So, there’s this page on X as well as Facebook that’s all about sharing, let’s just say, very questionable album art. It doesn’t have to be bad, it doesn’t have to be weird, heck, it even doesn’t have to be flat out are you seeing this [shirt]? But it can. And often is at least one of that, but bad is just a matter of taste.
The page has been around for nearly 10 years now and amassed nearly 30,000 followers since its launch in December of 2013. However, two years ago, it announced that the page had run its course and that it was fun while it lasted. There was a seemingly brief return as per nostalgia, sharing some of the older stuff and considering a resurrection of the page, but it's been radio silence since then.
#5 About Time, I've Nearly Worn Out My Stylus Playing This While Waiting
As you’ve probably understood by now, the page shares old album cover art that asks more questions than it answers. These are typically albums from older generations of music, back when deliberate posing while mom snaps a picture in your living room, your backyard or with a view of the creek outside your house was considered the bees knees. And while the '60s-'80s aesthetic (maybe even '90s) has aged well for the most part, there’s this other entire contingent of wow album art that we just can’t help but appreciate, but not for the usual reasons as it aged as well as the economy.
So, what makes an album cover bad? Let’s flip this around and start from what makes it good.
An article on Creative Review explains that the music on the album as well as what the album looks like physically have a symbiotic and vital relationship. While a record becomes famous because of the music on it, there can’t be an album without a cover. And it doesn’t really have to be anything—it just has to be there. It’s the first contact people have when looking up songs.
And while there is a claim that cover art can elevate the brand of the musician, it can go the other way too—the music can elevate the album artist. By proxy, folks speculate that it can go the other way—if one is bad, the other can become tainted by it.
Folks on a “music nerds” subreddit—one for a music critic named Fantano—have raised this question. The general consensus is the above statement, but bad albums can have good art. However, because of the little attention bad albums get, the artwork gets forgotten just as fast. And good albums, even if their art is bad, tend to still make it memorable.
One Redditor in the same thread pointed out that Radiohead’s The Benders album is great, but the album cover art is oof. They’ve seen bad albums with better cover art than that.
Others, however, were quick to joke about it and it’s a question of if it’s actually that bad or just a little bit. One thing’s for sure—The Benders does have a very meme-like aesthetic.
The conclusion most reach when it comes to what makes album art bad is the sheer fact of it being not fit for what the album is. It can be too weird, cringe or cursed, plain or uninspired, poorly photographed or crafted, inappropriate for what the album stands for (thematically or content-wise) or, if it doesn’t fit any other criteria, it’s all a matter of taste. And that includes poor taste, but that already alludes to the above.
