Bad Album Covers I See At Almost Every Used Record Store

One of my hobbies is buying and listening to old LPs, and over the last few years I've noticed a few albums with epically bad covers that I always seem to find at used record stores.  Some are so wretched that they have sadly been burned into my mind like my bad memories of gym class growing up.  With every hope that this will be an exorcism, now it's time to share the pain with you.

Foghat, Rock and Roll

This is one of the few album covers that can elicit the kind of groans normally associated with a joke told by Fozzy Bear.  At least Foghat managed to concoct an album cover more ridiculous than their name, which is no mean feat.

Mike Rutherford, Acting Very Strange

A middle-aged Boomer rocker wearing a straw fedora and cut-off Sumo wrestling t-shirt in front of funhouse mirrors sounds a lot more interesting than it looks.

Roger Daltrey, Ride a Rock Horse

Words fail.  Since it came out in 1975, I can only presume cocaine was involved somehow.

Fleetwood Mac, Heroes Are Hard to Find

Nobody, and I mean nobody, needs to see Mick Fleetwood in his undies holding a naked child.  The unsettling vibe is also done in by the fact that he's wearing sneakers with gym sox.

Fleetwood Mac, Mystery to Me

This cover is ugly and surreal without being interesting.  I guess before Buckingham and Nicks joined the band in 1975, they were drifting in more ways than one, based on these covers.

Black Sabbath, Sabotage

Not a bad album, but you'd never guess by the cover.  Geezer looks like a street hustler, Tony doesn't appear to want to be there, Bill's red tights make him look like a medieval page as acid casualty, and Ozzy's combo of kimono and platform boots is seventies fashion victimhood/too stoned to care at its worst.

Loggins and Messina, The Best of Friends

Were these guys aware that their picture was going to be slapped on the cover of record sleeves going to stores all across the country?  Loggins is wearing a monkey-shit brown colored sweater, and Messina looks like he just crawled out of the gutter after downing a bottle of Thunderbird.

Used Records You Can Always Find For Cheap

As part of her job, my wife had to go to Princeton today, and I decided to tag along.  I did so mostly to keep and enjoy her company, but also so I could visit the Princeton Record Exchange, among the best record stores in the Garden State.  In the last few years that I have had a turntable and have been buying records, I have noticed that some albums, artists, and genres are found with alarming regularity.  Since folks want to hold onto their Beatles LPs, it turns out that finding them used is a lot harder than picking up something by Steve Forbert.  Many formerly popular albums simply failed to stand the test of time (at least in the minds of their owners), but still have subtle charms to offer.  Some of the albums I discuss below can be had for a couple of bucks, but can give you a C-note worth of musical enjoyment.  Of course, most are so cheap cuz they suck.

Singer-songwriters of the 1970s
In the first place, most joints that sell used records are full to bursting with 70s singer-songwriter albums.  If you want to get Dan Fogelberg, Nicolette Larson, Carly Simon, or James Taylor on wax, you will have no problem.  Music made for sensitive types to drop Quaaludes to while sprawling on the shag carpet has aged just as poorly as the 'ludes and carpet have.  Lester Bangs would be proud.

Traffic
This is not to say all that is readily available is bad.  I have become a big fan of Traffic, enabled by the fact that I could easily acquire their entire back catalog at most record stores for a song.  John Barleycorn Must Die is especially common in record stores, an album that I have learned to love and cherish.  This was a group that married jazz, rock, and folk in bold and interesting ways; I am at a loss to explain their sudden lack of support, other than perhaps a prejudice these days against the use of the flute.  (This also might explain why Jethro Tull records come a dime a dozen, too.)  Perhaps it's because they don't really fit into the seventies hard rock template, and that their style of music pretty much died with that decade.

Humble Pie
Speaking of hard rock, just about every used record store whose transom my shadow has ever haunted inevitably sold Humble Pie's double live Rockin' the Fillmore.  They're another band that doesn't seem to have been able to maintain their substantial following from back in the day.  No, not all artists can inspire the loyalty of a Barry Manilow, but that doesn't mean they have little to offer.  Humble Pie was not a great studio band, but they could tear it up good and proper, and if you are looking for a double-barreled blast of grinding boogie rock, look no further.

Fleetwood Mac, Tusk
Speaking of double albums, 1979's Tusk may be a secret rock snob favorite, but it can be found just about everywhere, usually in immaculate condition.  You get the feeling that a lot of people played this sprawling curiosity just once.  Back in '79 the Mac's mainstream fans probably expected a retread of Rumours and instead got a supremely moody double album intercut with semi-avant grade experiments by Lindsay Buckingham.  Do yourself a favor and let the lack of insight by the masses be your opportunity to get a slice of pure vinyl beauty for less than the cost of a latte.

Neil Young, Reactor
Many a time do I dig into the Neil Young section of the racks and come up disappointed after finding only a few copies of this album.  At used record stores one tends to find tons and tons of lesser albums by great artists.  I could imagine a lot of folks bought this lame record in the aftermath of Young's mind-blowing Rust Never Sleeps and felt cheated.  It looks like they got the last laugh, cuz thirty years later record stores still can't resell the damn thing.

David Bowie, Tonight
Often, when I go looking for David Bowie records, I can find only this tossed-off mediocrity attempting to cash in on his all too successful sell-out bid for popularity on Let's Dance.  Apparently a lot of people in 1984 got hoodwinked.  To quote Johnny Rotten, "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"