Whoa, I actually thought those were all pretty dang cool compared to the abundance of lazy uncreative covers I see nowadays. Now I just have to know what John Bult sounds like!

Urk. Not much to say after such a starling display of....urk.

Got a question - anyone ever hear of this guy in Texas called Jandek that only sell albums through mail order business, won't play live, and takes a seemingly random polaroid of something or other and uses it for album art? Them's some pretty weird pictures too, but not as freakish as the ones shown here.

i thought to myself, "gee, i hope he's got that Herbie Mann cover on the list."

..and sure enough.

also, this line: Nothing says "Jesus loves you" like beating some cinderblock ASS!

is seriously funny!

Jandek is the king of outsider music in my book.

Check out this

Very cool link! Thanks Robert. Are there any audio files? I can't seem to find any.

I keep hearing that Blue Corpse is one of the strangest/best albums of all time. If it's as good as the Shaggs' Philosophy of the World, I'll have to track it down.

Jandek is definitely as WEIRD as the Shaggs.

'good' is left as an exercise for the listener.

i kinda like him.

And I like the Shaggs. Who else could've written a song so brilliant it's unfathomable as "My Pal Foot Foot"?

I forget the album name, but you can add that album by John Lennon and Yoko Ono with them naked on the cover. It wasn't too pleasant.

The John & Yoko album with the nude cover was Two Virgins. What was so unpleasant about that album cover?

Well... I admire John Lennon and seeing him naked distracted me from the music and there is not much that can overshadow John Lennon and his music... It's kind of hard to believe, but it did.

Those album covers were absolutely hilarious. The real covers were the best but I did enjoy that "Can I Borrow A Feelin?" cover. That's a reference to an episode of The Simpsons as "Can I Borrow A Feelin?" was the name of the album Milhouse's dad recorded.

This, in my humble and insignificant opinion, is some funny stuff. Thanks for this, Mr. Burke. You sure made my Friday morning!

Cheers,

Ron

I used to have a website devoted to bad music. So I am pretty familiar with the music of Jandek, William Shatner, The Shaggs, Shooby Taylor, Lucia Pamela, Jack Muridian, etc.

My favorite however is Eilert Pilarm. A Swedish Elvis Impersonator.

Listen to a couple Eilert songshere
If you haven't heard him you'll thank me.

Great post, hilarious stuff!

One thing I really like about these albums: when some moron gets the chance to "design" something like this, they always pick THE WORST FONTS ever made.

If you notice, almost every one of them have that in common. Some even use the same typeface family: ie. Can I Borrow a Feelin' -- Our Hearts Keep SInging.

The most bizarre is the juxtaposition of the "All My Friends Are Dead" with the super-1970s-I'm happy! font!

Also loved Devastating Dave's subtlety: just in case you don't get it, the word "ZAP!" is over his crotch.

Oy.


PS: Expect Hank Williams Jr. to cover "All My Friends Are Dead" as a follow-up to "All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down"

Ha!


I almost mentioned the "ZAP!"
It stuck me as well. In terms of badness this cover is perfect.

Now if we could only get the music files to go with these. Something tells me the music underneath is probably just as hilarious.

I thought I would share this with everyone.

One of these covers has affected me so deeply that I now use it as a friendly goodbye to my friends.

I no longer say or "keep in touch with yourself" or "later" or "take it sleazy", all of those phrases have taken a back seat to to perfectly constructed:

"Rat On Swamp Dogg!"

I suggestion you start using this phrase as a farewell too.

We can really start a cultural linguistics phenomenon. It will eventually be used on Saturday Night Live and be traced right back here. To our beloved Blogcritics.

Rock On Swamp Dog!

Robert

Hey why can't we edit our comments? I get a permission denied error.

I wrote "Rock On Swamp Dog!" instead of Rat On Swamp Dogg!"

It is important that the phrase is "Rat On Swamp Dogg!"

Guess what, Rat On! by Swamp Dogg was actually release in 1971 by Electra Records!

Wow. Gotta find this album. Here is what Allmusic said:

"The cover of this LP--Swamp Dogg riding a white rat, hands raised and fists clenched in triumph--lets you know that you're not in for any ol' R&B record, even before the needle hits the grooves. It's a satisfying continuation of the eclectic soul-singer-songwriter mix of his debut. Vocally, Swamp Dogg sounds like a cross between General Johnson (of Chairmen of the Board) and Van Morrison; as a songwriter, he's his own man. With the exception of Sly Stone, no other soul men of the period were investigating controversial topics with such infectious musicality and good humor. He takes on promiscuity with unbridled frankness in cuts like "Predicament #2," and bemoans the eternal delay of American justice for minorities in "Remember I Said Tomorrow," and twists Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" into a protest song (and also, bizarrely, covers the Bee Gees' "Got to Get a Message to You"). None of this endeared him to industry insiders, and Swamp Dogg was dropped by Elektra after the album's release. It's long been out of print, but in the U.K. Charly has reissued it on CD on a two-fer with Total Destruction of Your Mind. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide "

Rat On! by Swamp Dogg is available on CD packaged with another one of his albums.

