Wednesday, December 24, 2008

The Worst Album Covers of 2008


I don't know about the whole world, but this cover is certainly setting my brain on fire. What an eyesore. I know a lot of people hate Dave Mustaine, but how can you not respect the guy? Even after being kicked out Metallica and crying in Some Kind of Monster he will not give up. He just keeps on toiling in obscurity hoping that someday his shitty, second tier thrash band will get their due and he will become a hero to millions and everyone will know that he riffs faster than everyone else. Dave Mustaine is the embodiement of the American dream. One that shattered into a million pieces decades ago.


Yeah, I get it. The drummer and guitarists are SO good! It doesn't matter that their music is boring as fuck, just listen to their skillz! The guitarists are so original and earth-shattering that their guitars have 7 strings instead of 6! That's 3 more guitar strings than Max Cavalera has on his guitar! That extra string really helps them write the SICKEST most wicked crazy squiggly wiggly guitar solos and chugga chugga riffs. And the drummer!!!! I could go on for days about how he plays the CRAZIEST time signatures!! Like I can't even figure out what's going on when I listen to him play because he's THAT CRAZY!!! Is that in 3/23 or 6/76ths???? I CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT BECAUSE IT'S TOO HARD!!!! And just like how their music is beyond human comprehension so is their album cover. Is that a chubby bald dude with a little paunch meditating covered in blood? And is that THREE arms I spy??? Dude's got some pretty big areolas. And what is OBZEN??? It's like a word from outer space!


I chose to post this Origin cover, but I could just have easily posted any number of album covers by brutal death metal bands because they're all the same fucking thing. Some bullshit looking hyperstylized monster/machine hybrid. This shit is so lame and played out. It looks sterile and lifeless, which is exactly what all these bands sound like. Not brutal!


I'm a hetersexual male and I love Judas Priest. I'm all for gay rights and I think Rob Halford co-opting gay leather-daddy culture and reclaiming it for metal was a brilliant move, but is there anything sadder than an old wrinkly leather daddy? You had your time, Rob. Don't ruin your legacy by trying to make a couple extra bucks. It ain't worth it. I haven't listened to this album, but I'm sure it sucks. Spooky prophecies and a disembodied head floating in space? Where's the leather and spikes, at least?


Are you fucking kidding me?? A band really used this as their album cover? What the fuck!? I've never even heard this band, but I guarantee they're wacky thrash. The band members are probably in their early to mid 20s and wear tight jeans, hightop sneakers, and denim vests covered in band patches and pins. Well, guess what? Dark Angel called from 1986 and they want their schtick back because you are a fucking embarassment to metal. A plague that should be wiped off the face of the earth. Paul Baloff is spinning in his grave. When will it end?


Full disclosure: I really like DragonForce. Yeah, I know that makes me a huge homo and a poseur and whatever else, but I don't care. These dudes fucking shred and are so over-the-top ridiculous I can't help but love them. But even I can't condone this album cover. Somone has been watching too much Ghost in the Machine or something. This album cover might actually have worked if it was a picture of a real chick decked out from some cosplay convention.



Why does Exciter even still exist in 2008? It's like telling everyone you know that you just bought the COOLEST rotary phone ever!! Will metal dinosaurs ever learn? These clowns must be gluttons for punishment. This the dumbest album cover I've ever seen and what could have been an acceptable album title for a bunch of 20 somethings in a thrash band 20 years ago is now beyond sad coming from a bunch of washed up 40 year old accountants. This cover really is an embarassment because Exciter is responsible for some of the greatest and most unforgetable cover art in the history of thrash metal.


Sorry Glen, but Pungent Stench did it better 17 years ago. And your new album sucks. You put out a killer comback album before this that no one saw coming. You should have quit while you were ahead, but you got cocky and you thought you could it again. You were wrong.


I don't even know where to begin with this one. Everything is wrong and horrible and I'm getting physically angry just looking at this piece of shit. Who even listens to this band anymore? I guess if you're really that stupid, then you deserve this.


Is it too much to ask for even a little effort from black metal bands? A 6 year old could have made this cover in art class with a pair of scissors, some construction paper, and a glue stick. Warmasters? I sure as fuck wouldn't want this chode fighting on my side if I had to go to war.


Hahahahaha... okay, at least this one is kind of funny. Of course it still sucks, but at least I'm not filled with rage when I look at it.


A woman in a futuristic spandex suit gliding through the air with some weird shit coming out of her back. I like Alex P. Keaton's hoverboard better. I haven't listened to Soilet Green since I was in high school, but if this cover is any indication my guess is they sound like teen bop now.


Never ones to shy away from shocking imagery, Cradle of Filth have always embraced controversy. They're bound to stir up quite a controversy with this piece of shit cover. Nothing like computer generated blasphemous religious imagery. Keep on pushing the boundaries of good taste, guys.


I don't know anything about this band. I don't remember how I came across this album cover, but I thought I should include it in my list because when you name your band Wykked Wytch it's like you're inviting the entire world to make fun of you mercilessly.


We've already covered this one in detail, but no list of the worst album covers of 2008 would be complete without it. A coffin surrounded by fingerprints? I don't even care to guess anymore. At least they got Pushead to do the art for that piece of shit St. Anger.


Uhhhh... okay. Why not just go to the library and look up "concentration camps" in the Encyclopedia Britannica then photocopy whatever pictures they have and use that instead of having someone waste their time, money, and effort to pain this piece of shit.


