Obviously art is a very subjective and personal experience, and beauty is most definitely in the eye of the beholder. That said, taking a glance at some of the LP covers that arrived in 2013, we're left wondering if any musicians covered in Exclaim's Worst Album Covers list actually have any love for the eyesores they attached to their music.
Proving there's no real formula to making the list, this year's oddities included everything from artsy-fartsy photo shoots gone wrong to some of the most poorly produced, ill-thought out illustrations we've seen in some time. One thing's for sure, though: these covers all made us barf in our mouths a little. Enjoy!
Don't forget to head over to our 2013 in Lists section to see more of our Year-End coverage.
Worst Album Covers 2013:
10. Puscifer
Donkey Punch the Night
While, truly, we're glad Maynard James Keenan and co. kept things PG for Donkey Punch the Night's album cover, rather than serve up some truly NSFW art involving the sex move of the same name, who's the jackass that gave this the green light? To be fair, it looks like someone spent a little time drawing the hauntingly hideous hairy beast in question, but the two-second slopjob done on the typography basically barfed onto the canvas is a slap in the face to good taste.
9. Fleetwood Mac
Extended Play
Almost as turgid as that lazy, lazy EP title is the groan-worthy typography, stretched to ridiculous lengths across a chrome-coloured, rippling silk handkerchief. It's a subtler entry than most, but goes to show that the worst covers don't necessary have to be eye-popping to be awful.
8. R. Kelly
Black Panties (Special Edition)
An ultimately unused piece of cover art featuring a pair of black panties on a stark white background was apparently too on-the-nose for Kels to keep. Instead, he offered up two different pieces for the regular and deluxe editions of his latest R&B album. A sexualized symmetry is threaded into the first, with multiple bodies strewn around the singer. As you can see above, though, the deluxe edition has Kels going off the deep end with a twisted Phantom of the Opera theme, staring into the camera dead-on through a rhinestone half-mask while playing the naked torso of a woman like a cello. Judging by the lady's head-hiding display, she seems embarrassed by the photo shoot as much as the body-bowing skills of our man Kels.
7. The Polyphonic Spree
Yes, It's True
Thankfully, both the cover model's bangs-heavy hairdo and a strategically-placed, face-hugging butterfly saved her from having to realize how shoddy the psychedelic artwork for the Polyphonic Spree's latest LP actually was.
6. Small Black
Limits of Desire
The long-haired exhibitionists seen here have truly chosen the most impractical setup for their love hug, unless they're eventually aiming to have their genitals snapped up in the jaws of a hungry, hungry crocodile. Worst threesome ever. 5. Waka Flocka Flame
Duflockarant2
If the mixtape's clunky, OKC Thunder-indebted portmanteau wasn't enough of a headache for you to deal with, then just feast your eyes on the freelease's hokey artwork. It's a total hack job, with Waka's mug and chains grafted onto Kevin Durant's dunk pose on the cover of the NBA2K13 video game, though we're pretty sure that neither the rapper or the b-baller sport cybernetic arms. Fittingly enough for the now former BSM member, Waka totally threw up a brick on this one.
4. Tyler, the Creator
WOLF
It's clear that smart-ass Odd Future ringleader Tyler, the Creator's school picture-styled portrait for his third solo LP WOLF is meant to look a little corny, but an intentionally terrible piece of art is terrible nevertheless. A salute to the good people at Jostens, it finds foreground Tyler staring off into space while a soft-focus, Jheri-curled alter ego is blended into the pastel rainbow gradient, grinning like an idiot. Hopefully the record label got a good deal on some wallet-sized pics in addition to the thousands of LP jacket eyesores pressed up for release day.
3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Mosquito
Truly one of the weirdest entries this year, Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Mosquito album cover delivers exactly what it promises: a giant neon bloodsucker ready to feast on a chubby, magenta-cheeked baby. There's a definite Garbage Pail Kids vibe to the creepy CGI piece, leading us to believe that had it been delivered for the trading card series circa '85, the screecher in the foreground would've been dubbed "Malaria Mickey," and then "Diphtheria Donny" when recycled for series two.
2. Action Bronson
Saaab Stories
We tend to cut Bronsolino some slack when he's riffing about demolishing the "finest vaginas" instead of running foodie-approved bars, but the highly misogynistic cover to his Saaab Stories EP with producer Harry Fraud is just too much to stomach. For one, the woman on all fours with her jeans pulled to knee level, her face inches away from a toilet rim, seems pretty uncomfortable with her current situation, especially since a leering, glassy-eyed Action Bronson is giving her a haughty peep from behind. And we don't even want to know why the other lingerie-laced lady is bringing yards of TP into that shower with her. A picture tells a thousand words, but Bam Bam should've just kept this particular story to himself.
1. Black Flag
What The...
Really, was there any doubt? Truly one of the most spectacularly head-scratching album covers of all time, and almost as misguided as the clusterfuck that was the Black Flag reunion itself, What The... razzes us via a somewhat South Park-styled character rendered in sub-MS Paint-quality scrawls. Drift your eyes to the top right corner and you'll see those familiar four bars, but the understated logo just can't compete with the tongue-wagging floating noggin staring at us with asymmetrical eyes and giving us a hearty metal salute. If the undercooked music had us missing the Black Flag of old, then this mind-boggler likewise had us desperate to dig out some fantastically frightening old Raymond Pettibon-drawn LP jackets.
