boring album covers from albums that really deserved better

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iRTj3YHEhNY/SPnjXRp_aLI/AAAAAAAAE8Q/xDleIcvBvwU/s400/Bruce+Springsteen+-+The+Wild,+The+Innocent+&+The+E+Street+Shuffle+-+Front.jpg

what's this? Che meets Cat Stevens, looking deep?

(was going to do 100 boring album covers.. but that would probably be too ambitious)

please post something, cos' i hate starting threads! ;)

http://dic.academic.ru/pictures/wiki/files/78/New_Order_Waiting_for_the_Sirens_Call_album_cover.jpg

Actually, the patron saint of 'boring cover w/ great lp' be:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_7hgz7LmsMto/Sh19Vc84R_I/AAAAAAAAAgQ/5QiZREBPYKg/s400/30csilh.jpg

Huh, I like the Faust cover. Others really are boring, though.

On a CD, the Faust cover is fine.

On an LP, it's cheap cardboard, no info, plain, oh!.

faust cover looks cool imo

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_IyDZgXq8QH0/SdHHAB3ihoI/AAAAAAAACk4/d7cn93VKxCg/s400/Idris+Muhammad+-+Kabsha.jpg

This is a dope soul jazz/hard bop album, but you wouldn't think so looking at the cover.

wtf all these covers are good.

anything with a barcode featured on the cover

i love that springsteen cover tbh

I KNOW we've done this before.

This is about boring, not bad covers. I object to the New Order one though, because I think the album was boring too.

i love that springsteen cover tbh

^^ this!

I object to the New Order one though, because I think the album was boring too.

^^ also, this!

both those covers are good! they're not boring!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51BP3WK1X2L.jpg

(not actually one of my favorite Dylan albums, but I know a lot of people DO like it... the photo is neither interesting nor particularly iconic, though)

http://static.midomi.com/a/pop/cov200/drd600/d650/200_d6505962921.jpg

This is funny considering what the original UK cover looks like.

wow this thread made it to another day, heh.

i love that springsteen cover tbh

^^ this!

hmm. i think the photo ain't so bad, the Blonde on Blonde one is a lot worse, but I do think Bruce looks nothing like the mood of that album.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WZuChQYBw0M/R1rYThxTmCI/AAAAAAAAAfE/llo3nK-Kqf8/s400/white+light.jpg

If they went all the way and made this cover COMPLETELY black, with no text or anything, it'd at least have been a fairly audacious move (if equally boring to look at), especially as a followup to the elaborate banana-peel of the debut. As it is, though, it just makes 'em look lazy and indifferent.

wvs i love that cover!

the semi-hidden skull, come on, it's rad!

http://dkpresents.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/today.jpghttp://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb272/TeN523/PetSoundsCover.jpg

Holy shit, that Pet Sounds cover is really crappy!

http://www2.informatik.hu-berlin.de/~gestewit/Some%20Great%20Reward%20Remastered.jpghttp://www.ghostinthemachine.net/blackcelebration.jpghttp://www.plong.com/MusicCatalog%5CD%5CDepeche%20Mode%20-%20Ultra%5CDepeche%20Mode%20-%20Ultra.jpg

gtfo that idris muhammad cover is dope

the Dylan cover folds out, man! into a larger version of the same rather dull photo.....

I can understand Neu!'s strategy, but somehow I think they may have deserved better than this....

http://assets.thequietus.com/images/articles/1209/neu_1235647396_crop_300x300.jpg

http://www.mixup.org.uk/photobooth%20archive/booth%20resources/photoboothsinpop/neu%20-%20neu%202%20front%20cover.JPG

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_TtrAN5tGS0s/SLcC8wvjbJI/AAAAAAAAAp0/rZnlQffQ4yY/s320/Neu75_albumcover.jpg

Those "Neu!" albums were kinda punk aesthetics before punk existed though.

i'm way too resigned to the pet sounds cover. n e way the whole thing with the b-boys is the whole profundity/banality overlap, i can't imagine what a 'better' cover for it would look like

i really like the idea of this thread but it's hard to come up with things

xpost i LOVE the neu covers, must look even more brilliant on vinyl

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/dc58492d12f01be608a93928a526c5c2/199198.jpg

half dead and dynamite is even worse, but so ugly it goes beyond boring. meanwhile, the terrible early single 'prescription sunglasses' got this:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NK3NwhcAKOY/R_FHsmllJfI/AAAAAAAAAJg/gHQE5LcZBak/s320/Lifter+Puller+-+Prescription+Sunglasses+bw+Emperor.JPG

