While there's often a correlation between the quality of an album's music and the artwork on it (so if you see an awesome or shitty cover, you can usually be confident that the music within matches it), sometimes it doesn't work out that way, where the cover is so much better or worse than the actual music, so in the interest of finding some examples of this phenomenon, let's talk about it some here; I'll start us off by offering up St. Anger as an example of a bad album with a pretty good cover (or at least, one that's better than the music on the record), and for the opposite example, I'll go with Opeth's My Arms, Your Hearse, which is a good record, but the cover? Not so much...



I mean, what is this? It's just the band logo (which is an all-timer, admittedly), the album title in an extremely non-descript font, and a murky, ugly, super indistinct image of a generic river in a forest somewhere, and absolutely nothing else about it to grab your attention. I mean, compared to the surrounding records, with the haunting beauty of Still Life's cover, or even just the cool mirror image bridge on Morningrise, this was a BIG step down, and pretty embarassing that a band that caliber thought this would be acceptable for their cover. Lame. Anyway, what are your guys' examples?

I love that cover. It’s so haunting; matches the record perfectly.

As I recall, the original release (*checks his collection*) had no logo or album's title. The colour scheme was also pretty different and much nearer to Sabbath's first.

Yeah, this is a head-scratcher for me. I can't tell if you're trolling or not, but My Arms, Your Hearse is one of my favourite album covers of all time, and I thought it was generally loved, whereas St. Anger (the flying Nut-sack), is a pretty god-awful album cover.

I find most of Edguy's album-art is childish and silly (On purpose, mind you, but still). Rocket Ride is the worst offender.

Crystal Logic is probably the king of great music/terrible cover art.

I always thought De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas' cover is beloved more because it's iconic than because of its actual quality. It's pretty lazy and bland.

To each his own, but I love that Opeth cover. It has an eerie ghostly quality, which perfectly fits the lyrics and the music on the album. It's even better without the band logo and album title printed on it, which is how the early pressings were.

I wish Monstrosity's "Millennium" got a better cover, as even though the music itself is good, the outdated CGI graphics has always rubbed me the wrong way. Though I supposed some might find some charm with these hilariously bad abstract CGI works.

Iron Maiden's Dance of Death is an obvious one. Great album (albeit one with peaks and troughs), but 'Arry, presumably high as a kite, decided to go with the proof of concept - so we ended up with the 1995 PS1 cutscene cover with the floating baby. Even Eddie looks weaksauce.

The entire Riot discography.

lmao truth.

Same; love that cover, as it perfectly captures the mystery and murkiness of the songs.

Nah, that Opeth cover is great

St.Anger cover matches with the music, they're both shit. The artwork they used for the St. Anger single would have been so much better

Somewhere online I saw some MAYH-themed bedsheets for sale.

On topic, when I repurchased a couple Immortal albums (Battles In The North and Damned In Black), along with Blut Aus Nord's Work Which Transforms God, I gladly selected the ones with brand new artwork (see links) replacing the less-than-stellar originals. The new covers aren't spectacular or anything, but they make for an improvement IMO.

Manowar. You know which one, don’t make me look it up.

St. Anger is better than everything that Metallica did in the past 20 years (is not a lot to be honest) and it has a nice artwork, in the singles too, the fallen angel is pretty cool. Metalllica always had nice art in their albums. I love the skulls of the Live Shit: Binge & Purge era.

Cowboys from Hell cover is pretty goofy with the band photoshoped in a 90's primitive way in a wild west saloon. But the album is a classic. On the other hand i don't remember a good cover and a bad album, i try not to listen to bad albums. Most album covers suck nowadays tho, nobody puts effort like in the 90's or 80's with guys like H.R Giger or Dan Seagrave. There are no cd's or vinyls now, most people just download the music they really don't give a fuck about the album cover.

