This article originally appeared on Noisey.
Though digital music is slowly washing away the connection we make between an album’s music and its physical design, an album’s cover is still an incredibly important piece of the art. Sure, maybe you don’t tangibly hold it in your hands as much if you’re not one to collect records or CDs or god help you, cassettes, but the album cover remains the face of the songs contained therein.
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Sometimes, an album cover can remarkably undersell the brilliance of the album, slapping any ol’ farty nonsense on the front of an otherwise solid release. But other times, the opposite happens—you see a striking cover that knocks you on your ass so hard that you have no choice but to dump your wallet out and buy a copy, only to play it and hear what a clunker it actually is. In movie rental terms, this is the equivalent of going to Blockbuster Video as a kid and renting what looked like a horror movie from its cover, but upon pressing play, realizing it was just some foreign artsy film.
Here are a few albums that suckered us in with the enchanting allure of their covers, only to break our hearts upon listening.
The White Stripes – Elephant
Jack White claims that it’s made out of elephant shit but the cover for Elephant, like all White Stripes album covers, is cool.
Again there are buckets of red and white. There’s the guitar amp, human skull, and peanut shells; Meg weeps with a ribbon tied around her ankle and Jack holds a freaking cricket bat!
By 2013, however, the White Stripes were starting to sound like elephant dung. “Seven Nation Army” may now be a staple on sports stadium soundtracks, but their major label debut on V2 had them drowning in some of their own red and white paint.
After bursting onto the scene as two young white kids re-appropriating and punking the blues, by Elephant, their direction had become muddied. Though they were opening for the Rolling Stones, even cool album covers couldn’t hide the fact that they had lost some of that wild and raw excitement of De Stijl and White Blood Cells. —Tim Scott
Burzum – Fallen
The second in a seemingly never-ending series comeback attempts took for its mascot a nameless, ethereal woman, gracefully consumed by sadness. Flanked by springtime roses in a quiet forest, her rounded curves invite the gaze, as her woebegone expression suggests a deeper melancholia. It’s a tranquil image, and also a very traditional representation of European beauty. The latter is surely what initially appealed to the man who appropriated it for his own use: infamously racist, xenophobic wackadoodle (and Burzum creator) Varg Vikernes. The metal world’s most villainous LARPer didn’t commission this work, though; he straight up nicked it from French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau.
Titled Elegy, the image of this supine nymph first appeared in 1899, and was originally joined by a sobbing cherub (just to drive that whole “elegy” vibe home). For the cover of the exceedingly boring Fallen, Vikernes altered the painting just enough to keep Bouguereau’s remaining estate from baying for his blood. Yep; the cover art is by far the best thing about this album, and Varg didn’t even commission it—let alone make it—himself. — Kim Kelly
Lil Wayne – I Am Not a Human Being II
We should have known, honestly. I Am Not a Human Being II, with its art by Kanye’s design collective DONDA, looks cool as hell—but in a completely different way from every other Lil Wayne album cover. That clean, creepy moth design suggests something polished and dark. It might work for a Pusha T album (LOL the irony), but Wayne is a messy rapper, and IANAHB2 is one of his messiest albums. Even though it actually has far better lineup of singles than you probably remember—”No Worries,” “Rich As Fuck,” and “Love Me” are the trifecta of modern Wayne—and most of its guests come through with personal highlights (#TeamGuddaGudda has “Gunwalk” and, well, basically “Gunwalk” as its ur-text), it’s also the album more or less solely responsible for the Rap Like Lil Wayne meme. People tend to overlook the lyrics of latter-day Wayne, which can be a mistake—even if they’re crass, they’re often unexpectedly clever. But there’s justification, too: For every “she swallow so many nuts you fuck around find a squirrel in her throat” (once again, yes, crass!) there’s the less rewarding follow-up like “I go tapeworm in that ho.” IANAHB2 is ultimately an uneven, often stupid album that would be a lot more rewarding if it weren’t packaged as something else entirely. — Kyle Kramer
Bring Me the Horizon – Count Your Blessings
Where were you in 2007 when you first saw this posted on your friend’s Myspace? Do you remember the moment you saw the deep blue of Bring Me The Horizon’s cover for Count Your Blessings, thinking you were going to be in for a potentially introspective or deep listen? But you didn’t get that, instead you were greeted with a clump of stupid deathcore riffs and getting yelled at by some swooshy-headed teen to “go fuck yourself, you stupid fucking whore.” To this day, it’s a little weird to imagine how the hell the band at the time ended up with a quiet, thoughtful kind of album cover that still remains the only good thing the band has ever been responsible for.