In the fine tradition of NEU!, sonically even.

http://www.soundsoftheuniverse.com/img/releases/16209/t1/sjr_cd_202_subway_low_res.jpg

I don't like Neu! much at all musically, but those covers are great IMO. Way greater than the music deserves :)

White Light/White Heat is one of my favorite album covers ever. Love the faint skull tattoo image. MENACING.

lol one of my friends was on mushrooms the first time she noticed the skull and it freaked her out bigtime

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d2/Chemistry_GA.jpg

even though the Biology single cover is a rip of X Ray Spex, it's a whole lot more interesting, and fits the "Chemistry" title better

http://www.amiright.com/album-covers/images/album_Girls-Aloud-Biology.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NK3NwhcAKOY/R_FHsmllJfI/AAAAAAAAAJg/gHQE5LcZBak/s320/Lifter+Puller+-+Prescription+Sunglasses+bw+Emperor.JPG

I have never heard this band but this cover makes me really, really want to!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/Blur_-_Modern_Life_is_Rubbish.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7d/BlurParklife.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1a/Blur13.jpg

I have never heard this band

From their loins sprang The Hold Steady, so approach with utmost caution.

n e way the whole thing with the b-boys is the whole profundity/banality overlap

What's profound about that cover? All I see is a goofy pic.

I mean, goofy cover pics can work perfectly fine for certain artists and albums, but if Pet Sounds is supposed to be a serious album, then the combination of the album title and the cover pic really don't convey that.

http://prod-assets.mog.com/amg/pop/cov200/drf500/f501/f50181xzz2j.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GSZ2DMhXSG0/R5EGErkKJRI/AAAAAAAAAQw/6SukA6D6byA/s400/Black-Sabbath-Vol-4-309224.jpg
^used to think this was some cheap retrospective

http://cdn.pitchfork.com/media/2568-dna-on-dna.jpg
automatically bored by bar-over-eyes photos

bite your tongue:

http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/4044/fatlanta.jpg

http://www.beatles-history.net/images/beatles-white-album.jpg

Autechre, Tri Repetae

http://bp2.blogger.com/_6_kFMqOA4NA/SFkoP2EMUrI/AAAAAAAAA7I/gd37LVy40eY/s1600/Autechre%2B-%2BTri%2BRepetae%2B%2B%2B%2B(front).jpg

Yeah, I get it. It's all like, "It's all about the music, maaaaan." But could you at least have picked a better color? I'd prefer white, honestly.

there are some dope covers on this thread u ppl are crazy

Truly.

The Dylan cover is excellent. The New Order cover is better than the album.

http://geordierussell.instone.net/Jukebox/Img/S/The%20Stone%20Roses.jpg

http://www.limpers.com/members/zazz-albums-48-friday-picture437-radiohead-bends.jpg

this one doesn't really deserve a better cover perhaps but I like to think the content is fairly more interesting than this:

http://www.snapme.ca/files/imagecache/display/files/salon_images/Crystal_Castles_-_Crystal_Castles.jpg

I love the covers for Kid A and Amnesiac so much, especially the latter. Just this weird book floating in a void. And it's cool that they made the actual book the packaging for the deluxe edition. The rest of their covers are definitely zzz though, especially AMSP. That album deserves a better cover and title.

I really like OKC’s cover but it might just be aesthetic Stockholm Syndrome on my part.

Also whoever said in the Mass Romantic thread that every New Pornos cover art is terrible is OTM.

i like the toy soldier cover for WL/WH, always thought it looked more like how the album sounds than the skull cover. its funny how between the banana and the skull, for such a Serious band 2/4 of VU album covers have a packaging gimmick

Every Autechre release since Quaristice has had a simple, clean, distinct, and deeply boring aesthetic. I don't really get it as they're obviously into the visual side of things, though they also have the playing in the dark thing going on.

Also whoever said in the Mass Romantic thread that every New Pornos cover art is terrible is OTM.

