Who Greenlighted This?

For the past few years, Pitchfork has listed their choices for Worst Album Covers of the Year and it is always full of horrifying examples of art direction and misguided creativity. In my world, cover art has never been a factor in whether or not I buy an album. I typically am already interested in a cd when I go to purchase it and if the album cover is particularly ugly, it doesn't affect the outcome of the transaction. I also never, ever have bought a record just because of the cover although I did once know a boy who purchased an Alice Cooper cassette simply to get the picture of the snake on the front. Thankfully, in the age of Google Images, he can now save his $5.98 (plus tax) and download all the snake photos he wants.

This Wolf Parade album cover is so horrendous, so utterly devoid of beauty, so far removed from a quality control specialist that even though I wanted to hear it, and possibly buy it, I refused to even go near it. Certain to win top honors in the ugly album cover contest of 2008, you have to wonder who was minding the store when this was sent to Graphics for final processing. The album title At Mount Zoomer is bad enough (lazy too since Mount Zoomer is the name of one of the facilities used on the recording of the album) but this cover makes me question the band's sanity and the music within. And here it is:

All Music Guide has a fascinating blog entry about LP covers designed Christopher Whorf who I had never heard about. Obviously given free reign, he made some perplexing and striking album covers for classical records in the 70s that have very little to do with the music. And if you like a little doobie in your funk, make sure you check out post number two on this bizarre and possibly quite mad album cover artist. The examples they write about are absolutely amazing.