Really ugly LP covers

[JeffM]

A&M were responsible for some great LP covers over the years, "Whipped Cream" and the Baja Band's goofy covers just for starters. Some other companies were not so lucky. If I had to pick a label with the worst art direction (if that's the word,) I'd pick Dot in the mid-60's, with their all-type covers that had as much appeal as a generic white box labeled CORN FLAKES.

 

[Rudy]

From the CD collection at Casa Rudy:

This one is waaay wrong on a few levels (and I think the repulsively ugly cover would prevent me from buying it even if the music were any good):

Herbie Mann holding his "flute"...oy...this one reeks of pedophile:

 

[Dave]

The Orleans album is definitely an answer to Pablo Cruise's Lifelines (where's that one at?)...!

I was buying Herbie Mann's Push Push at Memories & Melodies just for the guy (Gary, I think)working there to say, "He needs a SHIRT!!!!"...


-- Dave

 

[JeffM]

Take a bad tracing of the logo from a Chicago album, some Formatt or Chartpak typography, add some doodles from a high-school girl's notebook, and whaddya get?

This cover comes from Springboard Records, a 1970's era competitor to Pickwick, both in bargain-priced LPS and cruddy cover art. (This scan really doesn't do it justice; I've seen this in the wild and it's silver ink on dark brown, like a Hershey Bar wrapper...)

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Hmm, well there are obviously tons of good candidates but if I just think of A&M titles that I own --

I thought Lani Hall's Hello It's Me was a really ugly cover. Too bad considering the cover photo was by Herb.

Herb had some ugly covers too. I always thought You Smile - The Song Begins was a really disappointing cover -- too bland and uninteresting. It looked more like a photo that might be sitting in a small frame on a nightstand.

Sergio Mendes' Vintage '74 cover was surpremely ugly, and now it's really dated too (as is the less ugly Love Music.)

One of the ugliest covers ever was Eve by The Alan Parsons Project. But, it was ugly on purpose and meant to be thought provoking, I guess.

 

[Rudy]

(This scan really doesn't do it justice; I've seen this in the wild and it's silver ink on dark brown, like a Hershey Bar wrapper...)

The candy bar was, what, Chicago X?

One of the ugliest covers ever was Eve by The Alan Parsons Project. But, it was ugly on purpose and meant to be thought provoking, I guess.

I never thought it was ugly. Mystic, though, in a sense...

 

[JeffM]

The candy bar was, what, Chicago X?

The Cher budget LP was released around 1974-75; the Chicago X "chocolate bar" cover was not published until 1976. I never thought about the connection until now; you don't suppose they swiped back the idea after Springboard stole it from them, do you? Naaaaawww, couldn't be...

 

[Captain Bacardi]

I thought Lani Hall's Hello It's Me was a really ugly cover. Too bad considering the cover photo was by Herb.

I guess this is one of those "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" examples. I loved that photo of Lani on Hello It's Me. I find it a bit mysterious and exotic.

One of the more hideous covers (but great music) is by Edgar Winter on his They Only Come Out At Night. He just wasn't blessed with looks. Plenty of talent, though.

Capt. Bacardi

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Hmm, you found Lani's photo beautiful and exotic -- I thought it was underexposed and bland. I guess beauty IS in the eye of the beholder. But beyond the picture, I thought the cover as a whole was blah.

My favorite Lani covers from A&M are Albany Park and Double Or Nothing, but my favorite overall is Brasil Nativo.

I agree with you about the Edgar Winter cover. Yeesh.

 

[Harry]

Hmm, you found Lani's photo beautiful and exotic -- I thought it was underexposed and bland. I guess beauty IS in the eye of the beholder. But beyond the picture, I thought the cover as a whole was blah.

A quick job in Photoshop yielded this from that underexposed photo:



Interesting rainbow effect when you try to balance out the colors in that photo.

Harry

 

[JeffM]

One of the more hideous covers (but great music) is by Edgar Winter on his They Only Come Out At Night. He just wasn't blessed with looks. Plenty of talent, though.

Capt. Bacardi

You gotta admit though, that does look like something which only comes out at night...

 

[Captain Bacardi]

For my money Lani's Sweet Bird is absolutely stunning!

Capt. Bacardi

 

[Rudy]

I swear, when I bought this CD, I thought it was pirated. The CD booklet had the appearance of being photocopied--that's how poor and grainy the photo is. Yet when I hopped online, I noticed that this is how the cover was made. I know that certain effects can look good on photos, but the way this effect was applied (back in the 70s I think), it looks like a bad photocopy...and the small image I'm pasting here doesn't do it justice as it almost looks passable. But anyway...

 

[jfiedler17]

Got to agree about the Edgar Winter album. Excellent record, but an unbelievably hideous album cover.

That Orleans cover is pretty bad, too, I agree. It seems to have been a bit of a trendy thing back in the '70s, though, for groups to pose shirtless (if not totally sans clothes) for the artwork. (You ever seen the inner gatefold for the first Allman Brothers Band album or the front cover of the earliest pressings of Three Dog Night's It Ain't Easy? Yikes! Don't say I didn't warn you!)

