WTF Album Covers Tsjuder Demonic Possession

by Joe Wallace

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not at all a fan of black metal, so maybe it’s completely unfair to poke fun at the Tsjuder album cover for Demonic Possession. After all, if you’re not a fan of this kind of music, it just seems a bit silly. The “ooh scary” makeup, the spiky leather armbands, the growling…if you aren’t caught up in any of this your first reaction is likely something to do with the notion that it might be time to leave Mom’s basement and try using some hair conditioner.

But is that really fair? Whatever…I’m a first impression sorta guy when it comes to WTF album covers.

So with that said, I could NOT STOP LAUGHING at the expression on this guy’s face when I spotted this album cover. Sorry, black metal fans, but the face paint doesn’t say anything to me except Circ du Soleil, and the scowling makes me think about eating more fiber. Coupled with yet another indecipherable scrawl for a band logo and we have a winner for this week’s “Album Cover Most Likely To Make You Laugh While Looking Over Your Shoulder For Angry Metal Dudes With Baseball Bats” contest.

Making fun of black metal band album covers is probably almost as dangerous as making fun of gangsta rap records like Mister Stinky’s Everything Dead. THAT clown actually made a sort-of halfhearted threat to shoot my little harmless ass after I wrote, “Fame, fortune, and all the summer sausage you can eat have all passed Mr. Stinky by…”

The reply I got to THAT post read, “Who ever wasted there time and life…. let me know where you are so I can put a bullet in your face!” Nice going, Stinky. Now the lawyers know where to find you.

Poking fun at the metal album covers hasn’t earned me any similar missives so far, but I did get a peeved message from an offended Yanni fan. Boy, oh boy, I just don’t know when to quit, do I?

I do wonder what day of the week it will wind up being when some face-painted angry King Diamond sorta guy shows up looking for some fisticuffs because I said something slightly negative about the idea that all these black metal face-paintey guys make me giggle like a Swedish schoolgirl.

So it’s getting shot by Mister Stinky or curb-stomped by some Scandinavian goat worshipper…hmmm. Which do I choose? Never mind, I’m gonna start making fun of Micronesian zither polka album covers next. Those dudes might come after me with a potato peeler or a pencil sharpener, but it won’t do any lasting injury.

WTF Album Covers: Leona Anderson Music To Suffer By

by Joe Wallace

I stumbled on this image of the album cover for Leona Anderson’s Music To Suffer By on The Magic Whistle. WTF is going on in this picture? This one’s suitable for framing–at least in MY house where bad album art has a special place of love and reverence.

There’s nothing quite like the joys of an especially wretched piece of album art. The ones so wrong-headed you can’t even begin to describe them are my favorites. Music To Suffer By from Leona Anderson is definitely one of those. Can you hear the discussion between Anderson and the artist? “Well, miz Anderson, the guy with the violin is, you know, gonna KILL you here with that lighter as you’re trying to sing with cobwebs coming out of your mouth. GET IT?”

If YOU get it, please by all means, let ME know what this is trying to say. I think maybe I’m still drunk from a week last Thursday and that’s why I can’t wrap my head around it.

WTF Album Covers: Coup Party Music

Staggeringly poor taste? Misguided attempt at controversy? Or bad timing? According to several sources, this album cover for Party Music by Coup was accomplished before September 11, but that didn’t stop the FBI from taking a look. Coup were cleared of any perceived wrongdoing, but the mere existence of this imagery is enough to send Tea Party rebel flag flyers into a fit of apoplexy. To me, it’s just another cheesy album cover–but what POORLY TIMED CHEESE indeed. The story goes that this artwork was accomplished only a few months before September 11. Creepy.

This is not the official artwork for the album–the image above was yanked after 9/11, but it’s still what comes up when you shop for Party Music by Coup on Amazon.com. And that makes it a bona fide WTF moment for me, at least.

But according to the blog Whole Lotta Album Covers, the official album art is much more clever–and more subversive. The subtlety on THIS album cover puts 99% of their peers to shame. In an era filled with excessive goofiness on hip-hop & rap covers, the official cover for Party Music is definitely a breath of fresh air:

UPDATE: Not more than three hours after I posted this, magically Amazon has the official album art on display now instead of the controversial 9/11 cover that was originally designed, then pulled. Did I have anything to do with that? Who knows, but I AM amused…greatly amused.

WTF Bad Album Covers: Organ Fantasy

We were so busy last week with the inauguration of our new digital single download offerings that we haven’t posted a single bad album cover in quite some time. But rest assured, now that the kickoff of the digital downloads has started we are back on the prowl for the worst album covers ever.

For example…

Organ Fantasy does NOT sound like the name of a record…it’s more like some unreleased David Friedman 42nd Street “adults only” epic starring Chesty Morgan and an embryonic Shannon Tweed. If it weren’t for that balloon on the lower left pointing the way, you could almost excuse this as the work of some genuinely naive and misguided soul…but no. Organ Fantasy is definitely the work of some twisted prankster.

And what on EARTH was the near literal FRENZY to preserve ORGAN music in the first place? There are so many records dedicated to the organ that you’d think all the performers would be EXTINCT in five years or something. How many frickin’ organ records do we really need? No wonder they resorted to Freudian names with Beavis and Butthead visual puns on the cover–the art directors were probably going out of their minds with the literal avalanche of organ records.

WTF Album Covers: Before Lil’ Kim, Lil Wayne and Lil Jon…

Before Lil’ Kim started a “mee too” bandwagon longer than your arm, here was Lil’ Richard, toiling away in some miserable little studio. And NOT the Lil Richard responsible for the utterly unlistenable “Hos on My Team”…

The REAL Little Richard would be outraged to have his identity linked in any way to an album cover so dim-witted. Just chant “duh” and go into a trance with me here as you view this thudding failure…

We’re still fixated on the me-too factor. There are far too many people with “lil” in front of their names…can’t you come up with something on your own? Apparently not if your name is:

Lil Romeo, Lil Zane, Lil Fizz, Lil Flip, Lil Troy, Lil Wayne, Lil Bow Wow, Lil Mama, Lil Jon, Lil Boosie, Lil Scrappy, Lil’ Rob, Lil Whyte.

Here’s one that’s currently unclaimed, our gift to some aspiring wannabe out there who just can’t rub two brain cells together to think up a clever stage name:

Lil’ Dumbass.