# Great album / awful cover art!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** music
**Created:** [October 25, 2021, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160 "2021-10-25T10:32:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2021, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/1 "2021-10-25T10:32:13Z")
Your submissions, please, for awful album covers gracing (or, rather, defacing) a great album!
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2021, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/2 "2021-10-25T13:18:46Z")
The Kinks have several album covers I’m not crazy about, and overall may have the lowest album-cover-quality-to-album-quality ratio.
[ ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ea/The_kinks_lola_versus_powerman_album.jpg)
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2021, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/3 "2021-10-25T15:15:19Z")
I don’t think I would pronounce it “awful”, but the first Alan Parsons album cover wasn’t much to draw people in:
[ ](https://www.udiscovermusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Alan-Parsons-Project-Tales-Of-Mystery-And-Imagination-Album-Cover-Web-820-optimised.jpg)
I guess they got feedback about that, and replaced it pretty quickly with this alternate cover:
[ ](https://cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/abccolor/7RIX7XJEQFDW7K6N4NOEHJ5VV4.jpg)
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### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2021, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/4 "2021-10-25T15:43:49Z")
I love Black Sabbath, but many of their album covers are just awful, IMO. Like Paranoid, Sabotage, and Technical Ecstasy.
And I really really really hate the cover art on King Crimson’s first album.
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2021, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/5 "2021-10-25T15:50:47Z")
No contest:
[ ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bb/PetSoundsCover.jpg)
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2021, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/6 "2021-10-25T16:04:55Z")
Orleans first album
[ ](https://i2.wp.com/www.thevinyldistrict.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/orleans.jpg?resize=425%2C425)
Compare that with their follow-up album
[https://cd.calimacil.fr/images/1/6/orleans-ii.jpg](https://cd.calimacil.fr/images/1/6/orleans-ii.jpg)
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### Author:  [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2021, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/7 "2021-10-25T16:38:14Z")
Somehow “Orleans” and “great” don’t quite seem to go together…
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2021, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/8 "2021-10-25T23:59:15Z")
Ca. 1990, I dated a man who owned a used record store, and EVERY.SINGLE.TIME someone purchased Prince’s “Lovesexy”, they would cringe and say, “…the cover…”
> **[Lovesexy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovesexy)**
>
> Pages for logged out editors learn more
>
>
> Lovesexy is the tenth studio album by American recording artist Prince. The album was released on May 10, 1988 by Paisley Park Records and Warner Bros. Records. The album was recorded in just seven weeks, from mid-December 1987 to late January 1988, at Prince's new Paisley Park Studios, and most of the album is a solo effort from Prince, with a few exceptions. The lyrical themes of the record include positivity, self-improvement, spirituality, a...
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2021, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/9 "2021-10-26T01:49:13Z")
Great choices so far: Kinks, Pet Sounds…
Zep III is a pretty good album, but Jimmy rightfully lamented the “teeny-bopperish” typeface. He kindly attributed it to a miscommunication, rather than excoriating the designers (Hipgnosis, I think — hey, a candidate for the “clever business name” thread!).
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### Author:  [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2021, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/10 "2021-10-26T14:36:18Z")
Two words - “Blind Faith”.
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### Author:  [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2021, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/11 "2021-10-26T14:44:03Z")
Was there any cover art more low effort than The Beatles White Album?
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2021, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/12 "2021-10-26T14:46:20Z")
That’s a good one. Every time I used to see that album in someone’s collection, I always assumed they were a heavy smoker; there’s no way an artist would chose that shade of yellow for an album cover!
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2021, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/13 "2021-10-26T14:47:25Z")
The line between “low effort” and “high concept” is often nonexistent.
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### Author:  [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2021, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/14 "2021-10-26T14:48:25Z")
Somebody was high, no doubt about that.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2021, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/15 "2021-10-26T14:49:15Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#):
>
> Was there any cover art more low effort than The Beatles White Album?
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHy6_vQueLI)
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### Author:  [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2021, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/16 "2021-10-26T14:57:10Z")
Are you talking about the US version with the band photo? I was actually talking about the original, more controversial album art with the naked tween girl. Although, I suppose both versions fit depending on your definition of “awful”.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2021, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/17 "2021-10-26T14:57:54Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#):
>
> Was there any cover art more low effort than The Beatles White Album?
I see I was ninja’d by Smell the Glove. “None more white.” 🙂
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#):
>
> The line between “low effort” and “high concept” is often nonexistent.
It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2021, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/18 "2021-10-26T15:02:59Z")
The Who deserve to be in the Bottom Ten.
[ ](https://a.1stdibscdn.com/archivesE/upload/a_1032/22_15/whosnext_web980px/WhosNext_Web980px-1.jpeg)
To avoid wallowing in negativity, I’ve always like this NRBQ album cover.
[ ](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hSwCRLO3ep8/Tw1v-jGBTiI/AAAAAAAAAhk/5gLU4yWJGWA/s1600/NRBQ+-+At+Yankee+Stadium_1978_Mercury_Front+Cover.jpg)
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2021, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/19 "2021-10-26T15:59:10Z")
Anyone remember the original album cover for The Beatles’ _Yesterday and Today_ and its quickly replaced substitute?
[ ](https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/static/article/draft/147947_RTbfJKo7CdeWbjNd_67946.jpg)
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### Author:  [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2021, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-album-awful-cover-art/953160/20 "2021-10-26T16:33:25Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#):
>
> The Who deserve to be in the Bottom Ten.
I had to stare at that for several minutes to “get it”. 🤦♀️ At first I thought the marks on the pillar were childrens’ shadows and I thought “well, that’s kind of trippy”. Now I just think it’s kind of gross.
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