Ratchell - Ratchell II (1972)

Words just fail me on this one. I never realized there could be a band so collectively ugly that even doctored, Glamour-shots style photos couldn't save any of them. These guys look less like a rock band and more like that depressing band your cheap uncle hired for his wedding that only knew how to play bad covers of old 70s rock ballads, right down to the depressing Tony Orlando look-alike.

The Monkees - Pool It! (1987)

Somebody should have told the Monkees that they stopped being teen heartthrobs approximately 20 years before this album got made. Let's face it, there's nothing more depressing than a bunch of doughy, middle-aged men in swimming trunks trying to play like they're still cool. And jesus, what's with the painted-in water? Couldn't they afford to shoot this album cover in a real pool?

Limp Bizkit - Results May Vary (2003)

Putting a photo of any band members on an album cover isn't a bad idea, really. It just helps if you don't have so much lighting shined on your face that you look like a bloated, doughy corpse. Soaking everything in a sickly lime green doesn't help either since it just makes you look like a cheap ripoff of the Wizard of Oz.

Dave Starr - The Nearer the Bone, the Sweeter the Meat

"Huh? Who are you assholes? Can't you see I'm eating? The album cover? I thought you fuckheads were coming at 6! Look, if you want a picture so bad, just take one right now. I ain't in no fuckin' mood to get up and dick around taking some damn photo while my food gets cold! Either take a picture right now or get the fuck out of here!"

Jerry Colonna - Jerry Colonna Plays Trombone Along the Dixieland Hi-Fi-Way (1957)

Jerry Colonna looks like he took a mouthful of uppers with his coffee this morning.

This is one of those instances where, by itself, the art style could've been fantastic, but deciding to superimpose actual photos of Jerry Colonna and entourage over the artwork just makes things really awkward and kind of ugly.

Boys Town Gang - Can't Take My Eyes Off You (1997)

Well. Sometimes, I really don't need to say anything at all about these covers.

Joe Vento - The Many Moods of Joe Vento

"Duhhh, hey maw! I finally got me one of them there recordin' contracts! And I think this purdy lady likes me! Ah'm gonna be livin' the good life! Huh? Whaddya mean they're takin' a pitcher of me right now?"

Carl Preacher - Just Jesus and Me

It's so sweet that Carl made a nest in his hair for Jesus to roost in.

Roger - The Many Facets of Roger (1981)

Among Roger's many facets are his inability to dress himself in clothing that isn't both ridiculous and extremely ugly, his inability to get a decent haircut, and his shameless mugging for the department store camera that undoubtedly was used to create these shots in the first place.

Violet Cohn - More from Violet Cohn

I'm not sure how to read Violet's facial expression here. Either she's been constipated for days and is waiting for her prunes to kick in, or she's completely forgotten that she was supposed to have a photo taken for her album cover and is wondering who in the hell these strange people with cameras are that came into her house and scared her cats. I'm thinking it might be the latter since she apparently took the time to pick out the dress that acted as the best camoflage against her floral print wallpaper.

(as the watermark states, this image also comes courtesy of Bizarre Records)

Buffalo - Only Want You for Your Body (1974)

While I'm pretty sure the album title/cover combo are meant to work as a joke, this still leaves me with a photo of a very pasty white fat... um, thing all suited up for some S&M action in a dungeon somewhere. Maybe I'm a bit too square, but I don't find this to be very effective album cover material. I mean, at least make it so I can figure out the gender of whatever it is that's being tied up next time.

David and Rhonda Bean - Somethins Happened to Daddy

What's happened to daddy, Rhonda, is that he bought a cheap suit that's somehow made him think that he's wealthier than he actually is, if we can believe the unbelievably awful song title advertised here. He also may be suffering from bee sting allergies given the puffiness of his face. I'd also rather not speculate about why the microphone you happen to be holding looks vaguely like a vibrator.

The Gospel Tidings - Get Away Satan

These people are so collectively ugly that I'm sure Satan wouldn't want anything to do with them in the first place. "Send these guys to hell? Are you nuts? These people think avocado green actually looks good on them! They're too stupid to be evil! And stop bothering me about tempting the McKeithens. They ain't cutting it either."

The McKeithens - The McKiethen's

While the McKeithens as a whole are an ugly, ugly family and I could describe the flaws of each for possibly two or three pages, what concerns me most is the mother's hair. It looks terrifyingly unreal, almost as if some space alien replaced her hair with an egg sac and in a few minutes a bunch of space parasites are going to burst from it and latch themselves onto her extremely mannish daughter, or maybe the grinning idiot in the back.

Dr. Alimantado - Best Dressed Chicken in Town (1978)

Somebody needs to tell this chicken that it's generally a good idea to check if your fly is zipped before posing for an album cover.

Various Artists - Festival Strings

If Charlie's Angels were cheap, ugly white trash.

Jaco Pastorius - Curtain Call (1996)

This just hurts my eyes. A huge, blown-up, blurry picture of someone's face isn't something I want to look at under the best circumstances, but making it a color that's so hard on the eyes doesn't help things any.

Ms. Tee - Having Thing$!! (1995)

Ms. Tee realizes that "doin' thangs" just isn't all that exciting. What's really important is having things, such as really blurry photographs on album covers, ugly upholstered chairs, and non-descript framed images of what appears to be the interior of someone's colon. She hasn't quite progressed up to having the good stuff, but at least she has things, and that's all that counts.

ABBA - Gracias por la Musica (1980)

This Spanish-language ABBA album poses the question: what is the dorkiest thing about it? Is it:

A) The matching jumpsuits for each couple, as it were.
B) Bjorn's ridiculous facial expression
C) Agnetha and Anni-Frid's mutual ridiculous facial expression
D) Benny's captivating UGG boots
E) The crayon scribbles around the exterior of the photograph
F) write-in

You, the readers, get to choose.

Mecca Normal - The Observer (2006)

This seems to answer the age-old question of whether it's possible for a mummy to rise back from the dead and release an album.