You can get both albums on 1 CD for $2.95 here

Stop stealing Dusty Scott's material.

I had a bunch of horrid-looking LPs on my wall for years. Picked them up at some kind of fair in Berkeley for $1 -- as many as I wanted. I still have one, my favorite: Detectives' "It Takes One to Know One." I've never even heard the thing but I suspect it's Pure Genius.

If you want horrid album covers, try looking in the Southern Gospel section of a music store. What makes them worse is that they don't even have the excuse of coming from the 70s, or some similar era. They are most within the past couple of years. The John Hagee Family's cd "Stand" is terrible... and it's from 2001.

Yes, some correlation between this post and that

The Blogcritics' editors liked this one. It's a pick of the week. Congrats. Put the news up proudly on your site.

We've provided a handy button to do just that at the link below.

Here's a link to the rest of this week's picks and the reason why.

I am happy this entry was cited as "Pick of the Week." I really haven't laughed this hard at something online in quite a while This is comedy!

Cheers,

Ron

I think these are great also, but the post is a retread of one that's been going around the Net for many many years now. The porktornado site (the one with Dusty Scott's unfunny captions) even says that it comes from somewhere else. Funny, but I don't think something that's not original content should be cited as a Best-of.

There was a comment above #23 that pointed this out, now missing, strangely.

All these selections were a lot funnier the first time I saw them -- at this site.

there is overlap with the Dusty Scott post, but only some, and the commentary is different.

The site linked in #28 is dedicated to bad album covers.

How is this post "not original"?

OK, I'm wrong.
I guess it's "original content" in that there's nothing exactly like it elsewhere.
But since it seems like the poster just chose most of the same ones as Dusty Scott, and then added some more of his faves from the Worst Album Covers site, it's not a real original idea. Nor is the idea of adding sarcastic comments, which BTW are just as funny as Dusty Scott's (ie not particularly.)

well that's another matter entirely

I would also say the concepts of "review" "commentary" and "news reporting" are about as unoriginal as they get

It's not original because someone else chose all these exact same covers and Robert gave the impression he chose them himself. Someone else did the work for him. He just threw in his own comments -- which ARE NOT as funny as the site I referenced above.

show me where someone else picked all the same album covers

Will you settle for 14 of the same albums, at a glance? See link to post 28.

There were only three the same on the fornt that I saw. He added his own takes and words.

If he'd copied the words that would be entirely different. Lighten up.

We all saw Star Wars, does that mean we stole the idea to review it?

Henry, I understand, but the link is just to the front page of the site. Is there a post where 14 appear? Or are 14 of these somewhere on your site?

Robert, what are your thoughts on all of this?

Eric,

I went and looked at one of the manifold 'worst album covers' sites - across two pages, there are 20 albums listed, of which Robert has 8 in common, but Robert also has 10 additional ones which are not part of this list.

Bad taste is not a monopoly, I guess:)

thanks Aaman, this is what I have found as well: intersection but not union

Eric -- This is the site I'm referring to. Click on the links of the pages listed and you will see Robert's choices over and over. Apparently he looked at it and pillaged it, then -- to his credit -- found a few on his own.

I understand, but that isn't the same thing as copying

Well anyone can look at someone else's work and attach comments -- with this shit, it just about writes itself. Personally I just think he should have referenced the site he got it from.

I am still waiting to hear from him regarding methodology, sources, etc

These albums appear on other sites because they are indeed the worst album covers ever. If you search for the best album covers I think you will find many of the same ones repeated as well.

These are my personal picks as culled from all over the Internet and suggestions from friends.

They are my picks and its my commentary. End of story. If you are saying that I should only have selected covers that have not been written about before. You're just plain stupid.

There are books on the subject and most of them appear in those, too. Undoubtedly, the author of the site HP is referencing wasn't original with his picks, either.

You had me laughing out loud! These are really, really funny! I think my favorite is "Let Me Touch Him."

And Shark is totally right about the font issue!

I remember thumbing through cut out albums back in the late 60's-early 70's and seeing a couple naked kids on the cover posed the same as John & Yono. Anyone remember this and who the album was by????

KF

Question...
I am laughing my ass off, even now, but have to take it to the next level...
What is Millie Jackson holding in her right hand???

I think it's more valuable than the purple vase : )

Wow, they're all so original.....just like The Sun and Boston.com.

What are the odds of every site picking the same albums, considering there have been hundreds of thousands of records produced?

Wow... why don't you rip off the Peter Pan guy and "All Your Base" while you're at it?