U2
Best: Gotta go with The Joshua Tree, but Achtung Baby is close behind
Worst: The North American cover for Boy (the one with the stretched faces) is just plain ugly.
Absolutely Stratocaster. The differential is immense! The album cover mirrors the movie - A bomb. The music, the soundtrack, however, is an undisputed masterpiece!
The Soft Boys
All their record covers are crap I suppose the least bad is the single Only the Stones Remain (it’s the silhouette of Stonehenge).
Another great band with consistently awful covers was Doll by Doll but I’ll bet no-one else has even heard of them 
[QUOTE=RealityChuck…Best: The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
Worst: The British version of “Mr. Fantasy.” The US version is OK, but the Brit is just an ugly red color.[/QUOTE]
I always liked the 3D geometric pattern of LSoHHB. (IINM, like Mr Blue Sky’s; Out of the Blue) the US album cover Mr Fantasy can only appreciated on vinyl - with the jacket open and the full panoramic cover shown.
Black Sabbath (Original lineup)
Best: Sabbath Bloddy Sabbath
Worst: Sabotage. (Drummer) Bill Ward in a leotard. Need I say more?
Another Blue Öyster Cult
Best: Secret Treaties or
Worst: Heaven Forbid (Appropriate description of the cover & the contents)
Zappa
Best - We’re Only In It For The Money (The Sgt. Pepper’s spoof on the jacket side more than the Mothers in drag on the outside cover)
Worst - Waka/Jawaka
Steely Dan
Worst: Countdown to Ecstasy (what the heck is that?)
Best: None leaps out, Aja maybe.
The albums of They Might Be Giants each have a personality of their own, and the artwork often reflects that, more or less. They’re all interesting in their own way, but I personally like the artwork on The Spine the best, especially since it isn’t exactly what comes to mind when you think of that as an album title. The worst ones are probably the two childrens records, in particular Here Come the ABC’s since it’s hard to read all the jumbled text as a 25 year old, so I don’t think a kid would do too well with it.
My pals The Gourds from Austin TX:
Best: Stadium Blitzer
Woist: Blood of the Ram (boy howdy, that’s ugly)
Please buy their CDs, though.
Rolling Stones:
Best: Sticky Fingers, Some Girls
Woist: too many to name. Goat’s Head Soup, Dirty Work, Their Satanic Majesties, Tattoo You, Emotional Rescue, the last five or six I guess…
Tom Waits:
Best: Frank’s Wild Years and The Mule Variations
Woist: I love Tom Waits, but the covers to all his 70s albums are pretty embarrassing. I’ll go for Small Change, him looking all 50s-vintage boho in the stripper’s dressing room. That’s just trying too hard.
Prince
Best: Sign O’ the Times
Woist: of many bad ones, I pick his first, Prince – like Truman Capote noted, he looks a dwarf dipped in a vat of pubic hair.
