Super Furry Animals - Hey Venus! (2007)

I love psychedelic artwork as much as the next guy but I usually don't like it quite this terrifying. I especially take issue with the really ugly comic book style color job on the figures. This all less suggests psychedelia and more implies some sort of horrible attempt to update the 60s gone hideously awry.

American Gypsy - Angel Eyes (1974)

Portraying your band as a group of cheetahs on an album cover is kind of strange but it could potentially work if done well. Unfortunately, whoever drew this apparently only had four paint colors to work with and was suffering from the DTs, resulting in something that's less "strange" and more "ugly and horrifying to look at." At least this band didn't exist in the era of Photoshop or else we'd probably be seeing a bunch of poorly-pasted and colored heads atop real cheetah bodies.

The Woofers and Tweeters Ensemble - Beatle Barkers (1983)

You know those dumb "jingle pets" songs that get played on some of the more pathetic radio stations around the holidays? Those "songs" that are old Christmas tunes featuring pitch-shifted dog barks and other animal noises in place of actual singing? Well someone decided to do a whole album of Beatles songs in that "style" and left us with some truly wretched music and a pretty damned bad album cover. I really can't say much more on this subject. If you listen to any of the mp3s on the site provided, you'll realize that no other explanation is required. This is an album straight from the pits of hell itself and to speak of it would just be to invoke its dark powers to destroy all that is good and just in the world. Or at least wreck some pretty good Beatles tunes.

Mike Melvoin - The Plastic Cow Goes Moooooog (1970)

The plastic cow's lifeless eyes plead with you. Its pitiful cries of "moog" fill your ears. The plastic cow is attempting to tell you something. You can sense that it wants you to pull its plug. The plastic cow realizes its existence is horrible and unnatural. It pleads with you to end its so-called life by merely unplugging its cord, end its futile cries of "moog" once and for all.

(It should be noted that "moog" is actually pronounced to rhyme with "vogue," so Melvoin completely fucked up his stupid pun.)

Michael Jackson - Ben (original cover) (1972)

People try to trace exactly where Michael Jackson started to go wrong. Was it his horrible childhood growing up in Gary? The stratospheric fame in the 80s that turned his head all wrong? Personally, I believe that things started to go awry as early as the 70s, when Michael sang a ballad about a rat and was featured on an album cover with a bunch of rats. That's the sort of thing that's likely to mess with anyone's head.

Aerosmith - Get a Grip (1993)

Hi, "dudes!" We're the band Aerosmith! You might know us as a bunch of washed-up old guys your parents listened to. We, "like, totally" know what you're thinking, "man," but we're still totally "rad" and "hip" and "with it." Check this "radical" album we just put out! We know that "pierced nipples" are "totally hot" so we thought it'd be really "bodacious" to put one on our album cover. Even the album's name is "too cool for school"! So "don't have a cow, man," and buy our new record! We know you'll think it's "totally rad to the max"! "Cowabunga, dudes!"

Mario Rossi - Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf

I don't quite recall the portion of Peter and the Wolf where a middle-aged soccer mom in a frumpy black dress shoots the wolf, has it stuffed, then attempts the world's most inept suicide by shooting. Must've missed that part.

Incredible Hog - Incredible Hog (1973)

Boy there's nothing I like more than a female pig with several sets of human-like breasts, posing provocatively. I wonder if this album cover can be blamed for creating furries.

Dayglo Abortions - Two Dogs Fucking (1990)

This is one of those few times when the album cover actually delivers on what the album's name is. It also makes you wish that it hadn't.

Holly McNarland - Stuff (1997)

In Holly McNarland's bizarre world, "stuff" involves shrinking oneself to miniscule proportions, sitting in the mouth of a big, blurry dog, then piloting it around the house until it gets bored and snaps you in half with its mighty jaws, blood seeping from between its lips as it idly wonders why the treat in its mouth tasted so much like nasty hairgel.

Jiggers - Story Time

Hey gang! You're probably wondering how a 2 foot tall puppet such as myself got on the back of this huge horse! I have no idea either! All I know is that it seems really angry at me and the world in general. I'd love to dismount, but I'm just a puppet, so I can't even do that! What I'm trying to say, kids, is when I eventually get bucked off and crushed underneath this massive beast's pounding hooves, just tell my wife that I love her.

REO Speedwagon - You Can Tune a Piano, But You Can't Tuna Fish (1978)

What I love about this cover, other than how cheap and ugly the photo is, is how the band decided to capitalize the words Tune and Tuna, as a subtle way of helping the people who failed Basic Puns 101 to see the joke that "Tune" and "Tuna" sound very similar. Some might complain that the band assuming their fans are too dumb to get the joke is a bit meanspirited; I think REO Speedwagon knew damned well that anybody who could actually listen to a song like "Time for Me to Fly" and enjoy it probably needed all the help they could get.

If nothing else, at least this is slightly more clever than the Lords of Acid's pun on the word "pussy."

Lords of Acid - Pussy (1998)

Hahahaha, get it? Because "pussy" is a slang term for a cat but also a girl's naughty parts! That's sooo funny! Man, like, what'd be even funnier is if on the back cover there was a picture of a rooster's head coming out of somebody's open fly hahaha and then if the pussy started eating it ahahaha oh man I'd better stop laughing before I wake up my mom 'cause she totally hates it if she catches me on the computer this late.

Eulenspygel - Eulenspygel 2 (1971)

What a perfectly wonderful album cover! A live baby chick standing on top of a charred, dead baby chick laying on top of a fried egg in a frying pan. And people were bitching about Faith No More letting a fish flop around out of water for a few seconds in their music video for "Epic"!

I think this is supposed to be a warning of some sort, along the lines of "this is your brain after listening to German prog rock."

Paddy Roberts - Songs for Gay Dogs (1966)

Sometimes, these album covers just make fun of themselves.

Scorpions - Animal Magnetism (1980)

From a design standpoint, this album cover is actually really competent and well-shot. From most ther standpoints, it's just awful. Ha ha get it the woman is attracted to the man just like the dog is because he has so much animal magnetism! Because women are just dumb animals who are only good for making babies and can't drive! Plus they're bad at math I mean what the hell!!!

Fun fact: the original title for this album was "Dumb Bitches," but their record company decided they should tone it down a bit.

Big Bear - Doin' Thangs (1998)

Occasionally, album covers are so terrible or so ridiculous that they almost become awesome again. This is a perfect example. The entire scene is so ridiculous that it's hard not to like it on some level. The bears, all blinged out and drinking out of impossibly huge pimp cups. Big Bear himself in the middle of the cave, sharing his bounty of nuts, berries, and blunts. The constant use of lens flares. The fact that words "Big Bear" are made out of slowly-dripping honey. If nothing else, you really have to admire Big Bear for sticking so doggedly to a theme. Of course then you start imagining these bears in the 'hood, getting into a turf war with a gang of pumas, and then the Yogi Bear theme starts up in my head and the whole concept starts falling apart.

NOFX - Heavy Petting Zoo / Eating Lamb (1996)

While some album covers are so bad they're almost good, some are just so bad that they make you worry about the people responsible for their creation. I might as well cut to the chase. This here is an album cover depicting a man fingering a sheep. I guess it's supposed to be funny given the whole pun in the album title, but it's failing pretty miserably since, you know, the whole bestiality angle.

Of course, if you think this one's bad, you should see the album's lesser-known alternate cover, titled Eating Lamb.



Eating-based sexual puns have already become really old. Adding a sheep as the subject of one of theses puns does not make the pun any fresher, and instead makes me wonder what the hell is wrong with you.