This is another one I thought I should include because it's just so fucking dumb that I can't help but laugh when I look at it. My guess is that they were going for some real menacing underwater creature, but instead they got Jimmy the friendly octopus. Look at his little mouth in the middle, it looks like he's cracking a smile.


I'm kind of torn about this one because it could easily be the worst/best album cover of 2008. To be on the safe though I'm going to go ahead and include it on this list. I know Yngwie shreds hard, but to insinuate that he shreds SO hard that he makes his guitar neck catch fire is a bit hard to believe. Much respect for showing off the hairy chest and gold chain, but when did Yngwie start looking like Steven Segal? Dude even wears kimonos now.




This is one of those covers that makes me want to reach into my computer screen and punch it square in the fucking face. I hate everything about it, just like the Ugly Kid Joe.

29 comments:

  1. That poor three armed man is clearly bleeding from his rectum.... how very sad for him.

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  2. Is that in 3/23 or 6/76ths???? I CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT BECAUSE IT'S TOO HARD!!!!

    lololololololz A+++++++

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  3. Man I hate DragonForce to the Nth degree... They do not shred they cheat. Their crap is awful and only popular now thanks to junk like Queertar Hero. Die!
    Spot on with these train wrecks that some people think are album covers. Most bands now don't even try. Death Magnetic's look is as bad as they sound now - stale and boring.

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  4. Meshuggah's guitarist use 8-string guitar actually, not 7

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  5. I clicked on the link in the Exciter section, which eventually brought me to the cover of Predator's "Easy Prey" album, so I'm definitely glad I checked this out.

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  6. You forgot this Warrel Dane solo effort:

    http://www.kinkfm.com/images/image/programma/kinkaardschok/warrel_dane-praises%20_to_the_war_machine.jpg

    I ignore why that head is so oversized...maybe there's a concept I don't know!

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  7. i can't tell if this is amazing or awful, but god damn........

    http://www.metal-archives.com/images/2/2/0/1/220160.jpg

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  8. Meshuggah's uses his third leg.

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  9. Meshuggha's drummer...

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  10. the death magnetic cover isn't fingerprints. It depicts metal shavings forming into the shape of magnetic fields, because the coffin is a magnet. I'm sure that this clarity will improve your listening experience and you'll learn to love death magnetic.

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  11. I dunno, I like Meshuggah. I like them better now than when everything they did sounded like outtakes from "...And Justice For All." And they have much worse covers in their past.

    The Metallica cover is probably the best thing about the album (damned by faint praise, I know), and it's better than the cover of "Load", which is ugly and then when you find out what it is, you're all "ewwww."

    Black metal and goregrind/pornogrind deserve their own subcategories. If I never see another crime scene or autopsy photograph used as cover art, I'll be happy.

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  13. Apparently, you haven't seen the Malmsteen cover of him fighting off a Dragon with his "flaming" guitar.

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  14. RE: that last Priest album. It does indeed suck, very much so. And I don't feel the slightest bit ironic when I call it gay, either.

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  15. The deicide album cover is not that bad. It's no Been Caught Buttering, but they're not that similar.
    Compared to previous decicide album covers I think this is a step in the right direction.

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  16. And the soilent green cover is truly horrible.

    I know that they were into that art noveau shit back in the day but this is unacceptable.

    And what's with the album titles that sound so obviously overreaching regarding their actual thought processes.

    What ever happended to PUSSYSOUL?

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  17. hey, i like art noveau and the arts and crafts movement as much as the next guy, but it has nothing to do with metal! i mean what's next, michael beirut-style early 80s postmodernism? death metal doesn't need teal and salmon type.

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  18. why does anyone even listen to Exciter? isnt it just one guy who was in the band with some other guys?

    so how is that Exciter?

    they suck anyways,but still...

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  19. i don't know why ANYONE would listen to their new album, but violence & force is a speed metal masterpiece!

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  20. I'd just like to nominate along with those gems this one:
    http://hardrockhideout.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/disturbed-indestructible.jpg
    For the sheer juggalo/circus metal/evil clown cartoon character vibe.
    Plus this band is shit.

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  22. http://hardrockhideout.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/
    disturbed-indestructible.jpg

    terrible.

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  23. I was also offended by the stupidity/lack of basic knowledge of physics demonstrated by your "fingerprints" interpretation of Death Magnetic.

    Of course, the album still sucks. This makes me think that dumb people everywhere can't understand this cover, completely losing the point. How sad for Metallica.

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  24. (...) the cover of "Load" (...) and then when you find out what it is, you're all "ewwww."

    The same goes for their music.

    God damn, the pointlessness of that Meshuggah cover makes me furious. Just what the fuck is going on? Why three and not four arms? I guess it represents the drummer's secret fantasy about having an extra arm to produce even more fucked up rhythms. Or to scratch his balls mid-play. The blood is from his bleeding hemorrhoids: a rarely talked about ailment of many a drummer who sit for prolonged periods of time, straining to produce fucked up rhythms.

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  25. The fingerprints on metallica's cover are actually magnetic fields(death magnetic),and bonded by blood is a fucking amazing band sucker!!!

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  26. :D Show them, how much you hate the covers! Yeah! Show them your hate and how big you are. Oh my good, wake up, little boy

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  27. you fucking faggot payuiong out metallica il cut yor fucking face cunt CUNTTTTT

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  28. Love this blog, so much great stuff here. Keep up this great work!

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  29. Creative and gorgeous worst album covers so thanks .
    Remove White Background

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