Best album with the worst cover?

HAL9000

The technicolour nightmare that graced the cover of Led Zep’s Houses of the Holy,..

Fuengi

HAL9000 said:

The technicolour nightmare that graced the cover of Led Zep’s Houses of the Holy,..

Yep. That is pretty shit. 

I'm going to have a look though my Album Cover Album book and see what I can spot. 

Fuengi

A few jumped out at me;

There is very little to like about this Peter Gabriel cover. 

Fuengi

I have never liked Bowie's Let's Dance cover, but love the album.

Fuengi

Don't dislike the cover, but it is noticeable how there is more than a touch of The Prodigy on this Klaus Nomi cover from 1982. 

Annie Clark also credits Nomi for the inspiration behind her St Vincent Guitar design. 

ICBM

Not sure how I forgot this! Since I've mentioned it before I'm sure. This album contains one of my all-time favourite electric guitar tones ever recorded. But the cover... awful, and even worse on the inside of the gatefold. More terrible schoolboy artwork, even if it's quite well done graphically.

boogieman

Cols said:

Beyond a doubt, Black Sabbath - Paranoid.  A terrible album cover in its own right which looks like it was shot on a budget of 50p, but doubly jarring compared to the evocative brilliance of the debut album cover.

When Melody Maker had a “question for the groups” section, which was usually full of stuff like “what strings does Richie Blackmore use?” or “where does Rory Gallagher get his shirts?” I wrote in to ask who the bloke in the pink tights and crash helmet was? Amazingly they got a response from Tony Iommi, who said something like “(laughs) I’ve got no idea, it was down to the record company.” I kept that clipping for years. 

Offset

Philly_Q said:

Funkfingers said:

ICBM said:

Funkfingers said:

Could it have been a deliberate spoof/pastiche

Much as I love Deep Purple and Ritchie Blackmore, I suspect that self-aware pastiche is not one of their strong points...

Certainly not in Blackmore's case.

Gillan, Lord and Paice all seem(ed) to have good senses of humour. 

Some of Gillan's solo album lyrics are decidedly tongue in cheek.

Isn't Blackmore famously a bit of a practical joker?  Although I suspect his pranks would be of the cruel/bullying variety.  

If you read Gillan's autobiography, it seems the only thing Blackmore is famous for is being a cock.

Cookiemonster

Melaphobia by Cage the Elephant.
Probably one of my fav albums, terrible cover