Other really horrible album covers that come to mind:
- Three Dog Night's Hard Labor: easily one of the creepiest album covers I've ever seen, and a cover concept so bizarre you wonder where in the world anyone could ever get an idea like this!
- Captain & Tennille's Keeping Our Love Warm: mind you, it's a silly idea to begin with to pose for your album cover in a sauna, but seriously, Daryl looks about as ridiculous as can be sitting in a sauna with his captain's hat still on ...
- Debbie Harry's KooKoo: makes me wince every time I see it
- Styx's The Grand Illusion and Pieces of Eight: Love the band, love these albums, but these album covers really weirded me out as a kid and still sorta creep me out a little, particularly the latter
- Neil Diamond's Rainbow (the painted-portrait version): Not just ugly, but it makes the record look like a really cheap bootleg or Springboard reissue.

 

[JeffM]

Of course, when you get into the really small-time labels, vanity records, Jesus music, etc. you really run across the strange-looking covers. (I actually have this one...but mine's stereo!

There are of course several web sites and pages entirely dedicated to weird, bad, and klutzy LP covers. One I'd like to recommend is
http://www.danacountryman.com/danacovers/danacovers.html

And for covers of all types you can't beat http://lpcoverlover.com/

 

[DAN BOLTON]

Of course, when you get into the really small-time labels, vanity records, Jesus music, etc. you really run across the strange-looking covers. (I actually have this one...but mine's stereo!

There are of course several web sites and pages entirely dedicated to weird, bad, and klutzy LP covers. One I'd like to recommend is
http://www.danacountryman.com/danacovers/danacovers.html

And for covers of all types you can't beat http://lpcoverlover.com/

I remember a Christy Lane album cover that showed a full-sized portrait of her face on the cover. She wasn't smiling, but her mouth was open just enough to show her dental work, including a retainer. I would have air brushed that out, I think...




Dan

 

[Rudy]

Of course, there is the obligatory album cover somewhere of the miracle blind girl with no hands who also happens to be an organ virtuoso. Seems very "late night TV", doesn't it? But wait. There's more!

It's amusing in a way. Someone wanting to market music could whip up a strange or freakish album cover, write a convincing story for the back of the LP jacket, and sell enough copies to...well, become not very famous 30 years later on an album cover website.

Look for images of a couple of the Colonel Sanders albums. They're worth a giggle! For a company that made as much as Kentucky Fried Chicken, you'd think he could have afforded better album artwork that didn't look so low rent.

 

[LPJim]

When Roger Hodgson played in Blue Ash OH near Cincinnati in 2012 I was holding this LP sleeve while standing with other fans near the back stage. A female security worker asked me to cover it so children wouldn't be traumatized. What a shame to deny them exposure to music history.


(A&M SP 4311 cover photo attached)

 

[JeffM]

Look for images of a couple of the Colonel Sanders albums. They're worth a giggle! For a company that made as much as Kentucky Fried Chicken, you'd think he could have afforded better album artwork that didn't look so low rent.

Most if not all of the KFC LPS were the work of George Garabedian's Mark 56 Records label, who turned out tons of TJB sound-alikes as "premiums" for all sorts of companies ranging from Phillips 66 to Der Weinerschnitzel. I've posted a, shall we say, interesting "by-product" at the TJB forum page under the heading "The Beat of the Brass Takes a Beating."

 

[Dave]

I don't think you have to look farther than this week's current AOTW:

-- Dave

 

[Dave]

This cover comes from Springboard Records, a 1970's era competitor to Pickwick, both in bargain-priced LPS and cruddy cover art: (This scan really doesn't do it justice; I've seen this in the wild and it's silver ink on dark brown, like a Hershey Bar wrapper...)

I've seen just about EVERY record album that Cher made & even back from a recent trip to EVERY record store left in business in and around my area I have never seen that one!

And, yeh!--A Hershey Bar wrapper IS more pleasant to look at! (For SOME anyway...)


-- Dave

 

[Dave]

Yes, Dot Records was notorious for having such plain album covers, from what I've seen in the inner sleeves, and even in a small mini-catalog, that I have... A Various Artists collection I have, The Great Millions, a sequel to the first, Million Dollar Sellers, which I also own and that one at least has photos of the artists on the cover, succumbs to what is probably what was a bad influence on this album cover:

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=2085637

No wonder why Mike Nesmith didn't stay there long...!



-- Dave

 

[JeffM]

Actually, that cover design's fairly hip...for DOT...

 

[JeffM]

Of course, when you get into the really small-time labels, vanity records, Jesus music, etc. you really run across the strange-looking covers. (I actually have this one...but mine's stereo!

There are of course several web sites and pages entirely dedicated to weird, bad, and klutzy LP covers. One I'd like to recommend is
http://www.danacountryman.com/danacovers/danacovers.html

And for covers of all types you can't beat http://lpcoverlover.com/

Re-posting the missing image of that LP cover (and this time it's stereo!) A close examination of that female dancer's legs and torso would indicate she might be capable of lifting one end of your car...

 

[Munchkn]

If some of you think that the cover of Herbie Mann's Push-Push is a little much, you should have seen the inside of the cover. I can't remember the back, but the inside was of a couple going at it. I could not show that to my folks just like I could not play the FISH cheer by Country Joe and the Fish from the Woodstock soundtrack or The Pusher by Steppenwolf while they were around. The inside picture was also fuzzy like some kids books used to be. Can't remember about the cover photos.

The Johnny Winter cover's odd look is enhanced, if you will, by the fact that Johnny (Edgar, too) had albinism. My granddaughter has albinism and it does look a little odd, at first, to see someone so utterly devoid of pigment. Granddaughter is beautiful, of course.