Birth Control - Operation (Alternate Cover) (1971)

Quite a while ago, I took these guys to task for one cover of their album Operation, which featured a katydid chewing up human babies. What I didn't realize at the time is that apparently Birth Control's album covers came in a variety of different forms. I wasn't surprised to learn, of course, that most of these alternate forms were just as shitty.

Therefore, we have this alternate take on Operation. Instead of a giant insect committing infanticide, we see some sort of eel inside a water-filled condom. Like with most of Birth Control's covers, I really have no idea what this has to do with the concept of birth control, if anything. I mean, the idea "wear a condom or else a giant eel will come out of your penis and destroy your girlfriend's cervix" is juuust a bit insane.

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."

Cannibal Corpse - Worm-Infested (2003)

While this might not really be the worst or most shocking album cover by Cannibal Corpse standards (mostly due to the lack of extreme amounts of gore), this one is still pretty damned bad in its own right. The gigantic amount of wormy tentacles trying to make their way into the girl's most special of places is already bad enough, but then there's the gigantic gaping maw of hell in the background that gives new meaning to the term "vagina dentata." Maybe this means I'm meant to psychoanalyze this, Freud style, to figure out just what the band's sexual hangups are that would result in them putting things like bloody raped corpses on most of their album covers, but most of me doesn't really want to know.

Scorpions - Virgin Killer (original cover) (1976)

This cover stands head and shoulders above any I've ever seen. It's in such bad taste as to render the cover difficult to even look at. It plays off of societal taboos in a way that's crass and exploitative in the worst possible sense. It features a naked preteen posing suggestively with a broken glass starburst over her genitals. My friends, this is Virgin Killer.

How does an album cover like this come about? Apparently, the band's record label asked for a shocking cover, and they sure as hell got one. They got one so bad that even the band themselves started to have second thoughts about what they had done. The fact that the cover got pulled and replaced with a generic group photo of the band suggests that the record label figured that out perhaps just a tad too late.

So congratulations to you, Scorpions. You somehow managed to make the worst album cover ever. I hope you're proud of yourselves.

Don & Seymour - Don & Seymour

The look of rage on Don's face in this image is pretty stunning. "So I'm playing guitar with a sock puppet. YOU GOT A FUCKIN' PROBLEM WITH THAT, ASSHOLE?!" Given Seymour's typically jolly appearance (being a puppet and all), what's coming to mind is a very surreal, musical version of good cop, bad cop, where Seymour happily serenades you and cracks jokes and Don angrily cracks the guitar over your head and dumps your body in a drainage ditch.

(As the watermark mentions, this is an image from Bizarre Records, a bunch of guys who've been doing this way longer than I have, and even partially inspired me to start this.)

XXX Maniak - Harvesting the Cunt Nectar (2004)

You know, I don't usually expect much from grindcore and its variants when it comes to album covers. They're gory, stupid, and attempt to shock the viewer with whatever means necessary. This, however, seems pretty low even for the genre. I mean, come on, gouging out a woman's vaginal area with a shovel? The random sexual organs just scattered around in the frame for who-knows-what reason? Even the name feels kind of forced in its "outrageousness." And metal fans wonder why they're often considered socially-maladjusted deviants.

Elliot Lawrence - Music for Trapping (Tender, That Is)

Yeah I think I'd have that sort of expression on my face too if I discovered that the guy I was dating was a PSYCHOTIC SERIAL KILLER HELL-BENT ON BEHEADING ME AND STICKING ME ON THE WALL LIKE SOME SICK TROPHY. I bet if you look in his closet he already has most of his woman-skin suit ready too.

Aaron Carter - Crazy Little Party Girl (1998)

The underaged crotch shot that absolutely nobody needed to see. It gives me a sneaking suspicion that Aaron Carter actually isn't being marketed to preteen girls at all but rather NAMBLA.

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.

The Human League - Reproduction (1979)

"Hey, Bill! Come over! We're having a dance party! Just be sure to bring a few babies to throw on the floor! You wouldn't believe what a great surface they create for dancing! After you crush a few under your heels, it feels like you're flying!"

Mom's Apple Pie - Mom's Apple Pie (original cover) (1972)

This cover looks innocent enough at first, if extremely creepy, but sharp eyes will notice that the apple pie, aside from not looking anything at all like an apple pie, has a clearly defined labia/clitoris. Why the hell a pie would have either of those things is anybody's guess, but it makes me wonder if the people behind the American Pie movies knew about this album cover.

