Rolling Stone just published their 50 Worst Album Covers Of All Time list and it's a little hit or miss.
First off, let's look at the criteria for which Rolling Stone judged the records: " "Our selection criteria for the list, other than fugliness: We skewed toward major artists with the resources of professional graphic designers who really should have known better. (Some of rock music's most revered design firms, such as Hipgnosis, are also some of the worst offenders here.) No more than one album per artist. No mercy for the album's music actually being good (that happens more often than you'd think)."
Alright fine, so let's see what we got on there… surely any of Pantera's early records made it, right? Nope. But Metallica's unstoppable 1991 self-titled album landed at No. 41 and… and have ever really stared at the Black Album art? I'm not saying it sucks for sure, but yeah. It's a little not that great.
"When Spinal Tap put out an all-black album cover for Smell the Glove in the movie This Is Spinal Tap, it was intended as parody of rock-star idiocy — 'How much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black' — not a creative brief. Metallica's version of Smell the Glove (usually called the Black Album) gussied up the blackness just a little, with some matte-vs.-gloss images that didn't really work."
Some other rock and metal ones that made the list were:
- Ozzy Osbourne's Down To Earth at No. 30
- Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet at No. 25
- Anthrax's Fistful Of Metal at No. 23
- Van Halen's Balance at No. 20
- Scorpions' Lovedrive at No. 18
- Ted Nugent's Love Grenade at No. 5
- Limp Bizkit's Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water at No. 1
I think the real question here is how Iron Maiden's absolute abomination that was Dance Of Death wasn't on this list at all.
