Album Cover Art

Let's continue our look at controversial album cover art. Coming in at #46 (according to Gigwise staff) is the album cover by Beautiful South.

"Welcome to the Beautiful South" was the debut album by The Beautiful South released in August 1989. Jan Saudek's album cover originally depicted two pictures, one of a woman with a gun in her mouth, and another with a man smoking. The cover was refused by Woolworths, not just because they thought people would point guns at their faces, but mainly because they thought it might cause people to take up smoking. So a second, overly-cute cover was made, depicting a fluffy bunny rabbit and a Teddy bear.

So the gun in the mouth was not a problem, but smoking a cigarette was? Man, censorship needs to be fixed!

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Weirdest


Clocking in at #46 for the weirdest album cover art (according to Gigwise) is Picastro: 'Whore Luck' (2007)– A simple pencil drawing, on first glance it looks as though the cover the Canadian band's 2007 album is just a couple kissing. One can make their own inferences as to what else it may appear to resemble. [Artwork By - Ned Schwartz [Mind Sensations] - Jes Watson

Picastro began in Toronto in 1997 or 1998 as a acoustic guitar and cello duo. Since then there have been a long list of contributors, some of whom still appear on recordings.

Kurt Newman (guitar), Stephanie Vittas (cello), catl (guitar), Evan Clarke (drums, guitar), Zak Hanna (guitar), Rachel McBride (cello), Owen Pallett (viola, organ, piano), Nick Storring (cello), Brandon Valdivia (drums), Ant Saunders (viola, guitar).

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Worst

46. The Prodigy – ‘Experience’


Apparently too busy to be bothered by any attempt at a conceptual album cover, I guess just the name of the band was good enough. Apparently, album cover art and design were not in the budget.

Experience was the debut album by the English band The Prodigy. The album was released on September 28, 1992 through XL Recordings where it peaked at #12 in the charts in October.

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Best

The Smiths: ‘The Queen Is Dead’


Not sure why this makes a 'best of' list, I guess the color green is soothing when depicting a dead body. The album cover of The Queen Is Dead was designed by Morrissey and features Alain Delon from the 1964 film L'Insoumis.

"The Queen Is Dead" was the third studio album by The Smiths. It was released in June of 1986 in the UK by Rough Trade Records, and reached number two in the British charts. Sire Records also released the album in in June 1986 in the US. The album reached number 70 on the Billboard 200 and was certified Gold by the RIAA on 09/19/1990.