Worstest Album Covers Ever III

millie.jpg
 
Ladies and gentlemen, I bring to you... BizarreRecords.com!

http://www.bizarrerecords.com/index.html

wittyasf3.jpg

Somewhere in your parents' house lurks a pile of old records. They're probably in the cabinet next to the wet bar that's been dry since your mother hosted that Tupperware party in 1982. Maybe you chide the folks for owning them when you return for a visit, making knee-jerk gibes at the handlebar mustaches, leisure suits and ironed hair that their sleeves depict. Silly hipster, there are fates much worse than your dad's dog-eared copy of Whipped Cream and Other Delights. Browse through bizarrerecords.com and you'll see.

Created by Nick DiFonzo of Houston, Bizarre Records is an arsenal of twisted and downright embarrassing album covers. At its best, bizarrerecords.com is the embodiment of kitsch, a scrapbook of matching outfits, latent homosexuality and big hair.

According to DiFonzo, the idea for the site grew out of his disdain for LP collector dorks in thrift stores who thumbed past these jewels, only slowing down to make the occasional perfunctory quip. DiFonzo snapped up the albums, scanned them and arranged them on a primitive, GeoCities-like website. Later this year, New Holland Publishers plans to adapt the site into a book, "Worst Album Covers Ever."

The albums are listed in alphabetical order, with an additional greatest hits-style listing on the main page. Time permitting, visitors should dive into the unabridged, alphabetical listing. Some of the albums have such added goodies as sample audio clips and a "Where Are They Now?" feature, which allows a reader to witness a record's aging process at its worst (and best). It's not a bad idea to skip over the latter feature, as it can spoil the fun; somehow you assumed these artists were frozen in a moistened-lens, wide-collar dimension, only to find out that they grew older with you, and are probably standing behind you in line at Target.

The majority of the artists on Bizarre Records lack notoriety, but you'll recognize a few familiar faces. Perennial weirdo Tammy Faye Bakker faces off nose-to-nose with a lion in Run Towards the Roar, Rodney Dangerfield graces the cover of his seminal album Rappin' Rodney and former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali meets his match in Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay. One of the most striking covers is the :20 Minute Workout, which features a writhing vixen on all fours. DiFonzo's commentary alleges this is a young Jane Leaves, who plays Daphne on "Frasier".

It's easy to feel guilty for laughing at a few of the records. Take Gary Dee Bradford Sings for You and You and You. Released when Bradford was a young boy, the album cover looks like his school portrait gone wrong, with his drooping eyelid and a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth. Click on the "Where Are They Now?" feature and you'll learn the story of a boy born with no arms (the cover hides this fact) who turned to music and Jesus for strength. Cue the guilt. When your conscience kicks in and you realize you've been laughing it up at this armless boy's expense, the album takes a nosedive on the kitsch scale and becomes a grim reality. That an armless boy could have the gumption to make an album is more than anything most of us ever achieve.

To its detriment, Bizarre Records indulges in a certain amount of glib, obvious commentary regarding its content. Like an anxious date who ruins a joke by over-explaining the punchline, the captions are superfluous and annoying. For instance, John Bult's album Julie's Sixteenth Birthday is so clearly hilarious that we don't need the accompanying caption: "Why do I see Julie's father outside, about to bust in with a shotgun?..."

Like the Corn Palace in Mitchell, S.D., Bizarre Records is worthy of a one-time visit, perhaps while waiting for the pizza delivery man to show up. Unless you're a music archivist working in the bowels of a university library during summer break, subsequent visits aren't necessary. Nevertheless, it will sear many indelible images onto your visual cortex. You'll take sinister pleasure in mocking the outmoded styles of past generations, despite the leather wristbands, Uggs and faux hawks currently plaguing our country, not to mention several characters on "The OC." But if you're wise, you'll concede that it's OK when the music of your upbringing slowly recedes into the dark past. And by the time the ball drops on 2010, Smells Like Children will be ripe to replace Joyce on lists of dated art from forgotten albums. Lighting aside, the only real difference between them is the direction of their cocked heads — Marilyn to the right, Joyce to the left.

~ Andrew Harmon, Flak Magazine


preachercarlaep1.jpg


pizzaarq6.jpg
 
o297698aos1.jpg


I'm going to blow the lid on what I believe to be one of the greatest cover-ups in the history of American popular music. I'm going to do it right here, right now, in this very review. I'm putting my life at risk by writing this. No doubt one of the most powerful men in show business will be out to silence me after I publish this, and I'm sure he'll stop at nothing to do it. So, to all of my friends on this site, if you don't hear from me after this, I'm either dead or in deep, deep hiding. Well, that or I may just be drunk in my garage.

Here it is:
Michael Jackson ripped off Scott Baio's album cover.

Shocking, isn't it?

Not only do I believe Jackson ripped off the cover from this album for his blockbuster album Thriller, I believe he's led a covert campaign to cover up his tracks. Don't believe me? Try to buy this record. It's hard to find. When you do find it, it's expensive. I found one on ebay selling for $50. Why is it so rare? It can't be because it's such a great record that people can't bear to part with it. Trust me, if you heard it you'd be ready to part with it. I've never heard a singer approach a note from so many different angles without ever actually hitting it, and the songs are mind-boggingly awful. No, I believe it's tough to find because for years Michael Jackson has secretly been buying and destroying every copy of Scott Baio that he can get his hands on. It's probably cost him millions of dollars and driven him to the brink of bankruptcy, but he's been fairly successful at it. There is no proof of this, of course, but if you talk about this album with record dealers they will invariably tell you stories of mysterious masked men buying up every copy they've had in stock.

