I’d have thought this topic would have been covered here already, but I did a search and couldn’t see anything similar, so here we are.
I saw an article somewhere recently about this topic - like the album, hate the cover - and while there were some bad covers, they were mostly for records I’d never heard of.
Of the ones I knew, there were two that I liked both album and cover: In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson
and Zuma by Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Now, arguably both now those covers are bad art, but to me they compliment the music really well, so they’re good album covers. And I couldn’t really think of any album I loved but hated the cover of.
Anyway, the opposite question occurred to me - like the cover, hate the record?
Well, I don’t hate the Eagles, but I’m not a fan. However, I think the cover of Desperado - front and back - is highly evocative and excellently realised, and really deserves a far cooler album to grace.
So, let’s hear your opinions, and post links to images unless you hate something universal like the Sgt Pepper cover or Dark Side of the Moon.
Like the album, hate the cover: Black Sabbath - Sabotage. The story goes that somebody forgot to tell the band members to bring their stage clothes to the photo shoot, hence the cool concept getting spoiled and looking kind of goofy instead.
Also, Deep Purple is a band in particular that I would say has a lot of classic albums and a lot of bad covers.
Kane Welch Kaplin is a superb record, but the cover… well.
I like the cover of the first album by Kansas(it’s part of a mural by John Steuart Curry called Tragic Prelude and depicts John Brown)… I must say I’m not familiar with the album but I’ve never particularly liked anything I’ve heard by the band.
I never liked the cover of Lou Reed’s New Sensations. It’s very dated now, plus it always bothered me that Lou’s joystick didn’t seem to be connected to anything.
Steely Dan made some sublime music, but their album covers mostly reeked, with the lowest point, IMO, being this effort for The Royal Scam. A plain manila envelope would have been a massive improvement.
Though I didn’t exactly hate it, the album cover for Led Zeppelin’s In Through the Out Door was infinitely more interesting than any of the music (sorry, fool in the rain). There were six different versions of the cover photo, all of the same scene but taken from different vantage points.
The record sleeve was a black in white drawing that you could color by putting water on it.
Zep 4 - liked the album, not the cover (lol same goes for Houses of Holy…also skeevy, like the Blind Faith cover) (and its contents I’m nowhere near as crazy about as I am with #4.)
first Sabbath album - like both album and cover, despite green-faced lady giving me the heebie-jeebies.:eek:
King Crimson’s quite simple cover for “Lark’s Tongue’s Aspic” I dig, along with its contents.
There’s an inner gatefold of a certain Lionel Ritchie album that there’s no fucking way I’m gonna be dastardly enough to show here.
I got the reverse for ya. Led Zeppelin III was a great album, the high point of their rock, blues, and folk sound, but the cover was horrible. It looks like they couldn’t make up their mind, and just threw a bunch of stuff at it and just said “fuck it”.
here already, but I did a search and couldn’t see anything similar, so here we are.
