Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse (1994)

Q: How do you make the usual sort of cut-rate fantasy artwork found on countless metal album covers even uglier than usual?
A: Make everything a eye-hurting shade of blue, and I mean everything.

Anton Maiden - Anton Gustafsson Tolkar Iron Maiden (1999)

As I was saying earlier, Photoshop has enabled damned near anyone an opportunity to make bad album covers. You can be an ugly, nerdy metalhead with a computer and a dream and all it takes is 15 pounds of Photoshop filter and some overlaid text. I really have to wonder what the point of the filter is, though. Are they supposed to be flames? Is he in Hell? Is this some sort of sunset sky? Did someone eat too much canned ravioli and barf on the camera lens?

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.

Immortal - Battles in the North (1995)

Though few realize it, sitting in the middle of a snowy field while wearing bad makeup and having a very dour grimace on your face is actually a very good battle tactic. Your attackers will naturally assume that you're too ridiculous to even bother fighting against and just go home. Immortal, masters of this technique, have decided to showcase it for us right on this very album cover. Not only is it deterring me from wanting to attack them, it's also deterring me from ever wanting to listen to their music or even look at them with a straight face. Truly, Immortal are masters of their craft.

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.