUL for a copy of this record. No I won’t.

–Joe Wallace

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WTF: Stryken First Strike

Bad album covers? Jesus knows all about them. These poor, misguided born-again heavy metalers forgot to ask the lord for guidance when trying to sort out the artwork for this album cover. Because if they had, it’s almost a dead cert that God (or Satan, for that matter) would tell them NOT to put their own goofy faces on this OR risk being sued by Throbbing Gristle for stealing that band’s lightning logo.

These guys so desperately want this to be a photographic version of the Kiss Destroyer album cover that you can practically hear the conversations now. “NO! Shoot it AGAIN! It doesn’t look like DESTROYER, not even close. We KNOW they’re Kids In Service of Satan, but we REALLY want to be as cool as they are. Oh, please mister photographer, don’t make us look any more effeminate than we already do with the Freddie Mercury pouts and eye makeup.”
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