Which Classic Rock Act Has The Worst Album Covers (1980-Present)?

Disagree on the Stones slightly (Emotional Rescue and A Bigger Bang are cool). Album art has never really been Bob Dylan's bag, so every cover going back to 1962 has been some degree of ugly. Neil Young has some true stinkers, and more of them than anyone else. He wins/loses this round.

Disappointed you left out McCartney.

Pink Floyd

Robert Plant

OK, this is bad:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81aFSUwuFgL._AC_UL872_FMwebp_QL65_.jpg

But is it Fork in the Road bad? I don't think so...

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ZViWIQSwL._AC_UL872_FMwebp_QL65_.jpg

Voted Dylan as he has put zero thought into any of his covers since, I dunno, Desire?
Some of Neil Young's are truly awful (see above), but at least truly awful is something.

Dylan’s ‘90s covers were kind of bad, but he had some good/great ones in the ‘80s and good/fine ones in the ‘00s/‘10s.

https://img.discogs.com/qYnkZpfFLOiJ4uDitqZw_mjAf2o=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-3322802-1325725230.jpeg.jpg

I like that cover, if only because so many Lou Reed songs have inspired me to imagine driving a red-hot spike through his neck.

Always hated that cover, made even worse knowing the backstory of the photo. Would totally vote for Lou if he were an option here, even though his all-time worst cover, Take No Prisoners, just barely misses the cutoff by a couple years.

Lou’s covers are pretty bad. Take No Prisoners is at least funny/iconic, in a “meme” sort of way, and suits the material.

i actually really like the "fork in the road" cover art

knowing the backstory of the photo.

wish i hadn't looked that up. that's fucking nauseating

OLD SOCK VS. FORK IN THE ROAD: Which Album Cover Has The Most IDGAF Old Dude Swag

I feel like the stones and Dylan have a higher percentage of uselessly generic idgaf, never-even-showed-up-to-the-meeting-about-it covers during this period, and Neil at least seems to be invested in going for SOMETHING on most of his. But his worst ones are just so eye-piercingly worse than anything bob or the stones can put up that he’s gotta get my vote. Fork in the Road is truly unforgivable.

uh Lou Reed jacking off behind a curtain to get the right face for an album cover is awesome and something I wish I could vote for in this poll.

Dylan has some bad covers but to say "so every cover going back to 1962 has been some degree of ugly" is insane, unless you simply dislike the man. I'm tempted to vote just based on preference, so the Stones would lose, but this is a good poll, a good matchup. McCartney not being included makes sense because his album cover imperial phase was in The Beatles, he came out of the gate in his solo career with garbage covers.

I don’t think any of these acts did anything remarkably bad artwork wise... (dirty workcomes close I just can’t stand that yellow). mostly just blandness. love bob’s sports coat on empire burlesque, though

http://cdn.albumoftheyear.org/album/52949-j-tull-dot-com.jpg

Neil's had some real stinkers, but I also think he's had some really terrific ones during this period. Le Noise and Prairie Wind come to mind.

I was going to vote for Dylan solely on the basis of his recent studio albums, but the Bootleg Series covers range from decent to good

Neil has a somewhat similar distribution of junky vs. decent covers, but nothing as sublimely slack as Dylan's Tempest through Triplicate run

Greatest number of post-1980 album covers reflecting the artists' indifference to the product: ladies and gentlemen, the Rolling Stones

silver and gold has a nice cover

one of my favorite post-'70s Neil albums (Sleeps with Angels) has one of the most '90s-core type shitty album covers, not being the absolute worst because I think Hootie's Cracked Rear View is probably peak bad '90s style (out of focus cover photos, whatever that font is, total 1994 Details Magazine photo shoot-level shit). Generally I like Neil's covers though. His worst ones came in the '80s for sure but since then they've been alright.

Sleeps With Angels is almost a masterpiece for how it perfectly encapsulates that particular strain of bad 90s design

Ray Gun–era grunge typography

Another strong contender for peak '90s design atrocity from a classic rock act:

https://www.allmusic.com/album/hours-mw0000042482

I think Queen is one of the worst offenders. Their 70’s artworks are not that impressive but they’re ok, but in the 80’s they had some hideous album covers.

Grateful Dead is another one that kind of had a cool, consistent aesthetic in their 70’s artwork and stopped giving a fuck about it in the 80’s, serious album cover downgrade in their 80’s output.

