Friday, October 17, 2008

Album Cover Art

Let's continue our look at Gigwise.com's 50 most controversial, weirdest, best and worst album covers as put together by their amazing staff:

Controversial


12. Regurgitate: ‘Carnivorous Erection’ This cover certainly makes my list of gross covers, this angry little man is certainly up for a fight. I looked up the band and their style is described as "Goregrind." Well that explains the cover I guess.

Line up for this recording:
Rikard Jansson: Vocals
Urban Skytt: Guitars and Bass
Jocke Pettersson: Battery
Additional Vocals: Rickard Alriksson and Mieszko

Picture LP version released by Morbid Records and has been banned in many retail outlets (although you can find it rather easily online- if you dare).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Weird


12. Mike Terry: 'Live At The Pavilion Theatre. Glasgow' While researching this gent, I found that he/she made a bundle of appearances on various websites worst album covers. Here are some comments:

He looks like L. Ron Hubbard in drag. www.worstalbumcovers.org

I can only imagine Mike Terry sounds a lot like he looks: like Elton John crossed with Liberace and fat, Vegas Elvis. www.mentalfloss.com

This is the only cover on the list that makes me laugh every time I lay eyes on it. Mike Terry appears to be having a great time playing his piano. Oh, and he's also stuffed like a beef sausage into a suit that Liberace gave up for being 'entirely too gay.' www.communistdanceparty.blogspot.com

Y luego dicen que Iniesta esta blanquito... www.fotolog.com

I guess that sums it all up.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Worst


12. Devastatin Dave The Turntable Slave- Zip Zap Rap was a 1986 single released by Devastatin' Dave, the Turntable Slave with some backing vocals performed by middle-to high-school-aged children. As part of the War on Drugs campaign by the Reagan Administration the single focuses on the effects of a cocaine addiction and alludes to possible alternate career paths rather than living a life of crime to pay for the drug. Furthermore the cover itself features a yellow stripe in the top-left corner reading "Hear our message: say no to drugs".

"Devastatin' Dave" Kurin currently lives as a music producer in California, and has appeared on the TV series Divorce Court.

The Gigwise staff thought so much of this single, they just had to include it in their worst album covers of all time. Apparently, they are not alone:

"Worst Album Covers Ever" Lists this single has appeared on:

RateYourMusic.com
The Guardian
Unofficial Worst Album Covers
WorstAlbumCovers.org - Fashion Victims

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Best


12. Supertramp: ‘Breakfast In America’ – Here is a direct quote from the staff at Gigwise.com (sounds to me like they have issues with the US): "The majority of the band may have hailed from UK, but this album cover said more about the vain, commercial obsessed country that America has become in contemporary times than a thousand words. The scary waitress standing in for the Statue of Liberty is a stroke of genius."

Breakfast in America is the sixth album by the band Supertramp, released in 1979. It was recorded the previous year at the Village Recorder in Los Angeles. The album featured four hit singles: "The Logical Song" (#6), "Goodbye Stranger" (#15), "Take the Long Way Home" (#10), and the title track (#16).

The album's front cover is an overlook of New York City through an airplane window. It was designed by Mike Doud and depicted Kate Murtagh as a Statue of Liberty figure holding a glass of orange juice instead of a torch and the background featured a city made from cornflake box, ashtray, cutlery (for the wharfs), eggboxes, vinegar, ketchup and mustard bottles, all spraypainted white. The twin World Trade Center towers appear as two stacks of boxes and the plate of breakfast represents Battery Park, the departure point for the Staten Island Ferry. The back cover photo, depicting the band members having breakfast while reading their respective hometown newspapers, was taken at a diner called "Bert's Mad House."

Despite the turmoil, Breakfast in America became Supertramp's biggest selling album with over 4 million copies sold in the US alone to date (11 million copies worldwide) and was #1 on Billboard's Pop Albums Chart for six weeks in the spring and summer of 1979. The album also hit #1 in Norway, Canada and Australia.

I always hated the music and have been known to turn the radio station at the first note of a Supertramp song. Sounds like I have issues as well.

No comments:

Post a Comment