This is mostly true, except I love the Brill Bruisers cover and the one from last year is just fine, not offensively bad like most of them. Challengers is the single worst album cover of this century though.

it is really hard to imagine someone wearing this awful, boring art on a t-shirt or having a poster or something

oh man, you did not know my college social circle in the early 2000s

the version with the "Fitter, Happier" lyrics in variously sized capital letters was hung above many an iMac and required art-history textbook

fair enough, and i was in college in that era too so i probably hung in a dorm room or two that had that poster. doesn't mean it's a good aesthetic choice though! (unlike most dorm room decor)

I think R.E.M.’s classic covers (up through Monster) are really good—mysterious but friendly; iconic without trying too hard.

(But I may not know what “boring” means, as this thread appears to lead off with some of the all-time great LP covers.)

New Adventures also great!

surely the autechre ones are supposed to be boring and ugly as some kind of statement or challenge or injoke or whatever (the new ones are nice enough). or maybe they actually think they’re beautiful, I wouldn’t put it past them

It's funny that this thread starts with, imo, one of Springsteen's better album covers, when he's had so many bad ones. To me, the album of his that really fits this thread - great album, boring cover - is The River. They didn't even bother to do a new photo shoot! They just used one of the outtakes from the Darkness on the Edge of Town photo shoot, and you can tell.

if you go to the tdr site - https://www.thedesignersrepublic.com/autechre - there's a bit of info (not much) on some of the projects: repeatable elements, infinite variation, blah. suggests more thought was given to the 'meaning' than the actual look. xp.

xp I was having the same exact thought, Lily Dale. Was thinking that the poster who cited that one didn't know what was coming in the next decade!

across the board for me all album covers that are:

[singer songwriter's name]
[image of singer songwriter]

are the most boring. I want the music to transport me. A plain reminder of the mundane way the music is being delivered undermines the transportive effect of music. Especially if the ingredients themselves are cliche.

Bruce album covers peaked with Nebraska and Born in the USA and immediately plummeted back down from there to various levels between "fine, I guess" (Western Stars) and "offensively terrible" (Tom Joad).

Definitely a line between covers that are good while doing boring/plain as an aesthetic choice and covers that are bad because they are boring (or were going for something else but the results are boring.) Faust IV and REM I would put in the former category, Radiohead I would put in the latter.

haha, i had an OK Computer t-shirt but it did NOT do me any favours.

I'm not really into 'ugly' album art. Amnesiac, In Rainbows and Kid A all look very ugly to me. The fonts and colours on these albums actively distress me. Kid A looks like what used to happen if you download a bad pirated preview of a Marvel film that hadn't come out yet. Amnesiac too, just no.

As Lavator Shemmelpennick says , the best album art should be recognisable from far away, and look good on a badge, a poster, or a t-shirt: Screamadelica, Dark Side Of The Moon. Always been a fan of Green Day's 'Dookie' cover too. But vague, diffuse, collagey artwork does little for me.

I don't mind deliberately crap album art like Tortoise's TNT; even What's The Story (Morning Glory), which I always admired for its brazenness more than the music.

Agree that Syro album 'art' or anti-art underwhelmed me. It was supposed to be some sort of pranksterish coup, but I just found myself shrugging and hoping I wouldn't spill coffee on the sleeve.

Got to say, Autechre have made some of my favourite album art, but as has been said above a lot of it is conceptual. Chiastic Slide's deconstructed, minimalist interpretations of modern architecture. Oversteps' attempts by human beings to create a perfect circle. The awesome 'knot' on Draft7.30. Even Untilted, with its multi-coloured paint spill is eye-catching to me.

