I don’t know about you, but album artwork is very important to me. It makes a statement as much as the music. It is the first thing you see when browsing through your local HMV, Fopp (R.I.P.) or Tescos bargain bin (“wow, it’s a Johnny Cash album, for 10p, but the songs are in a different order, NO WAI!”)

The thing about album covers, is that they can be the crucial point in whether you buy said album or leave it to rot on the shelves for all eternity. (The exception is if you’re a complete fanboy, you would buy it anyway, even if the artwork is a steaming dog turd or this man’s face.

Below are ten or so album covers that should perhaps have never made it through the design stages. It’s as if Stevie Wonder was in control of the decision making for the final covers.

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1.) Pantera – Black Magic

No, it’s not the front of “Might and Magic: Fantasy Battles – Warhammer can suck on this!!!’ This is the cover Pantera’s first album. I bet they could hardly keep a straight face when they released this. I wish I still had some dispel dice.

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2.) Simple Plan – Still Not Getting Any

Simple Plan = about as punk rock as Celine Dion. ‘Still Not Getting Any?’ I’m not surprised. I hope whoever chose this was fired (out of a cannon into a swamp of boiling hot diet Dr Pepper, filled with insanely hungry crocodiles with laser beams and circular saws attached to their heads.)

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3.) The Gary Walker Singers – ‘I Never Shall Forget The Day’

Sweet zombie Jesus! Isn’t that Burt Reynolds on bass? And next to him, David Hasselhoff and on banjo we have the main man of all things terrifying, a slightly warped Alfred Hitchcock – amazing.

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4.) Exhumed – Gore Metal

After you’ve finished throwing up, do one of three things: turn your PC off; smash the screen with a toffee hammer; punch yourself in the face until you lose consciousness. Anything is better than looking at this. Who’s hungry? I’m starving.

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5.) Limp Bizkit – Results May Vary

Fred Durst tries to impersonate the incredible hulk/a mewling baby/Phil Mitchell, after accidentally falling into a giant tub of green paint. Horrific, but then, what else is new?

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6.) Blink-182 – s/t

Despite liking this album, the cover was obviously put together by one of those “hip’ artists who’s art is made to look “intentionally shit’ because that’s their “wacky-style’ and has nothing to do with the fact the artist has no talent what-so-ever; repulsively juvenile (It is Blink-182 though.)

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7.) Sapthuran & Leviathan – s/t split

My main gripe about this is not necessarily aimed at the artwork, which to be fair, resembles a malnourished Dracula; it’s the frankly awful “gothic’ text used at the bottom for the band names. Still, those of you who enjoy the music of “Saptulatray’ and “GZZFXGWWZQQT’ (I can’t believe that says Leviathan, I simply can’t) will dig this.

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8.) Christian Crusaders/with Al Davis

I still haven’t stopped screaming. My eyes! The goggles do nothing!

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9.) Sucioperro – Random Acts of Intimacy

I don’t know about you, but this has a distinctly creepy Human League-80’s vibe about it, that is both unsettling and frankly disturbing. Why a band of Sucioperro’s musical caliber decided on this for their artwork, I will never know. Manikin? Mani-crap more like.

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10.) Angel City – Night Attack

I can’t decide whether this is the best or worst thing I have ever seen. I mean, what the hell was going through their minds when this monstrosity was selected? He seems to have two big sticks of celery shooting from his eyes like killer death-rays. Painful.