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The 50 Worst Album Covers of All Time

From rock to rap to country and beyond, it’s an assortment of images that you can’t unsee no matter how hard you try

50 worst album covers of all time

Hubris, lack of taste, massive amounts of drugs: There are many reasons for terrible album 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).

Yes, these are all real. As you look at these album covers, remember: With each one of these, multiple highly paid people thought this was a good idea.

3

Creed, ‘Weathered’

If you want proof that nepotism is a scourge on our cultural landscape, you need only consider this album cover, the creation of guitarist Mark Tremonti’s brother Daniel Tremonti. We’d be annoyed by the semi-competent Photoshop fakery of the band’s faces being digitally carved into a digital tree, except that no real-life tree deserves to have Creed carved into it.

2

Roger Daltrey, ‘Ride a Rock Horse’

If you’re the lead singer of an internationally renowned rock band like the Who and you record a solo album at the height of your band’s success, the only good reason for doing that is because that allows you to express a side of your personality that has been squelched by your main gig: being a goddamn centaur. Bonus points for Daltrey not only pumping his fist at the awesomeness of finally living out his dream, but also doing an impossible backbend and pumping his hoof.

1

Limp Bizkit, ‘Presents Chocolate St★rfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water’

Five Gollum-looking dudes lolling around on a bed of nitrate-infused meat? Sure, that’s a fair representation of Limp Bizkit. Following up on their breakthrough hit Significant Other, the nu metal band leaned even harder into being repulsive — “chocolate starfish” is a slang term for “asshole,” a nickname vocalist Fred Durst adopted with pride — as a substitute for an actual artistic philosophy. This cover (made by the band’s guitarist, Wes Borland) is both tacky and gross, but at least it works as a warning label: What you see is what you get.