The only one I really dislike is Confield though. Why is the main picture squeezed into a little oddly-shaped box?

i just picture confield in my head when i think of any of their late 90s / 00s albums tbh

blue note is celebrated for its design. what they did with the unique opportunity they were given here remains inexplicable, maybe offensive

https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/disp/687f0a39329929.5606aec910e5a.jpg

Quaristice and Exai have pretty cruddy artwork too. i didn't realise TDR didn't do a whole bunch of their covers

that monk/coltrane cover looks straight out of 1998 downtempo hip hop

untilted is my fave autechre art easy, it's beautiful

not so much 'boring' as 'WTF'

https://i.ibb.co/z6Mtkdh/51-FPOu-C5j-HL.jpg

I like the new Autechre sleeve designs, fits their aesthetic well

the Eno/Cale record Wrong Way Up definitely fits here. big "graphic design is my passion" vibe there

Godbluff by Van Der Graaf Generator is another one, it's not bad its just...black

I have an actual answer for this:

"Here's our hot major-label debut, full of eclectic jams and incredible songwriting... how do we make sure it looks like something even your grandmother would find too stodgy?"

https://img.discogs.com/PnwfsYlxtsub2Opn70Nl5z6gjoo=/fit-in/600x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-13077425-1547652074-1334.jpeg.jpg

They really jazzed it up for the promo poster!

https://images.eil.com/large_image/10%2C000%5FMANIACS_THE%2BWISHING%2BCHAIR-590277.jpg

how about Close to the Edge by Yes? what exactly happened there?

Roger Dean wanted to show off his new airbrush I think.

Love love love this album, but could never figure out why they let the graphic design intern into the cache of rejected promo photos.
https://img.discogs.com/u6F_qHf1fotTK7SLjapHhBtms14=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-1575508-1503244025-9512.jpeg.jpg

i actually love the wishing chair art, it makes me want to get into 10,000 maniacs

Drift Series 1 by Underworld

I liked the cover with the smiling dog, felt bold and unlike anything they've done

https://underworldlive.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Drift-Series-1-Artwork.jpg

however it was quickly noticed that there was a pretty glaring photoshop mistake (look at the "R" in DRIFT) and I think that maybe in response to that they released the boxset with this cover:

https://d1rgjmn2wmqeif.cloudfront.net/extra/2000/ReleaseFormat-418501-95991.jpg

which looks like a temporary cover, I can't believe a band with such a focus on graphic design let something like that through

oh and I guess LCD Soundsystem's American Dream deserves to be here, I was 100% convinced that was a placeholder up until the album actually came out

brad - you should get into them if you haven't! Start w/that album and "Hope Chest" (their early stuff); it's terrific, no one else has songs like that.

Something like 8 out of 10 Go-Betweens LPs deserved better covers. (Seems like the sort of thing I might have posted before, but it doesn't look like it.)

I mean, goofy cover pics can work perfectly fine for certain artists and albums, but if Pet Sounds is supposed to be a serious album, then the combination of the album title and the cover pic really don't convey that.

― Tuomas, Friday, July 31, 2009 3:56 AM

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb272/TeN523/PetSoundsCover.jpg

Also, goats aren't pets.

Did this album actually have a photo session, or did they just reuse a promo shot from the Beach Boys appearance at the state fair?

I assume that mike love was being so annoying that they all decided to wrap it up and just go home early

It is funny that there's a prominent goat's ass on the cover of one of The Greatest Albums of All Time.

(...and aside from Mike Love, it also features the posterior of a member of the Bovidae animal family)

(v proud of that joke, my Venmo user name is ____)

become one of the weirdos who has been hacked by mike love

Steve Harley - Timeless Flight

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/3b/Timeless_Flight.jpg/220px-Timeless_Flight.jpg

https://www.markknopfler.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/BrothersInArms-400x400.jpg

my folks has the VHS of the brothers in arms videos and l thought that dobro looked so fucking cool and mysterious as a 5 year old or whatever

Yeah I think that’s a cool album cover, I liked it as a kid

Pet Sounds did *not* deserve better.

xp Even boring covers can be iconic and very memorable!

Also:
- Always thought Grouper's covers were meh ... Dead Deer is at least vaguely creepy but otherwise they don't do much for me
- The two 2019 Big Thief album covers could have been promo shots

Brothers in Arms is peak mid-80s "elegant, restrained" aesthetic, sorta Vaughn Oliver for the mall record store, to stand out next to the Crü and Fat Boys album also on the endcap rack. Graceland, True Blue would be other examples.

just shooting the shit here, but: what if the digital age has destroyed certain possibilities in album covers? like, small text. things that are hard to read or need to be examined closely. you can include that on an album cover, now, but no one's going to be able to read that in the corner of the corner of a streaming platform

maybe this is what autechre is getting at with their recent covers. cover art converging toward machine-readable icons