— John Hill
Death Grips – The Powers That B
In the late 90s, when bombing New York subways became a thankless and impermanent medium due to the transit authority finally figuring out how to properly clean a train car, the enterprising art brat resorted to a chintzier but more destructive method: scratching tags into the Plexiglas windows using acid, keys, and flat chisels. The art for the physical release of Death Grips’ double album The Powers That B reminds me of that era, of resourceful youth annoying the world by staking a claim to their corner of it by any means necessary. The music, however, does not. The Powers That B doesn’t present a pathway to the future, and it too neglects to even smartly synthesize the present. There’s interesting ideas on the front end (mostly because all the vocals sampled on the Niggas on the Moon half of the set were provided by ideological angel investor Björk), but cross into that Jenny Death section, and they bake into hollow husks of themselves. This is music for people who like to be made to feel smart and defiant without the burden and man hours required to pull it off. Shouts out that cover, though. Beats slapping another band member’s dick on the front, innit? — Craig Jenkins
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz
My issue with the 2009 record It’s Blitz by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs has less to do with the album art outshining the music and more to do with how it mislead me. I remember holding my breath for It’s Blitz to come out. It’d been three years since Fever to Tell and Show Your Bones introduced to the harsher side of alternative rock through the confrontational fury of Karen O. That scream, my God. It could consume you.
There had been so much talk about the making of It’s Blitz before it came out. The story was that Karen O, Nick Zinner, and Brian Chase had spent periods of time time writing, recording, and finding inspiration for it at the legendary Sonic Ranch studio in Tornillo, Texas. When I heard that, I was expecting the album to be some kind of drug-binged, psychedelic explosion. The image on the cover was a photo of an egg being cracked open, the yolk hoisted from the shell in mid-air. I’m sorry, but that suggested a level of aggression and radness that, despite the titles of the songs (“Heads Will Roll,” “Hysteric,” “Dragonqueen”), wasn’t really there.
Instead, it was a much softer, more introspective Yeah Yeah Yeahs record that is perhaps closer to the ukulele-wielding Karen O than the animalistic Karen O performing “Art Star” 2004. I am not saying that It’s Blitz is a bad album because it is absolutely not. It marked a development in YYY that showcased Karen O’s remarkable range as a songwriter. But will I ever forget dying for that record to leak at 19 years old so I could blast the shit out of it like I had the other ones that came before it? No, because I never felt inspired to. Instead, the rush of rage I’d expected to feel from listening was hardly enough to crack an egg. —Bryn Lovitt
Lupe Fiasco – Lasers
The best part of Lupe Fiasco’s music pre- LASERS was that although you could always tell the rapper was smarter than you, he was never condescending. You either saw the wink and the nod, or you kept it moving and had to settle for appreciating the sonics. But with LASERS, everything changed, and the political message came to the forefront while the songs became worse. What makes this slip all the more unfortunate was that the cover art for LASERS was one of the best ever featured on a Lupe Fiasco project, featuring a red anarchist “A” spray painted behind a neon installation reminiscent of Kelly Mark or Tracey Emin. Without Lupe in the frame, the cover was digestible as a standalone piece of art that said volumes about disruption and protest, while remaining aesthetically pleasing. Unfortunately the content within was some of the worst Lupe has ever put forth, resting in a weird world between stubborn protest and commercial concession. Political ballads were put beside Trey Songz features, and the preachy tone was never dropped throughout all 12 songs. It remains the dividing line for Lupe’s career, but it also remains his best album cover. Before he literally painted a picture for Tetsuo & Youth’s cover, Lupe inadvertently struck gold by keeping it simple with LASERS. — Slava Pastuk
Die Antwoord – Donker Mag
Let’s be real: Die Antwoord wouldn’t have gotten very far if everything they did didn’t look so damn cool. But by the same turn, their strong aesthetic would ring hollow without the too-weird-to-live irreverence of their music:
You can’t appreciate the meticulous grit of the “I Fink U Freeky” video without the unyielding tension of Ninja and Yolandi’s verses; and you can’t get properly pumped to the rager that is “Baby’s On Fire” until you’ve seen Yolandi encircled by a guy ghostriding the engine of his Beemer.