Both albums were released in 1982. Thriller was released in December and Scott Baio came out in . . . well . . . we don't actually know. It's all part of the cover up. I believe we don't know exactly when Scott Baio was released because Jackson has been secretly obscuring the facts surrounding the album for years. There was probably some Watergate-style break-in at RCA Records and all records of the album's existence were destroyed.

That's right, all evidence points to Michael Jackson having his own plumbers.

Now, for any crime to be committed, two things are required: motive and opportunity.

Motive:
Scott Baio was a child/teen star. No more needs to be said about that point, I imagine. He was very popular not only with the preteen girls of the era, but he's always been something of a ladies man. He's dated Pamela Anderson, Erika Eleniak, Nicole Eggert, Brooke Shields, and Heather Locklear, among others. Michael Jackson wasn't yet the coolest man on the planet. He was looking to Baio for guidance regarding chick appeal, obviously. If Baio made an album cover laying on one elbow, then Michael should do that too. I'm guessing Jackson was planning on stealing more than just the cover, but once he got a whiff of "Wanted for Love" he must have realized he was better off just taking the cover concept.

Opportunity:
Scott Baio was recorded at Motown/Hitsville USA in Los Angeles. Of course, Jackson began his career as a Motown artist. No doubt he had friends in that studio, and it's likely that they slipped him a pre-release copy of the record. It may have been an innocent thing. "Hey Michael, you've got to hear this crap Baio's been recording. He sings like a dying albatross." Or, it may not have been so innocent. Who knows, but clearly there was opportunity.

Well, there I've done it. I'm sure Michael Jackson will be sending his henchmen after me to both silence me and acquire my copy of Scott Baio by whatever means necessary. They'll have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/scott_baio/scott_baio/
 
o297698aos1.jpg


I'm going to blow the lid on what I believe to be one of the greatest cover-ups in the history of American popular music. I'm going to do it right here, right now, in this very review. I'm putting my life at risk by writing this. No doubt one of the most powerful men in show business will be out to silence me after I publish this, and I'm sure he'll stop at nothing to do it. So, to all of my friends on this site, if you don't hear from me after this, I'm either dead or in deep, deep hiding. Well, that or I may just be drunk in my garage.

Here it is:
Michael Jackson ripped off Scott Baio's album cover.

Shocking, isn't it?

Not only do I believe Jackson ripped off the cover from this album for his blockbuster album Thriller, I believe he's led a covert campaign to cover up his tracks. Don't believe me? Try to buy this record. It's hard to find. When you do find it, it's expensive. I found one on ebay selling for $50. Why is it so rare? It can't be because it's such a great record that people can't bear to part with it. Trust me, if you heard it you'd be ready to part with it. I've never heard a singer approach a note from so many different angles without ever actually hitting it, and the songs are mind-boggingly awful. No, I believe it's tough to find because for years Michael Jackson has secretly been buying and destroying every copy of Scott Baio that he can get his hands on. It's probably cost him millions of dollars and driven him to the brink of bankruptcy, but he's been fairly successful at it. There is no proof of this, of course, but if you talk about this album with record dealers they will invariably tell you stories of mysterious masked men buying up every copy they've had in stock.

Both albums were released in 1982. Thriller was released in December and Scott Baio came out in . . . well . . . we don't actually know. It's all part of the cover up. I believe we don't know exactly when Scott Baio was released because Jackson has been secretly obscuring the facts surrounding the album for years. There was probably some Watergate-style break-in at RCA Records and all records of the album's existence were destroyed.

That's right, all evidence points to Michael Jackson having his own plumbers.

Now, for any crime to be committed, two things are required: motive and opportunity.

Motive:
Scott Baio was a child/teen star. No more needs to be said about that point, I imagine. He was very popular not only with the preteen girls of the era, but he's always been something of a ladies man. He's dated Pamela Anderson, Erika Eleniak, Nicole Eggert, Brooke Shields, and Heather Locklear, among others. Michael Jackson wasn't yet the coolest man on the planet. He was looking to Baio for guidance regarding chick appeal, obviously. If Baio made an album cover laying on one elbow, then Michael should do that too. I'm guessing Jackson was planning on stealing more than just the cover, but once he got a whiff of "Wanted for Love" he must have realized he was better off just taking the cover concept.

Opportunity:
Scott Baio was recorded at Motown/Hitsville USA in Los Angeles. Of course, Jackson began his career as a Motown artist. No doubt he had friends in that studio, and it's likely that they slipped him a pre-release copy of the record. It may have been an innocent thing. "Hey Michael, you've got to hear this crap Baio's been recording. He sings like a dying albatross." Or, it may not have been so innocent. Who knows, but clearly there was opportunity.

Well, there I've done it. I'm sure Michael Jackson will be sending his henchmen after me to both silence me and acquire my copy of Scott Baio by whatever means necessary. They'll have to pry it out of my cold, dead hands.

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/scott_baio/scott_baio/

hahahaha. that's funny. and i LOVE Scott Baio :o:p ...seriously.
 
i02861hpujn.jpg


Over commericalism...

d89506dm544.jpg

15 years later....same mistake...

Thank God they never gave this guy a record deal...

bud.jpg
 
morrisseyfirstofthegangbh4.jpg


Oh c'mon, you know it's true. :mad:

To be sure, it has nothing on Julie's Sixteenth Birthday or Devastatin' Dave the Turntable Slave, but neither of those could have been done by an eight year old with Photo Magic.
 
Resurrecting an old thread....
Does this qualify? Don't hassle the Hoff....

3954.jpg
 
I came across this truly abhorrent cover on someone's blog; I encourage no one to click on the link below. Seriously, it's that bad. :(

Hey babe, let me see your USB
(probably not safe for work, though no superior would
ever admit to having found this image in your cache
)
 
Back
Top Bottom