You Spin me 'round babby

June 9, 2007 6:03 PM

Bad album covers: Volume 1 and Volume 2, (NSFW content!). Two flickr sets of album covers to make you laugh. cry, scream in terror, or just quietly go WTF? In addition is the related site of Strange records, which includes a page of mp3s. previous related post [via] [via]
posted by edgeways (33 comments total)

I'm not an Albini fan myself, but they are waaay off base on this one.
And these two.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 6:41 PM on June 9, 2007

Oh yes. Nice. There's a lot of good stuff there in those flickr sets. Bookmarked!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:53 PM on June 9, 2007

I swear I had this one in my collection when I was in high school. As I recall, it included a down-tempo cover of Foghat's "I Just Wanna Make Love to You."
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:57 PM on June 9, 2007

These are pretty funny, but I will also love and cherish Liars' It Fit When I Was A Kid EP for how awful the cover is, and of course in combination with the title... whew.

Censored version.

Incredibly NSFW version.

Fantastic music, though, if you like droning/chant rock.
posted by synaesthetichaze at 7:00 PM on June 9, 2007

Milhouse?!
posted by papakwanz at 7:05 PM on June 9, 2007

$23,500 for Ray and his Musical Family?

really?
posted by timsteil at 7:21 PM on June 9, 2007

This is a great record and the cover is perfectly appropriate for the music. Seriously, buy it for your kid if you see it.
posted by escabeche at 7:29 PM on June 9, 2007

I remember this girl when she used to be on Carson in the late 70s. She was actually a great singer and rather cute IMHO. And I've just discovered she led a very tragic and painful existence and died 8 years ago from complications following surgery to relieve her depression.
posted by zorro astor at 7:56 PM on June 9, 2007

Um ... do they understand that "The Electric Amish" is a gag?
posted by RavinDave at 8:10 PM on June 9, 2007

Fantastic
posted by strawberryviagra at 8:31 PM on June 9, 2007

I can't believe there was no album cover featuring the chap-wearing, homoerotic music abortion that is ManOwar.
posted by munchingzombie at 8:34 PM on June 9, 2007

"how do you do?" ... (this was actually a pop hit in the early 70s and na-na-na-na-na-na ... it's quite awful)
posted by pyramid termite at 8:38 PM on June 9, 2007

looked it up in billboard top 40 - #8 - released june 72

a GREAT year for music - NOT!
posted by pyramid termite at 8:55 PM on June 9, 2007

holy shit.
posted by exlotuseater at 8:59 PM on June 9, 2007

or, more to the point, "holy shit, many of the albums in my house as I was growing up (in the 70s and early 80s) were just like these, and I am torn between feeling a bizarre sense of nostalgia and sheer terror/ morbid fascination at what passed for album art-- racist and sexist stereotypes, terrible photography, and twisted psychedelic weirdnesses."
posted by exlotuseater at 9:04 PM on June 9, 2007

For the record, nobody on the blue says WTF quietly.
posted by davejay at 9:31 PM on June 9, 2007

Oh, and that Big Black album was great.
posted by davejay at 9:33 PM on June 9, 2007

(I kinda like "How Do You Do?")

Mouth died in 2004 of heart failure.
posted by Oriole Adams at 10:18 PM on June 9, 2007

"Can I borrow a feelin'" was by Milhouse's dad, Kirk Van Houten, not by Milhouse.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:18 PM on June 9, 2007

Another one for the pile.
posted by facetious at 11:28 PM on June 9, 2007

The "I Eat Kids" looks fun. But I have a couple in my collection that they seem to have misssd, unless I didn't look long enough. Maybe I didn't, as I find this bunch of old albums from people I never heard of, rather boring.

Where's The Circle Jerks "Golden Shower of Hits"? I bought it purely for the name and cover (It was cheap, I worked at Capital Records at the time. Probably the last time I bought LPs). Another one I found in a used record shop, feathers what I suppose is a pumpernikel bagel sitting on a keyboard (looks like a turd) and is titled "Smells Like...".

This collection seems lame in comparison.
posted by Goofyy at 1:15 AM on June 10, 2007

ack, feathers = features.
posted by Goofyy at 1:16 AM on June 10, 2007

This is why we have MP3. Soon there will be no need for cover art at all.
posted by humblepigeon at 1:32 AM on June 10, 2007

This is a great record and the cover is perfectly appropriate for the music. Seriously, buy it for your kid if you see it.

I loved Barry Louis Polisar when I was a tyke. He's still kickin around out there. My girlfriend just bought one of his albums for her nephew. She ordered it online and after it arrived, we were supposed to send a check (which we did).

The whole "children's artist with a trust based sales system" is so charming it almost causes me pain.
posted by 1-2punch at 4:11 AM on June 10, 2007

WTF's an orth?
Surely you meant "My Opia," Kevin?
I don't care how loud you scream ... I can't read Jew!
Request denied
INVISIBLE CAROUSEL
Hayloft of the Damned
Lemme guess: Master Beta Kau?
posted by rob511 at 4:16 AM on June 10, 2007

There are a million of these lists. Here's another.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:35 AM on June 10, 2007

Oh, so very very NSFW.
posted by gimonca at 8:34 AM on June 10, 2007

The brazen god of the Philistines went and got all lounge on us.
posted by gimonca at 8:47 AM on June 10, 2007

Still the worst [NSFW!!!! actually, NSFAnywhere, I'm pretty sure looking at this picture is a felony.]
posted by tehloki at 3:47 PM on June 10, 2007

I believe the difficulty in transferring the idea of an album into a visual form has proven that too many commercial artists are too lazy for creativity's own good.
posted by a_s_m at 12:11 AM on June 11, 2007

I believe the difficulty in transferring the idea of an album into a visual form

Well, cover art is a commercial art form, so will always be inherently limited. It has a definite purpose in life, which is to inspire people to buy the record and also built the public image of the artist. So it could never be a complete visual art form. It's essentially graphic design.
posted by humblepigeon at 12:49 AM on June 11, 2007

ack, feathers = features.

Well, that is true, of course, for birds.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:56 AM on June 11, 2007

They totally poached my record collection. Except Blind Faith, the original cover.
posted by Mental Wimp at 1:04 PM on June 11, 2007