Recently I’ve been missing the Legendary Album Covers page a bit - but instead of re-booting it, I thought it would be better to start a kind of “evil twin” thread devoted solely to album cover concepts that were a bad idea when conceived, and haven’t gotten any better with age.
Let me start jammin’ on the one with some relics from WHEN CYBERPUNKS RULED THE WORLD!!! I expect some dissent for pickin’ at least one of these, but here goes:
[url https://www.discogs.com/SMP-Hacked/release/354310] SMP, “Hacked”: Yes, a pretty faithful portrayal of all the hacker lifestyle entails. If you thought that ‘Shadowrun’ was documented reality and not a fantasy RPG.
[url https://www.discogs.com/Project-44-The-System-Doesnt-Work/release/4791560]Project .44, “The System Doesn’t Work” If the mere sight of an American flag triggers you somehow, I guess this could be a pretty fukkin radical artwork - for the rest of us, though, this could be adapted as the cover to any high school social studies textbook without too much trouble.
(my apologies for linking directly to the discogs pages, I am too lazy at this exact moment to post the pics to my photo hosting page.)
Basically, any CD cover designed by Cleopatra in the 90s.
–SKot
I literally spent a half hour on my initial post trying to pick just one from their back catalog; but eventually gave up. So many putrid example of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Photo-Slop.
Back when we [Invisible…another notable offender on this list] were getting their promos in the mail, I do remember a couple that inspired that “hold the CD out at arm’s length” exasperated reaction.
Psychopomps “In The Skin” was a highlight, actually pretty much anything they licensed from the Zoth Ommog label was given a cover art re-vamp that included poor color scheme choices, unnecessary filter abuse etc.
Every once in a while, they’d get it right by just ripping off some Gustave Dore engraving and not going too heavy on the quirky typography. But these moments were the exceptions.
Invisible had their own spate of horrible covers(moreso during the later Underground Inc days)…they also had some really good ones though…
Yeah I think the cover art for “Gub” is really well executed. And “Fook” is compellingly weird like some sort of fever dream.
The common factor there, though, is that Martin Atkins DIDN’T DO THE ART…at some point he thought that we all need to see endless variations on his beauty school mannequin with the c-clamp on its nose, as if this was the defining image of the late 20th century.
Now, I couldn’t include those on here because they entertain me so much, and thus get a pass.
They generate a certain…uh…unique reaction within me. Every time I see the “Metal Magic” panther with his implausible bladed weapon, I want to run out and pound a case of Lone Star beer with my buddies named ‘Mad Dog’ and ‘Cut Loose’ and drive my car full speed into a brick wall or something.
There’s a fine line between “transcendent crap” and plain crap, and hopefully hashing out ideas in this thread will help me come closer to expressing the exact difference. All I know for sure: the Cleopatra Records mid-90s catalog, and the new Metallica both = non-transcendent crap.
[reply]How about those first couple of Pantera albums…
Now, I couldn’t include those on here because they entertain me so much, and thus get a pass.
They generate a certain…uh…unique reaction within me. Every time I see the “Metal Magic” panther with his implausible bladed weapon, I want to run out and pound a case of Lone Star beer with my buddies named ‘Mad Dog’ and ‘Cut Loose’ and drive my car full speed into a brick wall or something.
There’s a fine line between “transcendent crap” and plain crap, and hopefully hashing out ideas in this thread will help me come closer to expressing the exact difference. All I know for sure: the Cleopatra Records mid-90s catalog, and the new Metallica both = non-transcendent crap.[/reply]
Well then apparently every stoned metal head who scribbled on his notepad in the 80s made transcendent crap haha…
![http://i476.photobucket.com/albums/rr122/Mikel1974/Music/11_74_odds_and_sods-1.jpg[/image]](http://i476.photobucket.com/albums/rr122/Mikel1974/Music/11_74_odds_and_sods-1.jpg%5B/image%5D){kind=link}
![http://doseng.org/uploads/posts/2009-11/1258543204_obertka_015.jpg[/image]](http://doseng.org/uploads/posts/2009-11/1258543204_obertka_015.jpg%5B/image%5D){kind=link}