Great albums with terrible covers

Sometimes bands make albums that come out excellent musically, yet for whatever reason--be it incompetent record company demands or just the band succumbing to ill-advised trends--the music is matched with a hideous album cover. Here is the classic example that always comes to my mind:



What were they thinking? The covers of the first two Police albums were not so hot either, but they really batted 1000 with this one. Again, it's a great album, but you wouldn't know to look at it.

Anybody else know any good ones?

great music...disturbing crab man.

Heyyyyyy wait a minute!

edit: The label made us use that cover! Yeah, that's it!

Genital Hercules was gonna put a naked pic of their singer on the cover, but the label wouldn't have it. "He's just TOO SEXY!" is all they would say, over and over again.............

[dolivas]

eh maybe they were this wily in person or this weird but it's an album cover that was already dated for the time... however the album is AWESOME here is the cover for Bonzo Dog Band - Urban Spaceman:


likewise Cat Stevens' - Mona Bone Jackson is a horrible album cover that really makes no sense to what it relates to the music inside which is glorious 70s folk pop:

[Bellringer]

Royal Trux - Sweet Sixteen is a great record. Though the cover is crap! They had heard the Stones wanted to use a full picture of a trashy toilet. They were told they could just use the grafitti and not the toilet itself. So in tribute RX gave us this beautiful cover. The songs on this record fuse a lot of excellent 70's inspired rock. Cool synths, R&B boogie stuff, some Zep inspiration, some Lennon solo vibe. Though most would never know how great a record this was because the cover is so disgusting. Everyone should hear this.

I'm pretty partial to that Bonzo Dog Band cover--I'm pretty sure they were exactly that weird in real life, especially with poor Viv Stanshall winding up in a mental institution...

[smopo24]

Originally Posted by dolivas

likewise Cat Stevens' - Mona Bone Jackson is a horrible album cover that really makes no sense to what it relates to the music inside which is glorious 70s folk pop:

what does that picture even relate to? it's a garbage can spitting? no wonder the album is 43% off. he has to be somewhat to blame, he probably had to approve of the album cover (though looking at any of his album covers, you have to question his taste at least a bit).

[dolivas]

Originally Posted by smopo24

what does that picture even relate to? it's a garbage can spitting? no wonder the album is 43% off. he has to be somewhat to blame, he probably had to approve of the album cover (though looking at any of his album covers, you have to question his taste at least a bit).

hehe my keen eye barely noticed this but they actually mispelled the album name on the cover. i have to concur, Cat Stevens was too busy blowing his money on emphatamines to notice whatever the hell was going on during the cover selection process.

Originally Posted by smopo24

what does that picture even relate to? it's a garbage can spitting? no wonder the album is 43% off. he has to be somewhat to blame, he probably had to approve of the album cover (though looking at any of his album covers, you have to question his taste at least a bit).

It'd be funny if the album automatically came at 43% off from the moment it first came out.