By 2012’s Ten$ion, they’d found their sinister sweet spot, and the cover of last year’s follow-up, Donker Mag, promised to dig in even deeper: A black and white photo of a naked, painted Yolandi hovering possessed above a compass. The lean, stark aesthetic and apocalyptic vibe promised to dig even deeper into the wit and ferocity they’d honed on Ten$ion, as well as bring in more of the bananas verses we’d begun getting from Yolandi.
Instead, Donker Mag was unremarkable in almost every way. Its tracks were bloated and comfortable, their hyperbole performative. I’m pretty sure “accessible” is a word no one has ever used to describe Die Antwoord, but their past albums sound like Taylor Swift compared to this. It was tired and incomprehensible, a caricature fans could no longer defend. — Andrea Domanick
Sleigh Bells – Reign of Terror
Sleigh Bells’ Reign of Terror has got to be one of the greatest album covers of the last decade. Showcasing a pair of distressed white Keds in the center with specks of singer Alexis Krauss’ blood, the image is simple in spirit and execution. It also stands to reason its minimalist aesthetic was probably swaggerjacked by Kanye’s design company, DONDA. Just look at the aforementioned IANAHB2 or other DONDA-produced album covers like The Pinkprint, and B.O.A.T.S. II: Me Time for proof. Still, it doesn’t bode well when I can go on a spiel about a picture and not the music itself. That’s not to say RoTis bad, it’s just that it shifts from great to middling far too often. “True Shred Guitar” is one of my favorite album openers ever and “End of The Line” and “Demons” are noise-pop magic but everything else feels like filler. And to make matters worse, they went ahead and made a whole other album of filler called Bitter Rivals. Fortunately, their new single “Champion of Unrestricted Beauty” sounds horrible so there’s no chance of expecting something better for their next project. — Jabbari Weekes
Kevin Rowland – My Beauty
Everything about this cover is wonderful. The way it looks like one of your dad’s early 80s porn mags even though this album came out in 1999. His demure pearl necklace. His dead-eyed stare and accompanying mutton chops slinking down the side of his cheeks. The balls it takes to say, “Yes, yup, this is the image I want to represent my first record in 11 years.” The fact that you can practically see said balls. (Side note: Is it just me or is the space between his nips an oddly vast expanse?) Unfortunately the Dexy’s Midnight Runner frontman should’ve nixed his solo singing career and just left us with the warm boozy glow of “Come on Eileen.” A covers album that kicks off with a spoken-word spattered cover of Whitney’s “The Greatest Love of All” is pretty LOLZ for 30 seconds, but turns incredibly depressing if you listen to it for one second more. It’s a last gasp of a record. Props for the styling though. — Kim Taylor Bennett
Van Halen – Van Halen III
No David Lee Roth and no Eddie on lead vocals = the worst-reviewed Van Halen album of all time. But credit where credit is due, a guy getting cannonballed in the gut—captured while the cannon is still smoking—makes for a pretty badass cover. Too bad it reflects the experience of listening to the album. — Dan Ozzi
