Elvis Costello - Spike (1989)

Can someone tell me what the hell is going on here? I love Elvis Costello dearly, but I'd really like to know where the hell Costello got the idea that what we'd love to see most on an album cover is his creepy, disembodied head mounted to a wall. I'm not even going to get into the clown makeup applied over his facial hair. Jesus, this is the stuff of nightmares.

Abbfinoosty - Out of Abbfinoosty Comes the Storm (1996)

Scouple hints for those wishing to look more menacing on their album cover(s).

1) It's difficult to look menacing when you use a butterfly-wing pattern as part of your album cover's background.
2) It's nearly impossible to look menacing when you look like Tiny Tim's uglier kid brother.
3) Though spooky lighting can make one look more menacing, be sure the lighting doesn't make your skin look like you're a pumpkin with jaundice.

Charles Roy Schroeder, Ph.D - Rope Jumping for Boys and Men (1974)

I like how the "artist" attempted to depict motion in his image, along with how badly they failed at it. The current image doesn't really depict motion as much as it depicts "having a seizure while attempting to draw someone jumping rope."

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.

Carl Preacher - Just Jesus and Me

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

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."

Ted Nugent - Craveman (2002)

This album cover was brought to you by five minutes with Photoshop's bevel tool.

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.

Cattle Decapitation - Human Jerky (1999)

If you're trying to be shocking with an album cover (and if you're a grindcore act, you're almost certainly trying to be shocking), it might help to use a little less contrast on your photo. It seriously took me about 10 minutes for me to figure out that what I was looking at wasn't an unidentifiable blur of red and black but was actually a decapitated cattle head (GEE, JUST LIKE THE BAND NAME). Boy was my face red!

Did you know that the members of this band are apparently vegetarians and place a huge emphasis on animal rights? After seeing this cover, they sure could've fooled me!

The Ministers Quartet - Let Me Touch Him

No offense, but I'd rather not let your guys' hands get within 50 feet of anybody. In fact, I get the sneaking suspicion that these four are responsible for the invention of the restraining order.