Monday, December 12, 2005

The best and worst album covers

There certainly are some great and some not so great heavy metal album covers. I have been looking at a number of covers from albums released in 1985 so that I could make my list. Live albums and ep's are not eligible for my top ten or the Golden Turd, but they are eligible for an album cover award. So here are the best, the worst and my reasons for selecting them.

The top five best album covers of 1985
1-Iron Maiden- live after death
If Iron Maiden released an album then it's 90% chance it will get best album cover.
2-Anthrax- Spreading the disease
Just look at the expression of agony on the dude's face.
3-Saxon- Innocence is no excuse
Hard to explain why I like this cover, but it always drew me in. I think it's a combination of the idea and the colors that are used. Great back cover as well.
4-Trouble -The skull
Wow, a metal album cover with a skull, how original. Wait, this one actually is quite different due to the angle and the colors.
5-Fates Warning - The spectre within
This one used to scare me a little when I first saw it in 1985.




The five worst of 1985
1-Accept- Metal Heart
I like the Accept logo and the blue background, but that heart thing look like it came straight out of Fred Sanford's junkyard.
2-Dokken - Under lock and key
On the Tooth and nail tour, Don Dokken wore blue and black spandex, a bullet belt and sunglasses. Yet the costumes on this cover are ten times worse than that.
3-Autograph- That's the stuff
Robots are never sexy.
4-Hirax- Raging Violence
It looks someone thought "Wow, what if a pimple had a face while it was being popped?" It's nasty, stupid and a bit lame at the same time.
5-Venom- Possessed
It looks like a negative of two goofy guys wearing Venom shirts.

The Golden Turd is coming on Tuesday.

2 Comments:

Blogger David Amulet said...

GREAT choices, I find it hard to disagree (although I haven't seen the Trouble or Hirax selections).

A couple of other good ones from 1985: Metal Church, Metal Church--simple is sometimes good-- and Ratt, Invasion of Your Privacy--a great suggestive picture for horny teenagers!

And one stinker you missed is Kiss, Asylum (Not that Kiss covert art was routinely outstanding or anything ... but this one looked like a second-rate high school art project.)

-- david

8:19 AM  
Blogger Metal Mark said...

The rule of thumb for Kiss album covers would seem to be that if they are in make-up then it's cool. If they are not in make-up then it's probably lame.
If you like Ratt album covers, I wrote an entry about a Ratt mirror that had the cover of Out of cellar. I think it's in my June or July archives.

10:15 AM  

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