HUBRIS, LACK OF taste, massive amounts of drugs, there are many reasons for terrible covers.
This gallery collects 50 of the worst. Enter the carnival tent to witness the monstrosities, the design disasters, the images that you can't unsee no matter how hard you try. As you will see, even as they fail by the traditional yardsticks of being good or visually compelling, many of these album covers are at least memorable, and so we gather here to celebrate the craziness of these choices, not to shame the artists behind them. (Admittedly, we're also going to laugh at them.)
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)