Written In Waters by Ved Buens Ende has to be somewhere near the top of this list. I saw this artwork long before I ever heard the album, probably in a "worst album covers of all time" thread, and thought that it was surely at home in such a thread. Some time way after that I saw their name mentioned in some context that made me want to check it out, and when I saw that shitty red cover I thought "whoa it's that really shitty drawing, I guess I'll check it out but that artwork still sucks." Turns out to be an amazing album. I guess I don't think the art looks as bad as I did before, it certainly has its own character, but you might be able to call it objectively bad.

I actually don't mind that cover art. It's not the best, but those skeletons got their own vibe going on. Not to mention my soft spot for anything blood red against a grey/black background.

do you have any actual argument as to why some "scary" saturated blue pic of a local cathedral is a great cover, or? if you do I'm all ears, since I like the album.

Paranoid is an obvious choice. Its a landmark album but the cover art is atrocious and, yes, I know it was originally supposed to be called War Pigs and that was someone's idea of a war pig. But even if they had stuck with the original name it still would have been an awful cover.

I would go with Symphony X, I love the band, but their early artworks are not that good. Particularly albums like Twilight in Olympus, V and Damnation Game. Musically fantastic albums, but artworks are really off.

Ghost have some cool artwork, but I find their albums pretty average.


Yeah, some of their mid-later stuff fits the bill. Rocket Ride, Space Police, and the Superheroes EP all have bad artwork, but the music is fantastic.


I was reading a book the other month (Decades - Black Sabbath in the 70s) that says that the image used on the the cover was a test shot, and that the photos they intended to pick from had the figure wearing a pig mask. Not sure if any of these intended images ever came out, but they may have looked a little better. There's a reissue of the Paranoid single that has a similar illustration that's quite cool

Crystal Logic's front cover is magikal.

Good album, bad cover art: Riot - Narita
Bad album, good cover art: Savatage - Dead Winter Dead I have listened to it 3 times and I still think it's very bland.

Good album, bad cover: Sintury - Disgorging the Dead

I feel it has a foreboding presence and ties in music tightly

Exodus? I'll let you figure out which category.

Except for the couple of them that DON'T have that fucking seal thing on them, yeah!

Awesome Necrolord cover... perhaps even his best. Evocative, ominous images and Blackmoon coming off his previous masterpiece (Necrophobic's debut, of course). What could possibly go wrong?

Two words: Dark Funeral.

I don't know what you're up to, this Opeth's cover is freaking amazing. But, then again, taste is personal af.

Anyway, answering to your thread, there are some iconic cases of good album/bad cover, like Born Again, by Sabbath; Power Games, by Jaguar; Into Glory Ride, by Manowar and, idk if it's actually a notorious case or a hot take from me, but I think Dance of Death, by Iron Maiden has one of the most uncannily bad cover arts of all time.

As for bad albums with good cover arts, can't recall any, not without thinking a bit, anyway. Maybe I'll edit this post later with something.

i wouldn't call it bad but the cover to paranoid is incredibly bizarre. everything works except the guy who looks like a police offer brandishing a shield and plastic looking sword. just a strange cover

Opeth- Orchid (AMAZING album but the artwork...)
All Riot haha
Manowar - Into glory ride

Listen dude, those Riot album covers are incredible and very easily get my seal of approval.

Anyway,

I love this album. I really do... but holy fuck, that art is awful.

Looks like a monster from Age of Mythology LMAO.

One of my all-time fav covers!!

Personally i really like Behemoth's I loved you at Your darkest album artwork. As for the music, well..

Such a goofy and ugly artwork, I guess it fits the band's light hearted nature to some degree, but it's way over the top. I imagine this turned off a lot of hardcore fans back in the day, which is a shame because the music kicks some goddamn ass.

The cover of Extreme Aggression only makes sense if Kreator had shocked their fans by going in a country & western direction.

Do you not see the woman standing there? It's a reference to the first Black Sabbath album and it's awesome.

Grand Declaration of War, it's funny because of how bad it is, it does catch your attention at the very least, in a "WTF" kind of way.