Rikk Agnew - Turtle (1992)

Rikk Agnew asks us to consider what a real life Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle would look like. According to Rikk, they would be horribly ugly, angry abominations less prone to spouting outdated Californian surfer lingo and eating pizza and more prone to wanting to bite your fingers off and burn your house down. Truly the stuff of nightmares.

Scorpions - Lovedrive (original cover) (1979)

I have no idea how Scorpions managed to get the usually-reliable Hipgnosis to go along with this concept (or how they got them to go along with the cover to Animal Magnetism), but it should be obvious that this is pretty bad. The worst of it is that I don't even know what the point of this cover is. Maybe the moral of the cover is "if your hand is covered in bubblegum and you try to feel up a woman who just got out of the shower, you're in for rough sailing." Or maybe "if you're a swarthy Adam Corolla impersonator, your skin will have a 50% chance of chemically bonding with the flesh of bored, elderly brunettes." Or maybe "Scorpions should have never had a career in music, period."

A.A. Allen - I Am Lucifer

At this point, A.A. Allen isn't even pretending that he's not the antichrist anymore. Revealing a previously-undisclosed crossdressing fetish, he reveals himself to be the lord of darkness, and with his army of crying demons in tow he shall go up against that multiple-homicide perpetrator God and his army of healed broken hearts.

Man, I really want to live in whatever weirdo fantasy world A.A. Allen lives in now. Either that, or score whatever drugs he was on, even if that means I'll have to participate in a Teen Challenge.

Dr. Jack van Impe - Hell Without Hell

"Hell without Hell"? What in the fuck does that mean? Granted, after seeing such statements as "God is a killer" I should be used to this sort of thing by now, but this statement doesn't make any goddamned sense! The poorly-drawn demon on the cover sure doesn't seem to know what Jack's talking about, and the even the cover itself seems confused on the subject. "Is it the grave?" it asks feebly. "I mean, that is it, right? Isn't it? Maybe one of these names of hells in other cultures? Maybe that's it? I don't know."

It sure doesn't look like we'll get any clarification from Dr. van Impe himself, at least; he looks like one cold, cruel motherfucker.

Teen Challenge Addicts Choir

The real teen challenge is trying to figure out precisely why they'd show a photo of somebody shooting up on the cover of an album of teenagers who supposedly gave up that sort of thing after accepting Jesus. Do they really think we're too dumb to know how people do drugs? Is this their way of trying to prove that "SEE THESE KIDS REALLY DID DO DRUGS WATCH WHILE SOMEBODY INJECTS SOME OF THE GOOD STUFF INTO THEM"? I think I should just file this under "christian dualities that just don't make sense" just like I've seen on half of these damned christian-themed covers.

Jo Jo Gunne - The Asylum Recordings: Jumpin' the Gunne + So...Where's the Show? (2000)

Disaster struck the city of Tokyo today when it was again the victim of a giant monster attack. The creature, which appeared to be a giant, overweight, nude woman, seemed to believe that it was trying out for an avant-garde dance troupe and did so across much of the city, wiping out several city blocks and forcing the Japanese army to intervene. However, due to the creature's bulk, most conventional weapons proved useless, and it was only after Godzilla arrived from Monster Island to beat back the monster that the city again became peaceful. It is not known whether malice was truly intended by this creature as it danced its way across Tokyo, but Japan remains on high alert in case it returns.

A.A. Allen - God Is a Killer!

After seeing two of A.A. Allen's other album covers, which feature a horrible chest wound and a cross-eyed black man, I'm really starting to wonder just what in the hell Allen's religious views are.

I'm starting to get the sneaking suspicion that Allen wasn't really a preacher at all, but rather a serial killer that used religion as a front to find his victims. The chest wound depicted on Healer of Broken Hearts was a real one; the black man on Crying Demons was actually driven insane by Allen's torture before being brutally murdered. Here, we see that Allen's hubris has no bounds. He knows he can never be caught. He is even akin to God himself in how utterly untouchable he is. Oh yeah, and he's a killer.

This might not make a lot of sense, but I'm not sure what sort of sense I'm supposed to get out of Allen's work in the first place.

Fleetwood Mac - Mystery to Me (1973)

You know, it's a mystery to me too why Fleetwood Mac would choose to put a gorilla that's been brutally mouth-raped on an album cover. Yes, I know, the white stuff is supposed to be frosting, but if that's the case then why the hell is the gorilla crying?

Rusty Warren - Sexplosion (1977)

OH DEAR GOD NO

(Apologies to Retrocrush for co-opting one of their images again.)