Proving there's no real formula to making the list, this year's oddities included everything from artsy-fartsy photo shoots gone wrong to some of the most poorly produced, ill-thought out illustrations we've seen in some time. One thing's for sure, though: these covers all made us barf in our mouths a little. Enjoy!
Don't forget to head over to our 2013 in Lists section to see more of our Year-End coverage.
Worst Album Covers 2013:
10. Puscifer
Donkey Punch the Night
While, truly, we're glad Maynard James Keenan and co. kept things PG for Donkey Punch the Night's album cover, rather than serve up some truly NSFW art involving the sex move of the same name, who's the jackass that gave this the green light? To be fair, it looks like someone spent a little time drawing the hauntingly hideous hairy beast in question, but the two-second slopjob done on the typography basically barfed onto the canvas is a slap in the face to good taste.
9. Fleetwood Mac
Extended Play
Almost as turgid as that lazy, lazy EP title is the groan-worthy typography, stretched to ridiculous lengths across a chrome-coloured, rippling silk handkerchief. It's a subtler entry than most, but goes to show that the worst covers don't necessary have to be eye-popping to be awful.
8. R. Kelly
Black Panties (Special Edition)
An ultimately unused piece of cover art featuring a pair of black panties on a stark white background was apparently too on-the-nose for Kels to keep. Instead, he offered up two different pieces for the regular and deluxe editions of his latest R&B album. A sexualized symmetry is threaded into the first, with multiple bodies strewn around the singer. As you can see above, though, the deluxe edition has Kels going off the deep end with a twisted Phantom of the Opera theme, staring into the camera dead-on through a rhinestone half-mask while playing the naked torso of a woman like a cello. Judging by the lady's head-hiding display, she seems embarrassed by the photo shoot as much as the body-bowing skills of our man Kels.
7. The Polyphonic Spree
Yes, It's True
Thankfully, both the cover model's bangs-heavy hairdo and a strategically-placed, face-hugging butterfly saved her from having to realize how shoddy the psychedelic artwork for the Polyphonic Spree's latest LP actually was.
6. Small Black
Limits of Desire
The long-haired exhibitionists seen here have truly chosen the most impractical setup for their love hug, unless they're eventually aiming to have their genitals snapped up in the jaws of a hungry, hungry crocodile. Worst threesome ever. 5. Waka Flocka Flame
Duflockarant2
If the mixtape's clunky, OKC Thunder-indebted portmanteau wasn't enough of a headache for you to deal with, then just feast your eyes on the freelease's hokey artwork. It's a total hack job, with Waka's mug and chains grafted onto Kevin Durant's dunk pose on the cover of the NBA2K13 video game, though we're pretty sure that neither the rapper or the b-baller sport cybernetic arms. Fittingly enough for the now former BSM member, Waka totally threw up a brick on this one.
4. Tyler, the Creator
WOLF
It's clear that smart-ass Odd Future ringleader Tyler, the Creator's school picture-styled portrait for his third solo LP WOLF is meant to look a little corny, but an intentionally terrible piece of art is terrible nevertheless. A salute to the good people at Jostens, it finds foreground Tyler staring off into space while a soft-focus, Jheri-curled alter ego is blended into the pastel rainbow gradient, grinning like an idiot. Hopefully the record label got a good deal on some wallet-sized pics in addition to the thousands of LP jacket eyesores pressed up for release day.
3. Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Mosquito
Truly one of the weirdest entries this year, Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Mosquito album cover delivers exactly what it promises: a giant neon bloodsucker ready to feast on a chubby, magenta-cheeked baby. There's a definite Garbage Pail Kids vibe to the creepy CGI piece, leading us to believe that had it been delivered for the trading card series circa '85, the screecher in the foreground would've been dubbed "Malaria Mickey," and then "Diphtheria Donny" when recycled for series two.
2. Action Bronson
Saaab Stories
We tend to cut Bronsolino some slack when he's riffing about demolishing the "finest vaginas" instead of running foodie-approved bars, but the highly misogynistic cover to his Saaab Stories EP with producer Harry Fraud is just too much to stomach. For one, the woman on all fours with her jeans pulled to knee level, her face inches away from a toilet rim, seems pretty uncomfortable with her current situation, especially since a leering, glassy-eyed Action Bronson is giving her a haughty peep from behind. And we don't even want to know why the other lingerie-laced lady is bringing yards of TP into that shower with her. A picture tells a thousand words, but Bam Bam should've just kept this particular story to himself.
1. Black Flag
What The...
Really, was there any doubt? Truly one of the most spectacularly head-scratching album covers of all time, and almost as misguided as the clusterfuck that was the Black Flag reunion itself, What The... razzes us via a somewhat South Park-styled character rendered in sub-MS Paint-quality scrawls. Drift your eyes to the top right corner and you'll see those familiar four bars, but the understated logo just can't compete with the tongue-wagging floating noggin staring at us with asymmetrical eyes and giving us a hearty metal salute. If the undercooked music had us missing the Black Flag of old, then this mind-boggler likewise had us desperate to dig out some fantastically frightening old Raymond Pettibon-drawn LP jackets.