Worst looking CD/LP artwork

[SimonNZ]

Great recordings, but I've always hated these covers:

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Great recordings, but I've always hated these covers:

I must say those don't trouble me but I've a wide range of tolerance for the abstract; music is, after all, more abstract than most listeners care (dare?) to admit.  So, ironically, those covers may be more 'representative' of the music contained therein than pretty pastoral or 'realistic' domestic scenes, however pleasing to the eye.  Also, I like (well. I do most of the time) designers' efforts to kindle consumer attn. to this music.

[Peter Power Pop]

Great recordings, but I've always hated these covers:

I think those photos are more scientific than Haydnesque. (I'd be happy to see them on the walls of a laboratory. They'd fit in well there.)

[SimonNZ]

I think its more the black and the seemingly random placement that bothers me. I don't mind the abstractness of an electron microscope image (or whatever that is), but if they'd made one detail the whole image it would have worked better. Something like the back cover of Peter Gabriel's Passion album:



but those Haydn ones make me feel like I'm about to see an enlarged bedbug crawling into view.

[Peter Power Pop]

Great recordings, but I've always hated these covers:

I think its more the black and the seemingly random placement that bothers me. I don't mind the abstractness of an electron microscope image (or whatever that is), but if they'd made one detail the whole image it would have worked better.

I agree.

Something like the back cover of Peter Gabriel's Passion album:

but those Haydn ones make me feel like I'm about to see an enlarged bedbug crawling into view.

I know where you're coming from.

https://www.youtube.com/v/Yw5i-PVLMVY

[71 dB]

Great recordings, but I've always hated these covers:

Really? I think these covers are pretty good. The one on the right is the worst of the three but even it is ok. 0:)

[Mookalafalas]

Really? I think these covers are pretty good. The one on the right is the worst of the three but even it is ok. 0:)

Me too.  They even seem representational of music--sort of odd colorful shapes that bloom in the emptiness of silence.  Was it Goethe who called architecture frozen music?  But of course it would be too regimented and symmetrical...
   This is one of a similar series

[asin]B00O29YA6U[/asin]

[SimonNZ]

^That's an interesting series for comparison. I think the Phi label's Herreweghe covers are very tastefully done, and will have to ponder more on where I think the difference lies.

[Artem]

They don't look too good on computer screen, but are great in relief. I like them.

[Brian]

Would be a great cover except for LEOND BERNSTEIN

[springrite]

Would be a great cover except for LEOND BERNSTEIN

Well, could have been Glenn God...

[North Star]

Brilliant Classics clearly hates Boulez and tries to get people to try forget they ever heard of him.

[SimonNZ]

I don't know Erik Bosgraaf, but a quick Google images search suggests he's trying especially hard to not be taken seriously:

[Brian]

[Madiel]

I like it. It makes and odd sort of sense to me, after an initial WTF moment, because one of the key themes of the Orpheus story is about him being forbidden to look back.

[kishnevi]

I am trying to figure out what this cover is showing, and failing.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

I am trying to figure out what this cover is showing, and failing.

Took me a minute but it's the head of a cat in profile (tip of nose on right).

[kishnevi]

Took me a minute but it's the head of a cat in profile (tip of nose on right).

Alright, I stared at it until I saw what you mean.
There seems to be a bird in there, which ties into Vogel als Prophet.  But what does a psychedelic feline have to do with Kreisleriana?

[Todd]

Don't know if this has been posted before.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

But what does a psychedelic feline have to do with Kreisleriana?

Kreisler is a "fanciful" conductor in an E.T.A. Hoffmann fictional short story...err, with truncated title, The Tomcat Murr. Here's a Wiki article.