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The worst album covers ever #1: heavy metal
The first in a continuing series of cover art badness. This week… Metal!
Joe Bosso, Fri 15 May 2009, 5:05 pm UTC
What makes an album cover bad? Better yet, what makes one truly terrible?
To paraphrase US Justice Potter Stewart musing on what is 'pornography': "I can't tell you what obscenity is, but I know it when I see it."
And MusicRadar knows a bad album cover when it sees it.
Today, MusicRadar kicks off a series called The Worst Album Covers Ever, with our first installment shining a harsh light on the world of heavy metal.
The songs may rock, the singers may scream, the solos may impressively shred.
But what the hell is happening with these album covers? Oh, and warning - a few of these verge on the NSFW. All of them however verge on the terrible.
The worst album covers ever: #1 heavy metal
Boned - Up At The Crack
Hopefully, Les Paul hasn't seen this. It could kill him!
Cinderella - Night Songs
"Look at the bitchin' clothes Mom got us at the rock store! She even named our band too!"
Death - Leprosy
Because the one thing people like more than death is leprosy.
User comments (7)
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So glad you all get the gag! Came across this by accident (excuse the pun) - it's amazing where your stuff turns up - I'm Billy from BONED by the way. This album cover has been good to us and resulted in us playing the Royal Albert Hall with Ian Gillan, Scorpions and Judas Priest (all no strangers to bad covers, ha, ha) as it became a favourite album of the late Tommy Vance shortly before his untimely death. It was never released on vinyl and the original versions are really hared to get hold of but we re-released the album on Current Records with a slightly different cover (only the logo changed - not the wonderful image!!). The album is available from all good download stores and you can also get a copy of our EP, which carries on the theme but has the Les Paul coming out of the Albert Hall. Also, for additional info, the guitar in question seen protruding from lead vocalist Dan Davie's groin is not actually marked Gibson Les Paul - it was re-named - bet nobody can guess what it actually says...anyway, you can see that we don't take ourselves seriously although the music is another thing - there isn't a finer classic rock group in the UK currently - check us out at www.unbelievablemusic.co.uk and visit featured artist pages!!!!
Billy xx -
fao: imported_carlospresents
guess why it sounds american, it's because the writer's an american, dude! clicking on his name reveals:
Joe Bosso is a musician and journalist from New Jersey, USA. He is ex-Editor-in-Chief of Guitar World magazine and ex-Vice President of A&R at Island Records. -
Man, am I bummin or what? I go to my vinyl store and they don't have a copy of "Boned Up the Crack." They said they had a CD but they sold it TODAY in fact. How's that for apples? This thing's going to be a collector's item and I'm missing out.
But I did scoop up a copy the death Leprisy album which is insanely cool. I don't need to listen to it and I'm sure I won't but the fact that I have it is awesome. I'm going to sell it for $$ one day.
And I got an old copy of the Whitesnake album. It says PROMO COPY on it so I guess some dude from a record company gave it away, but hey, it's mine now, you know?
I told the guy at the store about this story and he picked it up on his laptop. Dude nearly busted a gut looking at the covers man. He said he'd half to track down most of these records so he can make some money. These records can be a goldmine if you can get them all. What a collection to have!! -
Fantastic! Can we have one for gospel albums too please? I'll start the ball rolling with this one - it's priceless:
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/5357/faithtones.jpg -
I always thought the BoltThrower cover was great!
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Awesome list. This stuff is too funny. I've got to go to the vinyl store in my town (there is one!) and try to find a copy of "Boned Up The Crack." I think it's going to be a collector's item after this story..
Oh, I just noticed that the band is named Boned and the album is called "Up At The Crack." Still means the same thing really. Collector's item. -
Although I agree with many of these, have you just copied and pasted them from an American website? First grade? What's that? Doofuses? What are they?
Keep it up though. Copying and pasting rulez dudez. San Dimas High School Football Rules!
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