The Beatles - Let It Be... Naked (2003)

This cover breaks my eyes every time I look at it. I refuse to believe that anyone with any inkling of design sense had anything to do with this cover. Using photo negatives on an album cover is a gamble under the best circumstances, but typically you should try to use contrasting colors to make the negatives stand out instead of using a horrible grey background that makes them blend in. The clashing red on the word "Naked" and the inherent awkwardness of the album's title (never, EVER use ellipses in an album title, I beg you) just make things worse. Jesus, they didn't even get Harrison's photo right.

The hilarious thing about this cover is that simply making a straight negative of this cover results in a much more professional looking design that's far easier on the eyes. Nicer color palette, fewer clashing colors, and an overall nicer viewing experience. It still has problems, but at least they're workable problems.

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.)

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!"

Dream Theater - A Change of Seasons (1995)

You know, it's not that I don't get the point behind this cover or anything (ha ha the little kid in swim trunks is playing in the snow as if it were sand), it's just that the execution seems kind of slipshod. If you're trying to depict a small child playing in the snow, why not take a photo of a child playing in the god damned snow instead of taking a separate photo of the child, throwing him through a blue filter, then haphazardly photoshopping him onto a winter scene in as if we wouldn't notice. The same goes for the damned stupid bucket and scoop. I also like how for some reason the blue filter doesn't work on the piercingly red rose. Jesus Christ, Photoshop turned Storm Thorgerson into a lazy bastard.

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.

Limp Bizkit - Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000)

You know, complaining about Limp Bizkit being stupid and juvenile is kind of like complaining about dogs barking and licking themselves. Hell, making fun of Fred Durst is kind of like making fun of developmentally disabled kids in that it's entirely too easy and almost meanspirited. However, given that most kids in a special ed class would probably know better than to release an album cover based around such a horribly juvenile phrase and somehow Fred Durst DIDN'T, well, I think that deserves some mention after all. Good old Fred. May you one day be able to handle the horrors of the third grade.

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.

Sharlene Sharp - Rare and Well-Done

"Hello my dear, nice of you to drop by on my steed tonight. I know the doctors say you're not really there, but I can tell you are! You're just very crudely pasted onto this cover is all, kind of like how I think my horse is. But really, aren't we ALL just shoddy photo-collages in this great big world of ours? My flat pants leg thinks so! Anyway, have some booze, it might help you forget just how loud my suit is."

Sun Ra - Second Star to the Right (1989)

Boy, nothing quite evokes Disney characters staring up in awe at a starry sky quite like crudely pasting them onto a starry backdrop. Of course, this makes them look like they're staring in awe at the album title instead.

I like how Dopey seems to be the only one looking down in confusion over the fact that all seven of the dwarves are currently standing in the middle of deep space. Then again, Grumpy seems to be the only one who's realized they're in a vacuum and is appropriately suffocating to death because of it.

Black Cat Bones - Barbed Wire Sandwich (1970)

Here's a helpful hint; if you're going to depict an ugly little paper-maché demon eating a sandwich on your album cover, at least try to make the bitemark on the sandwich correspond to how big the creature's mouth is. Your album cover will still be extremely ugly, but at least it'll be ugly and accurate.

Devo - Total Devo (1988)

At a first glance, the cover is already pretty cheesy. Devo had started giving in to that impulse somewhere around Oh No, It's Devo!, so that was probably to be expected. Then you look at David Kendrick's chin (second from the left) and you realize that it's very obviously glued on. Crookedly. Apparently, his chin ended up getting out of the shot accidentally and they decided to fix it in a really half-assed way. That's OK, though, since I don't think anybody in Devo really cared at this point. De-evolution indeed.

Mr. Big Drawlz - Prelude to Prosperity (2006)

It could've been a decently low-key album cover: our rapper, Mr. Big Drawlz, with a suitably thuggish portrait, standing out in the streets. Not necessarily a great album cover, but a fitting one. Then comes the big question: why the stretched-out photo inserted into the background? Specifically, why the stretched-out photo of Mr. Big Drawlz holding a gigantic pair of briefs? Is this meant to be an explanation for his unusual moniker? A sign that he wears them? None of this makes any sense.

About the album's title: I don't forsee any prosperity coming your way, Drawlz. If someone's going to buy a rap album, they're going to buy one that doesn't have a gigantic pair of men's underwear on the front.

Rudy Ray Moore - The Sensuous Black Woman meets the Sensuous Black Man (1971)

I realize this is meant to be a sort of parody of sex albums from around this time period (yes, such a thing did exist), and the photo itself isn't really that bad, all things considered. It's like a more attractive, less horrifying version of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Two Virgins. The problem is that, since this is a Rudy Ray Moore album on top of being a parody, you have to have Rudy's face on the cover somewhere. How to accomplish this? Crudely pasting his face in over the head of whomever his stand-in is supposed to be. Come on, you might as well go all the way with it! At least you can ogle the crude neon-line drawings along the margins to make up for that. Okay, not really.

Deep Purple - Scandinavian Nights (2003)

The cover itself is already pretty nasty. Cheap, public-domain typesets beset our brave lead singer who seems to be suffering from a combination of whiplash and mild retardation, both presumably caused by the giant photoshop lens flare that's attacking him. What's even worse is the glaring typo. Unless there really is a land called Sandinavia, where sand and snow mix together like peanut butter and chocolate and young Swedish lads and lasses have to learn about the ancient pyramids of their homeland.

Jimmy Jenson - Understand Your'e Swede

Jesus Christ, how many kids does this guy have? It almost looks like he's just standing there, dumbfounded, while his wife is telling him "Looks like the fertility meds worked! I squeezed out a few more while you were out today. Hope this isn't an inconvenience!" Meanwhile, the guy's holding a bag full of dead squirrels since that's all he managed to kill with his hatchet while out in the woods that day and he realizes that there's far too many children to feed now. Then the mental picture I have starts to go into slasher-flick territory, so maybe we'll see a sequel entitled "Understand Your'e Swede 2: Die, Swedes, Die!"

This album cover also teaches us that Engrish isn't just a Japanese phenomenon.