Record covers are cultural assets. Volkmann even pays homage to the really ugly ones. A column that doesn’t shy away from the poison cabinet.
Who needs album covers these days? What a question – well, all of us! Album artwork is art, record covers are cult. Despite all the fetish for pluralism – anyone who sees it differently is wrong! So here are a few thoughts on a colorful cultural practice that is slowly threatening to become transparent and even disappear along with the album format.
The evening falls. I’m sitting by the window, the rocking chair rocks me gently, several cats are huddled warmly in my lap. Yes, my little ones. I break a new stone and heat the crack pipe. Ah, finally closing time! Finally time for pop culture that was left behind last year.
When looking at yearly best lists (rot in hell, 2024), I notice that although I am familiar with many of the highly voted albums, I am sometimes amazed at their corresponding covers. “Oh, that’s what the artwork looks like?!” I think several times, yes, I suddenly understand one or two music nerd memes that obviously referred to some of the covers. Blue smoke is heavy in the air and punchlines are unfolding in front of me with a half-year delay – so it’s already come to this. But who is surprised? After all, you can’t get every – supposedly important – record on vinyl and then at least stare at it before it is assimilated, unpacked, into your own collection. As a result, some of the visual accompaniment of an album is lost, or at least lost in the disembodied, postage stamp-sized images on streaming services.
Another achievement of Spotify and Co.: first the remuneration of artists was abolished and then the artwork was marginalized to the point of virtual disposal. Thank you future, thank you unbounded tech companies, thank you super billionaires. May Satan piss on the bones of your ancestors. Meant positively!
In order to be remembered visually, it is advisable for the steadfast artists to use very simple cover concepts. Ones that can be seen from space. At least small-scale battle paintings or hidden object pictures seem like wasted labor of love in 2025. You can also see this when you look back at a very prominent cover from last year that has endured: BRAT by Charli XCX.
Mud green, typography, four letters, done. Here I even understood the memes about it in a timely manner. Swear!
Whereas even with big shots like Taylor Swift it becomes difficult: which of the dramatic cover portraits was from the last record? “KP” – as we say to graduates of high-ranking journalism schools. The only Swift cover I can identify is the very first one from 2006 (!). Lovely, right?
Optimize cover art
But it’s not just the visibility of cover artwork that’s not doing well, the competition from AI is also heralding a change here: Will we soon be threatened with terrible record covers with seven fingers on one hand, put together by robots from countless, ultimately stolen materials? Definitely. The change has long since begun – and the cost argument is also being used here to create another creative profession. So graphic designers, illustrators. In the end, the money saved is only transferred to additional app subscriptions. Demands are diligently making their contribution to the dystopian world of Musk, Apple and Bezos. However, there is already opposition to this development in and around the book industry. It is already so advanced that even the “Reading Foundation” has its advertising campaign to promote reading among children illustrated by an AI. The well-known illustrator Amelie Persson, among others, has taken up the initiative against the AI covers that are appearing everywhere.
Pretty ugly
How do you get from the book cover back to the sound carrier? Of course via the audio book link. These days, the audio version of his latest novel “Zauberberg 2”, read by author Heinz Strunk himself, appeared on streaming services. The accompanying cover particularly motivated me to write a column on the subject of artwork. Because look at it, I mean… “what the fuck”?
Honestly? I was almost a bit freaked out because I have a weakness for ugly covers (I’ll prove it soon). But I was still shocked when I saw what the publisher did to its silver-haired alpha male. A photo that is not one, but is not an illustration either. A sad hybrid creature from the “Now things have to be done quickly, sales are waiting!” folder. The creaky nature of the sanatorium theme is really not reflected in this stumbling type of AI with Windows 95 screensaver charm.
And anyone who thinks that fingers represent the horse’s hoof in computer artwork hasn’t taken a closer look at the “birds” in this picture.
The final asshole, of course, is the font. A font that possibly wants to show that the responsible agency (or whoever is crazy here) knows that the nineties and early noughties are back – but is that really a reason for it? to use a type that would probably have been considered “too cheap” for the Grabbeltisch release of a 2Unlimited Remix Maxi CD in 2002? Or does this cover, with its colors of wilted vomit, refer to something I don’t understand? A mega smart super reference? Or is AI-loveless now the new beautiful? If so, I would of course like to apologize to the defective robot! Otherwise, the cover for “Zauberberg 2” will be added to my collection of ugly album covers.
10 record covers from hell
I actually have a few things saved on this topic. Of course, at the end of the day, taste judgments like “ugly” are not subject to objective criteria – but given this little insight here, I think some people will have to agree with me: It’s really pretty ugly! Well then… have fun.
CARS / Gary Numan
A must-have for many rappers – the hot asshole sled. However, Gary Numan is more like Monty Python in “The Knights of the Coconut” on this cover. In the absence of expensive horses, they replaced them with no horses. Just act like you’re riding. Or – as in Numan’s case – driving a car.
MISPLACED CHILDHOOD / Marillion
The art education teacher looks at the cover pensively when he has the impression that he has once again really encouraged the students’ imagination with his double lesson. Then a CBD joint.
JUST JOIN ME DOWNWARDS / Eisenpimmel
A cover that reminds us to only engage in sexuality privately in the dark.
CREAM CORN FROM THE SOCKET OF DAVIS / Butthole Surfers
Yes, of course you’re right: Strictly speaking, it’s a masterpiece. But in this case it’s also pretty creepy.
PINK BUBBLES GO APE / Helloween
Just no!
LOVEDRIVE / Scorpions
But of course, anyone who talks about cover artwork that insults music always has to say sexist bullshit. Here, too, the spit bucket is overflowing. Well-known representatives were, for example, the Scorpions, who continue to rock to this day (now embalmed). National treasures or just bad penises from next door? Gerhard Schröder can decide that. Hubba Bubba definitely distances himself from this work.
SLICE OF YOUR LOVING / The Jancee Pornick Casino
Objectification of women’s bodies towards pastries? Such covers are created when there is a high proportion of flour in the head.
SCREAM DREAM / Ted Nugent
Well, you could actually vote in favor of AI here: With such a crazy graphics idea, Photoshop could have gotten a little something out of it – if it had already existed in 1980. But what else should you get out of this idea? Would be like trying to wash a car while it’s being scrapped.
KOLLEGAH / Kollegah
This is one of those covers that makes you feel forgiving about the possible collapse of civilization this decade. You look from the mushroom cloud to the work here and back again at the raging inferno – and think: Well, maybe it really is better this way…
NIGHT ROCKER / David Hasselhoff
Should you report this cover to the authorities or – hear me out – buy an old van and airbrush this motif onto the side?
These were ten cover copies of the “Beautifully Ugly” collection. Meet me auditioning this at a gallery one day!
PS: By the way, the “KP” used somewhere above in the text means no plan. Greetings!
What happened so far? Here is an overview of all the pop column texts.
