The Most Confusing Album Covers of All Time.

Album art is a tricky beast. Aside from music videos, it's the only opportunity that a band/artist has to visually present themselves. Like anything else, there's a right and a wrong way to do it; these fall somewhere in between; While taking first glance at these, I'm not necessarily in awe or disgusted, These just leave me scratching my head.





YES-90125 (1983)

The first time I saw this record cover, I thought that memorex had somehow made laser-disc technology recordable. this looks like a blank VHS tape sleeve, not an album packed with glossy 80's prog rock. This would explain why, every time I hear "Owner of a Lonely Heart" I get the sudden urge to watch back episodes of "Roseanne" that I taped off channel 19 in 1994.









Funkadelic-One Nation Under a Groove (1978)

I can't tell if this album art was bad on purpose, or the members of the band were so looped up on psychedelics that, to them, the presentation was WAAY crazier than it actually is. Sometimes commissioning a third-grader to do the album cover isn't the best idea, even if this record does contain a song titled "who says a funk band can't play rock?!" 1971's Maggot Brain was viscerally exciting, revolutionary, and iconic. This, on the other hand, just doesn't strike a chord with anyone over the age of 12.







FEAR-More Beer (1985)

On this record, you ripped through songs like "I'm a Doctor" and "Bomb the Russians" like the more metal inclined half brothers of the Dead Kennedys. I just can't figure out if you were actually racist, or if this cover, that almost looks like a piece of propaganda stripped directly from Joseph Goebbel's playbook, was tongue-in-cheek. Probably the latter, considering I've seen my old roommate AND Eddie Vedder wear a shirt w/ this album cover screened on it. I'm pretty sure both dudes in question love EVERYBODY.











The Afghan Whigs-Congregation (1992)

Greg Duli, he's got soul. So much soul, in fact, that he (or his record company) attach this racially (I think?) charged cover with this AW opus. Greg, I don't question your moxy, I'm just wondering, maybe, what kind of moxy we're working with here?











Rush-Hemispheres (1978)

This album may contain one of the most hauntingly beautiful rock instrumentals of all time, yet the fever dream of a gay Sigmund Freud on mescaline doesn't really do it's part to draw the listener in. Not this one, anyway.













Wilco-Summerteeth (1999)

Is it the moon with lips? It is just the moon? It appears to be attached to some kind of celestial, unidentifiable body. You guys made the transition from blissful alt-country to lush pop masterpieces a'la Brian Wilson and John Lennon rather seamlessly; Now what the hell were you trying to say with this cover?











Tom Waits-Rain Dogs (1985)

Skibbity bop bop skiddly shirtless guy being aggressively hugged by an androgynous, eerily grinning face, skibbidy do. W. T. F.
















Rhett Miller-The Instigator (2002)

Jesus, dude. back off. She's my girlfriend.
















Paint It Black-New Lexicon (2007)

I actually like this album cover quite a bit. I just don't really understand what the Home Depot parking lot at 2:30 in the morning has to do with 1-2 minute long hardcore punk songs.