And that’s pretty much what Bad Record Covers is all about. You've got inappropriate wording, Christian cringe, sponsored albums, trying to be relatable, being too self-aware, just being too much in general, and you don’t even know how funny this one really is. A lot of it is religious, family, or a product of its time. The rest is something that we all wish we could have listened to in order to bring context as to why we’re laughing.
Another side of what might make album art bad (or good, depending on how you look at it) is the controversy that it spurs. And there are a lot of examples in history.
These can include album covers that display explicit nudity and sexuality, takes a taboo spin on religion, glorifies violence or flat out infringes on copyright. Other themes in album cover art that can get flak are politics, tobacco, cultural offense, plagiarism and indecency.
Alice Cooper’s Love It to Death (1971) is one that stirred quite a bit of controversy as the original art featured Cooper himself sticking a finger out of his zipper, making it look like a part of him is exposed, but later versions airbrushed it out.
Slayer’s Christ Illusion (2006) takes a jab at religion, specifically Christianity by portraying Jesus Christ as a zombie all the while body parts are scattered around the figure.
There are also more tame cases, like Richard Pryor’s self-titled album from 1968 which featured Pryor himself in the style of a National Geographic cover. He later got 2 letters about it—one from NG suing him for defamation and the other from the Grammy awards nominating the album for best cover.
Your scrolling journey doesn’t have to end here, though, because we've got more bad album cover art where that came from. Or you can visit the Bad Record Covers page on X as well as Facebook.
But if you've had enough of that, there’s something nobody should ever get enough of and that’s sharing your thoughts and stories in the comment section below!