Actually in the case of those two bands it’s not just the artwork that became terrible.

don't judge a cover by its book

I really don't mind Dylan's and Young's covers, little thought or not (the music is another thing). The Stones have Bridges to Babylon, though, so yes, them.

I voted Stones too but BTB is cool imo...looks like an RHCP cover

Lol, funny I always thought the same thing about the Flashpoint cover

Bridges to Babylon is ugly to my eyes but I at least give it credit for being an attempt at album art, compared to the style of taking a random promo photo, slapping an 'interesting' typeface on it and calling it a day, a move most frequently used & abused by Dylan among these three acts. The lowest form of album cover.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Stones for me. It's the trifecta of Steel Wheels, Voodoo Lounge, and Bridges to Babylon that do it. Steel Wheels is stupid, pointless, and makes me dizzy. Apparently the painting on Voodoo Lounge is by Keith Richards and it's...idk. But juxtaposed against that factory pomo font it just pisses me off so much. Bridges? I like the lion. I like the floral pattern but it doesn't make sense at all with the lion. Then the bone font inside the square black text boxes that just shits all over whatever concept they were reaching for.

taking a random promo photo, slapping an 'interesting' typeface on it and calling it a day, a move most frequently used & abused by Dylan among these three acts.

Dylan's, from the early 90s on, are just tailor-made to shelve next to the point-of-sale at Starbucks. As such, they're kinda harmless to me. I can't even see them. Except World Gone Wrong, which should have been released on Righteous Babe records.

Stones had a lot of misconceived album art even at their peak. Neil's shortcomings can constituent a style. But Dylan had a lot of iconic album covers, and most the acclaimed late-career stuff has competent packaging. As mentioned in the OP, Tempest is unforgivably awful, yet contains solid work. The design really went off the rails with the Christmas record. So him.

the Stones' "tongue" logo is sort of like Sinatra's "My Way" -- this late-period symbolic thing that's corny and dumb and has come to define them in a lot of ways despite it falling completely outside the era of their best work. And when I heard the Stones had a new back-to-basics blues album i was pretty thrilled, and it was extremely good, but that cover...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1f/The_Rolling_Stones_-_Blue_%26_Lonesome.png

The Who had one great cover (Face Dances), one oh-shit-the-artwork-deadline-is-tomorrow cover (It's Hard), and one oh-shit-the-artwork-deadline-is-in-ten-minutes cover (Endless Wire).

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cc/The_who_face_dances_album.jpghttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c8/The_who_its_hard_album.jpghttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/de/Endlesswirecover.jpg

Blue & Lonesome is special in that if you didn't already know the logo you couldn't make heads or tails of it. Red snow-capped mountains with some melting glaciers and clouds?

xp I've said elsewhere on ILX that the cover of 'Endless Wire' looks like the cover of an issue of Amiga Format magazine from the early 90s.

Also I like Pete's expression on the cover of 'It's Hard'. It's almost like he's saying "Yes we know the cover is shit. We were trying to reference Tommy but update it by having him play a videogame in an arcade but it didn't work. Just shut up about it, OK?"

bruce springsteen obviously doesn't belong here because '80s, but if we were talking, say, just this century, the boss is kind of the boss of this.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5d/Bruce_Springsteen_-_Magic.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1c/Working_on_a_Dream.jpg

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

despite it falling completely outside the era of their best work.

It was designed in 1969, precisely at the beginning of their best era.

The Kinks have to be the winners here?

lol snoball

I dunno, I actually think the Kinks' covers hold up decently, apart from Think Visual and Phobia.

It was designed in 1969, precisely at the beginning of their best era.

― ☮ (peace, man), Wednesday, May 1, 2019 1:36 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i now see it was used starting in 1971 (still well within their best peak era)...

It's Hard was received at the time as a commentary on the record sales slump iirc

It's Hard was received at the time as a commentary on the record sales slump iirc

https://rocknloadmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/086806.jpg

this is maybe slightly better than one might expect from a septuagenarian in 2019, but that doesn't make it good

not a real nominee, but since we're posting bad album art by vets

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/419RV53NRTL.jpg

I think Steel Wheels has a perfectly serviceable cover, with some added credit for visual conciseness. And Fork in the Road, which I've never seen until upthread, I find quite charming. This thread made me check out Dylan's Tempest, and urgh that is bad. Too late to vote, though.