Five years after the collapse of Napster, the recording industry still can't stop pissing and moaning about the ill effects of pirated music. Yet, as sales dwindle, the industry continues to make the worst choices imaginable: How slight was the graphic design budget for that Pearl Jam record?
There was so much horrific cover art released this year that I knew I'd have to impose some limits on this list if I expected to narrow it down from more than 100. That meant our usual whipping boys (The Mars Volta, Tool, U2 & Green Day), as well as the general public's (K-Fed, Def Leppard, Winger) were off limits. Divisive artwork (Boys and Girls in America, Ys, and Portastatic's Be Still Please) was left to the message board jackals. And the millions and billions of promo CDs no one will ever know existed? Yeah. Let's just keep it to the stuff we've heard of.
Oh yeah, and thanks to the Pitchfork staffers I lazily nabbed comments and ideas from along the way. You guyz are the best!
These are the 25 worst album covers of 2006!
...
Pearl Jam: Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam's longtime green party advocacy has led fans to believe the avocado is a nod to the Avocado Declaration. Initiated by Ralph Nader's 2004 vice-presidential running mate Peter Camejo, the declaration is named for the fruit that's "green on the outside, green on the inside." Okay, fine. But this cover is a bad gradient, a Larabie future font, a miscast drop shadow, and a clipart image that we've actually seen used elsewhere (twice!). If this was 1973-- and the music doesn't go out of its way to suggest it isn't-- Hipgnosis would be really disappointed.
http://pitchforkmedia.com/article/featu ... rs_of_2006
