Classic Album, FUCKING TERRIBLE Cover Art

http://tralfaz-archives.com/coverart/S/soft_cell_nonf.jpg

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00000745F.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

I don't think so. Ugly is of course subjective but there are some objective reasons why it's a "good design." The dayglow colors were very popular at the time (and previously in the '60s), the hand-drawn quality is nice and the overall triangular composition is very strong. Plus the standing-in-a-circle-looking-down pose mirrors the previous year's Straight Outta Compton.

I don't think I knew that "Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret" was a Soft Cell album. I only knew it from one of David Cross' lines on a "Mr. Show" episode.

Speaking of Cross, and the above referenced "A.D." quote, wasn't the joke:
"I was going to call my show "Use Your Illusion," but some band had the rights. So I'm going to call it "Use Your Illusion 2."

Looks like the photographer pulling two people out of the closet against their will on their way out from some gay bar.

Alex, Bizarro has a fantastic cover! Why do you think it's bad? Better than Seamonsters...

it's one of my favorite albums of all time.....and all it gets is a meaningless crayon scribble? It's a travesty (though the American edition....replacing the green field with peachy pink, is much worse). I liked the Seamonsters cover (the original one with the fishy scales, not the swirly design one).

bad
http://www.hkedcity.net/culture/e+e/03/images/album_cover/week3/laitatwing39.jpg

I think all of the Squeeze covers are just barely passable at best. Except for the first one which is nicely over-the-top.

I can like slick and corporate, so long as its still provocative. I think the cover of Second Annual Report by Throbbing Gristle, for example (the quintessence of simple and corporate) is genius.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000000OMJ.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

I guess that's how I feel about the Smile cover which is fine but just seems a little too simple and plain for what's inside. At least the Pet Sounds cover has a kind of bizarre petting zoo thing going on. On the other hand if that Smile cover were released 30 years ago I think I might have just become used to it and considered it iconic. For now I can't picture the album without that weird little storefront illustration.

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000006ZCC.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

It looks like the Birthday Party should sound like some metallic rockabilly band, which is -- of course -- just not the case.

http://image.com.com/mp3/images/cover/200/drd900/d923/d92362hta34.jpg

Another great example of that....

http://orbita.starmedia.com/~subhumans/grupos/throbbing_gristle/20jazz.jpg

http://www.importantrecordstore.com/images/content/distributed/builttospillwaverscd.jpg

Meanwhile....

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0000000S4.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

No one wanted to see Nick Cave shirtless.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000002LGS.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

I personally think most of New Order's album covers are fucking terrible.

http://www.flaminglips.com/media/discography/albums/04_priestDriven/afc_priestDriven.jpg

Hit To Death has a classic cover too.

mainly in comparison to its bretheren

I dunno even the shitty art made pre-personal computers was better than a lot of the generic shit that’s popped up since. Feel like there was a period where everybody’s album cover looked like a handbill for a shitty tropical house club or something. Nb: I’m probably full of shit

agree, mark e… see even the early crude digital art was better

it's the intense over saturated colours that i love.
yeah, it is dated, but i care not (see the shamens covers from this period for some seriously dated coverart !).
i just think that the whole cd booklet suited the album brilliantly.

My recollection is that in the late 1990s there was an abrupt leap in the sophistication of CGI / early PhotoShop album art. There was the "we can do CGI" pre-modern era, with grey aliens holding a spliff / robots dancing / bees flying over a fractal landscape etc:
https://i.discogs.com/kCk40WSmGccEVa_znPsW8HonMZVq33q7OXz2lzRKYQ4/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:590/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTExNzA4/NS0xNTc1NjIyNTUw/LTg1MjIuanBlZw.jpeg

Then there was the modernist Buggy G Riphead stuff, which was better-executed but conceptually still in love with novelty. And then there was the post-modern Tomato / Designer's Republic stuff, which felt a lot more sophisticated:
https://i.discogs.com/thHFxphlLVWsiKEjsFGh-Y6VlCJUZ7ixCu-m49hiEoE/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:595/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTIzMjE0/LTExNzkzMTMyNjIu/anBlZw.jpeg

I picked those two examples because that compilation series spanned the three eras. FSOL's graphic language circa Dead Cities is odd - the visuals for "We Have Explosive" came from Run Wrake's Jukebox, which was edited into the video for the single:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwPys3JQZ74

As a consequence it doesn't look like the rest of the album. In my opinion it has aged better.