Great Albums With Bad Album Covers

Love the band. Love the albums. Hate the covers!

Cboi Sandlin wrote: For example, the Dark Side Of The Moon cover is nothing genius, it is just a prism, but because the album is so great, the album cover has also become iconic. That's just a thought.

Sometimes the genius of great artwork is utter simplicity, but then again what is and what isn't great art will always be subjective.

yup, germans have been known to make some of the worst & tasteless albums covers (Birth Control anyone??)

But what I mean about Fugazi (besides not liking the music on it - the lesser of the Fish-era albums, IMHO) is the sordidness of it all is that I've always considered the Jester as a junkie in that sleeve . On top of it, the first two Marillion albums didn't get released as a gatefold sleeve, which kind of ruined the whole ensemble thing (full view)

I've always been one to appreciate art and its history. To me, album covers were a sort of extension of the art history ... with multi media added to the whole thing, which made it even more different, but not any less "meaning" about the cover.

I kinda side with Hipgnosis, whose covers were always a sort of "editorial" about the music itself ... and it meant it right and then some, although it is hard to figure out what it might be considering covers like Flash 1 and 2, which I keep thinking were Sherry who used to post here on Flash's behalf for a long while. Not that it makes any difference, but I wonder if in some ways, that was the great inspiration for a lot of the music, and to me, that is valid, even if some of us might find it distasteful, however at the time, both Playboy and Penthouse were doing their picture spreads, and in my book, these 2 covers were far more exciting than the pictures in the magazines.

All in all, to me, a lot of the covers are sheer non-sense and its meaning is just bollocks! And, too many of them, are just an ego thing, and basically keeping up with the live concert idea of "sexiness" and "this and that" which was not existent and it was just a fabrication in our minds by a media trying hard to sell you an album.

There was a film, I think it was called LOOKER ... but I'm not sure right now as I have not found it again, and in it was a detailed breakdown of how the EYE saw images, and sure enough it gave us a great example of a girl surfing, and where were our eyes centered in there ... 2 places mostly, and in many ways it really defined a lot of advertising ... no wonder that film has disappeared ... it was a major point in how things were done to entice your money! Prostitution of the highest order in many ways!

It doesn't bother me if it is a man or a woman ... let it be ... but there are certain things that you can imagine real quick from history ... how a church did not want to emphasize sex by making the member bigger (you know the statue!) and then all the paintings for the previous hundreds of years that had satyrs in them were oversized men, even with horns, which you know was more of a church idea than a reality, anyway.

To me, for example, the Guru Guru cover is not ... whatever ... it was a way to say that the music was RAW and no fake stuff here ... and that was what Guru Guru was all about, even though I have been told that Mani is a well known "nudist" ... and whatever, but it many ways, it was not the only time that he mentioned sexual innuendos into the band's music ... like Chuck Berry didn't either ... what a crock ... and in those days, the TV and pictures could not have shown anything below the belly, because it insinuated something not right, or improper ... I call it more evangelical bullpoop by the same folks that still define what you should see on American TV ... people whose morals are so hypocritical as to be insane and most of them should be disgraced from their roles and mandates ... sort of like the majority of the educational system folks that run the local schools ... many of which are ... totally out of touch and time, and continue to hide under the floor boards!

My only comment, is how TODAY, so many bands do not work more with other artists to create something more valuable ... the day of the DAW, means that changing a note is more important than the album ... and many of these folks don't know, or understand, what art means to many of us, and its important role in our lives ... but I don't think that folks in America can help it ... for 40 to 50 years one party has consistently taken away the money for a lot of the arts from educational systems, because it was well known that the "arts" make people become more liberal and "anti-establishment" .... guess what the result is ... 

Sad statement about the arts and what the music in many of these albums is all about. In most cases ... NOTHING!

obviously it's all subjective. 

The ATTW3 cover is great, I agree.