You can always count on heavy metal album covers to contain some classy images, can’t you? Err no, not really. They aren’t always as ridiculous as these ones, though.
Battleaxe- Burn This Town Down

This is the kind of album cover where you feel that they have taken the title just too literally. It is Burn This Town Down by Battleaxe so what do they do? That’s right; they get a 10 year old to draw a rocker on a weird shaped bike wielding a battleaxe while a town burns down. Apparently the band were embarrassed by the amateurish nature of this album cover. Really?
The Handsome Beasts – Bestiality

This probably sounded like a good idea at the time. Actually, it is impossible this could have sounded like a good idea at any time ever in the history of the world. This is one of the most famously ridiculous heavy metal album covers for several very good reasons.
Manowar – Anthology
This album cover is of a level of brilliantly terrible, horribly fantastic nastiness rarely seen these days. If you were a 13 year old with your hormones raging out of control and wanted to buy something to shock and annoy your parents this would be it.
Tankard – A Girl Called Cerveza
You would need a calculator to work out the number of levels of stupidity this image works on. Someone somewhere once had a brilliant idea for a fantastic heavy metal album cover. This wasn’t it. Add in that fat naked dude with his pig and you’ve got the worst threesome in the world ever.
Sigh- In Somniphobia
This cover makes me sad. Why would you put this on the front of your heavy metal album? There must be a deep philosophical meaning in there. Or not.
Pantera – Metal Magic

This is the kind of drawing which makes you fear for the future of the human race.It’s basically just a weird drawing of a beast with a sword. This cover was produced in 1983 and I refuse to believe that the world was so backwards then this was greeted with anything but complete disdain.
Razor – Shotgun Justice

Scary guy scary album cover. Actually, he’s not really scary at all, is he? This ridiculous heavy metal album cover came out in 1990. 7 years on from that deformed beast in the last album and the artwork is even worse now. Give them a few more years and heavy metal bands will be scrawling squiggles on their albums with broken crayons.
Wolf -Wolf
Actually, those crayons might have been a better bet than this. It was the year 2000 when this was released. Good lord, it’s the 21st freaking century. Ok, so your band is called Wolf and in a moment of sublime creativity you called your album Wolf. Fine, but don’t spoil the whole blooming thing by putting a badly drawn wolf on the cover as well, for the love of God.
Riot – Narita
I actually quite like this one. Sure, if you want to get all technical then yes; it’s a sumo wrestler with a seal’s head holding a dangerous weapon while surrounded by skulls and with a plane bearing down on him / it. What’s your point anyway? Can’t a guy listen to some heavy metal while enjoying a ridiculous cover picture anymore?
Trackbacks/Pingbacks