moe. - No Doy (1996)

moe. must have realized a bit too late that having a photo of a man with a nail driven through his skull on an album cover was pretty morbid and sent the wrong message about what listening to the band's music might cause you to do to yourself. Their solution of painting the nailed man hazard-cone orange with Prince purple eyes and giving him a big, dopey smile was a fairly inelegant (not to mention ineffectual) fix for this problem.

Ted Nugent - Love Grenade (2007)

You hear that, women with breast cancer? Ted Nugent says "Fuck you!"

Amazingly, this is actually less demeaning to women than the original, unused version of this album cover:

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.

The Beatles - Yesterday and Today (original cover) (1966)

Let's ignore the whole "GREATEST BAND EVER" critical fawning that takes place whenever the Beatles are mentioned for a second and be reasonable here; this cover is fucking awful.

I can't really imagine how an idea this asinine was concocted in the first place. "Let's drape meat and plastic body parts on the Beatles!" sounds like a bad joke, not an actual art project. Even then, using one of said images for an album cover is not only asinine but a huge lapse in judgement. Everyone's favorite mop-topped whatevers covered in meat is not something your average pop fan wants to consider.

Some people consider this album cover to be a brilliant ploy by the Beatles to stick it to the man and make some sort of bold artistic statement. An artistic statement involving meat, I guess. I agree more with George Harrison's take on this whole thing; "I thought it was gross, and I also thought it was stupid. Sometimes we all did stupid things thinking it was cool and hip when it was naïve and dumb; and that was one of them."

Butthole Surfers - Electriclarryland (1996)

I can't really nail this album cover for being in bad taste since a solid majority of the Butthole Surfers's album covers were in bad taste. I can at least take them to dask for doing bad taste so ineptly. I mean, this is a band that went from album covers featuring photos of starving Africans and John Wayne Gacy paintings to a very crudely drawn cartoon image of a guy getting a pencil shoved into his ear. This doesn't make the previously mentioned covers that much better, mind, it just makes you realize that if you're going to really go for bad taste, you might as well go all the way. It won't make your album cover any better, but it won't look so half-assed.

The Wurzels - The Combine Harvester (1976)

Ha ha ha! Man, accidents involving farm equipment are such a hoot! You can just IMAGINE the guy on the ground getting slowly ground up into an indistinguishable paste! And look at his friends! They're so happy about this possible turn of events! I've got to tell you, there's nothing like being drunk and stupid on a farm!

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!"

Fireballet - Two, Too... (1976)

Rateyourmusic tells me that this is the last album Fireballet ever released. I suspect this is because putting all of your ugly, hairy male band members on the cover of your album wearing tutus and frolicking around is considered to be a career-ending move in certain parts of the world. Making awful puns on top of that just seals the deal.

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.

Lords of Acid - The Crablouse (1994)

At first, I thought that a b-grade parody of a Calvin Klein ad would have to be better than their stupid Pussy cover. Then again, on that cover you don't have to play fun games like "figure out where the hell is that arm coming from" or "see how long you can avoid eye contact with pubic hair."

Anna Russell - In Darkest Africa

I like how she goes for the old-school colonialist approach to how those horrible African savages would treat such an upstanding, white British woman such as herself, then completely half-asses it by making them wear those bizarre tartan skirts. I mean jesus, if you're going to be stereotypical, at least get your fucking stereotypes right.

Tom Jones - a-Tom-ic Jones (1966)

If Soulja Slim was implying that he was about to go World War III on our asses in the name of givin' it to us raw, Tom Jones is implying that he can start a nuclear holocaust just by letting loose with his wonderfully rich Welsh baritone if he so chooses. The album cover arms race has begun!

Billy Devroe - Broad Minded

Possible thoughts going through Billy Devroe's head on this album cover:
1) "Man, don't tell me that ditzy dame Tina's going to try to scare me by sneaking up on me again. When's she going to learn that it never works?"
2) "Aw fuck, I killed another one. I really hope the judge lets me off light this time."
3) "Man, all of these girls and I'm not attracted to a single one. I really oughta come out of the closet."
4) No thoughts are actually going through his head. This is just how he looks whenever he drinks himself into a stupor.

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.

Circle Jerks - Golden Shower of Hits (1983)

If there's one thing more tiring than having a joke beat over your head, it's having the joke beat over your head when it isn't even that funny to begin with. Oh ha ha, the gold records are in the urinal due to their similarity in color to urine which is playing off the album title. Plus they're being pissed on to double up the album title hilarity! Oh what a laugh! I could just die!

Jerry Falwell - Where Are the Dead?

Unless the question in the title is rhetorical, this has to be one of the stupidest fucking album covers I've ever seen.

Billy May - Cha Cha! (1960)

OK, we get it, it's a fucking cha-cha album. You don't need to put "cha cha" at the end of every single fucking song title. Jesus christ this is almost as bad as any given polka record.

Aside from the irritating name scheme, I'm trying to figure out just what is up with that dress. If you cover her top half she looks like some sort of weird sea creature, one with a love of gold lamé and pink chiffon. This is to say nothing of Ali Balding and his confused ethnicity outfit. The dog is obviously trying to be the black version of Petey from Our Gang and thus looks the least stupid of everybody on this cover.

Poison - Open Up and Say... Ahh! (original cover) (1988)

If this is meant to be demonic, this is the least threatening demonic presence I've ever seen. It looks like some woman couldn't decide whether she wanted to be a cat, filthy white-trash, or Gene Simmons for Halloween and tried to haphazardly combine qualities of all three.

For some reason or another, this cover was actually banned. I can only hope that it was banned for being almost inconcievably stupid, but given that the 80s was the time of the PMRC I get the feeling that this cover was somehow actually viewed as being a threat, which just makes me feel really, really sad.

Aaron Carter - Aaron Carter (1998)

All across the world, pedophiles with an "Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks" fetish are fantasizing about this image. I can just feel it.

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.