Best/Worst Album Covers.

[ironmask]

Just a thread were we can admire awesome artwork on albums for bands/artists we like or hate, or just make fun of the ugliest album covers that make you go "what the fuck were they thinking?".

I will start with the best:

Iron maiden has a lot of awesome album covers, but this might be my favorite.

The album cover for Mgla's newest album just looks awesome.

Gotta love 90's black metal albums with blue jackets.

Now for the worst.

It's too bad this album got such a awful cover. The album itself is good.

Like I said Iron Maiden has a lot of awesome covers, but this is definitely not one of them. Not only is the CGI shit but the chick on right; neck is clearly fucked up and twisted, and I doubt it was done on purpose.

 

[Atomkilla]

That Mgla cover is great, but a bit too detailed and muffled in said details for my taste. Might be because of the resolution though.

The thing with bad covers is that, in my experience, under a bad cover is usually a bad album, so when you ask me about worst covers, those are usually on shitty albums I've long forgotten about. This isn't bad as in so-bad-it's-good type as is the case with many early works of various bands, but simply bad. Something about artistic endeavor in music going in parallel with making an effort at producing a good cover art to go with it.
That being said, there are plenty of great albums out there with shitty covers (such as Dance of Death).

Similarly, a well made cover might not be a guarantee of a good album, but if it's something creative that grabs the attention, it's usually a safe bet.

One of my all-time favorite covers is Aphex Twin's first SAW. It's so minimal and monolithic at the same time. One of those albums which have re-invented music and whose cover is iconic.

 

[Mr Fish]

Gorillaz' Demon Days is a pretty iconic album cover:

Spoiler: big heckin images

Alternative Version:

Reason why it's a great one is because like I said, it's iconic. Here's parodies people have done of them: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=gorillaz+demon+days+parody&t=opera&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images

Now granted, it is itself a imitation of Beatles' Let It Be album but I don't see people making characters in four panels facing in Let It Be's direction, no they're facing profile right.

Oh and pretty much every Marilyn Manson album is amazing in its simplicity and iconography.

Spoiler

Mechanical Animals:

Antichrist Superstar:

Holy Wood:

The Pale Emperor:

I'll come back later when I've looked up some bad album art.

 

[Atomkilla]

Gorillaz in general have great album art.

Manson's covers work best without fonts. For whatever reasons, I always thought that letters on his covers ruin them. The Pale Emperor being a proof of this. Look how awesome it is without shitty nu-metal font.

 

[Hassknecht]

This cover is just so silly, yet utterly brilliant that I bought the cassette at a concert without knowing anything about it except that it's french and some sort of Black Metal. And that it has Jesus (?) with a flame thrower on it.

 

[ironmask]

What's the band name?

 

[Hassknecht]

Gronde, it's the cover from their 2011 demo.

It sounds exactly as expected.

 

[ironmask]

Sounds decent. Would sound better if the vocals were different.

 

[Atomkilla]

Speaking of metal albums, definitely my favorite cover.

The blues are so damn nice.

 

[ironmask]

Speaking of simple and iconic album covers, I feel like Rio by Duran Duran deserves a mention.

Beautiful 80's art work. Now back to metal. I really like this album cover for Death. I can just imagine this place in fallout.

 

[Deleted member 53669]

Spoiler

View attachment 13537

 

[Mr Fish]

Are those meant to be good or bad? (I'm apathetic about them so I have no idea)

Anyway, bad album covers.
I love Tyler The Creator's Cherry Bomb album and don't get the hate for it, probably just a bunch of Fantano fanbois who can't think for themselves just eating whatever shit he digs out of his own ass and throws out as an opinion. (That's a bit harsh, I don't dislike him that much) But, the album cover is fucking ugly and I don't like it. I think it sticks out like a sore thumb to all his other album covers:

Spoiler

MGMT's Little Dark Age is also pretty bad:

Spoiler

David Bowie's Hunky Dory is just atrocious to look at. There is nothing aesthetically pleasing about it and if it is meant to have some sort of meaning and not be aesthetically pleasing then I don't get it. Also, he decided to rework The Supermen on this album and created a far inferior version to the predecessors album so that's bad too, roll over in your grave a couple of times Bowie:

Spoiler

Bloc Party's Four isn't godawful or anything, it's just boring. To me it's iconic and sticks out like sore thumb but I doubt anyone who isn't already into the album heavily would feel the same way. It's just... Boringly simplistic. Four circles, that's it:

Spoiler

Hot Chip has never been good with album covers IMO, they all look like the least effort was put into it or you just edited some existing thing with some filters for five minutes. Album covers in order:
In Our Heads
The Warning
Made In The Dark
Why Make Sense

Spoiler

 

[Atomkilla]

I mean, duuuh

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

You're all wrong.

Best ever was Cheech and Chong's Big Bambu where the record sleeve was a

COLOSSAL FUCKING ROLLING PAPER

I want to get a jean jacket with this backpatch and drive around in a Trans Am.

Sabbath had an awful lot of bad ones

Scorpions had the worst ever, not even going to say more than, even depraved for Germans. Was probably illegal and caused quite a shitsorm when it came out IIRC.

 

[Aurelius Of Phoenix]

Always thought that Judas Priest's stained class album was pretty unique for its time.

Michael Jackson's Dangerous album while a little grating with muh "save the world" preachy type songs was good overall with a gorgeous cover.

Forbidden's Twisted into Form album was awesome, but the album cover was never for me. It just felt a little generic.

 

[Fabricator-locum]

there are so many to pick from
this is the worst one, there is also a pretty bad one from cattle decapitation... well tbh they all kinda suck outside of the new one which looks pretty awesome but the the anthropology extinction is a guy stomach rotten open and with badly photoshoped trash going out of him. Idk if i should post it so i wont

defiantly not a bad album

there are so many good once to pick from



i yet to really listen to this album

there is also a pretty nice looking one from vast parricidal lust album but since it has a naked bum and is overall pretty gory so just in case i wont post it

and sorry in advance if i mess up posting this in some way because i never post images on forums

 

[Gizmojunk]

Spoiler: Here is one I did (for that band).

Pull no punches.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/my-big-foot-woman/380988422

_________

As for other artist's work...

 

[sarcomatous]

I feel like a sack of crap for posting this one, given the theme and all but it really is just a perfect example of what should/should not be done with album art:

 

[Walpknut]

This Monster piece from Moebius.

 

[Norzan]

Spoiler

Probably one of the most infamous cover arts for an album. From research, apparently the band decided to use this version, which was actually unfinished. The creator of the art was so embarrased that they decided to use the unfinished version instead of just letting him actually finish the art, that he asked the band to remove him from the album's credits.

I actually think that album is great, but that cover art is terrible.