As with any list of this kind, you will probably agree with some entries, disagree with others, and wish like hell that there was some way to perform memory surgery to make you forget you’d seen the remainder. For myself, I didn’t really find the ‘cheap giggle’ covers all that entertaining [2], but there were enough genuinely quirky and oddball covers in the collection to make it worth browsing.

Just for the fun of it I’ve compiled my Top 5 best-of-the-worst album covers below, but if you get a chance, you should look through the original list to see which 5 you’d pick out as your best-of-the-worst.

5. Space Escapade, Les Baxter

At my Number 5 slot I’ve gone with Space Escapade by Les Baxter.

There are many things to love about this album cover, not the least of which are the multi-coloured alien women wearing scanty clothing. You can add to that list the attractive brown and green space suits worn by our space lads — perfect, we can only imagine, for impromptu escapades on possibly hostile worlds. And let’s not overlook the fact that they’re drinking wicked-looking extraterrestrial concoctions through clear plastic helmets without somehow spilling any of it on their uniforms.

Yes, Space Escapade has it all, including a phallic shaped spaceship in the background, as well as a sort-of-purpley-pink chick who looks like she can’t wait until the delicious humans drink the stupefying potion so the serious brain-sucking can begin. The lesson? Multi-coloured alien women are all alike — far more interested in a space lad’s mind than in the blaster-sized bulge in his interplanetary trousers.

4. All My Friends Are Dead, Freddie Gage

At Number 4 we have All my friends are dead, and with a title like that it’s hard not to feel sorry for our man, Freddie Gage. Until, that is, you see the picture below the title.

Seriously, one look at that picture and I found myself wondering whether or not the original title for the album might have been, All my friends are dead… Now it’s time for my enemies too! Aha ahahahahaha! [3] 

Either way, I can’t help thinking that Freddie here maybe knows a whole lot more about why all his friends are dead than he’s letting on, and if I were the police investigating this bizarre series of unexpected deaths, I’d start paying attention to the fact that the only thing that ties all of these corpses together [4] is… yes, that’s right… one Mr Freddie Gage!

Still, maybe this isn’t entirely Freddie’s fault. Some of the blame for this album cover has to go to the designer who chose to place a phrase like “All my friends are dead” in a rather playful font on a bright blue background. That’s not simply wrong, folks, that’s just plain evil.

3. Understand Your’e Swede, Jimmy Jenson

At Number 3 we have the cover I struggled most to justify including in my Top 5, and yet every time I look at it I immediately understand why I think it’s so wonderfully awful.

It’s not just the misspelling in the title, it’s not just the fact that if you spelled the title correctly it still wouldn’t make any sense, and it’s not just the fact that whoever did the album art decided to establish its essential Swedishness by depicting a guy with a sack and an axe and 43 children — it’s the combination of all of these things that make Understand Your’e Swede a true legend in the worst album cover stakes of all time.

Not only that, but Jimmy Jenson has passed onto future generations the pleasant past-time of wondering just what the hell he was getting at. Understand You’re Swede sounds like an angry indictment against all those Swedes who have spent years foolishly attempting to deny their inner Swedishness, while Understand Your Swede would presumably only make sense to the small percentage of the population who actually own one.

An outstanding effort either way, Jimmy Jenson!

2. The Many Facets Of Roger

At Number 2 we have The Many Facets Of Roger, along with a lingering concern about the sexual identity crisis Roger was experiencing when he recorded this album.

Sadly, the album wasn’t titled The Many Different Open-Necked, Navel-Plunging, Hairy-Chest-Revealing Shirts Of Roger, so in each photo of our man demonstrating one of his many facets, we also get another opportunity to admire his glittery, spangly, chest-exposing-and-wide-blue-panel-ey wardrobe choice for that entirely fabulous day. And what can I tell you? After squinting at this album cover for a number of minutes I found myself hoping and praying that this was just what Roger wore in off the street when he turned up for the photo shoot, since that would add a whole other dimension of amazingness to Roger, not to mention his many facets.

And what about the many facets of Roger themselves? I can’t be the only one who has tried to figure out exactly what each of these facets is trying to communicate (from left to right, top to bottom):

1. Girls just wanna have fun
2. This is Serious Roger. No, really. Yes, I know the shirt isn’t helping, but I mean it. Look, just ignore the damn shirt, I’m being really, really serious! Oh, for the love of… Forget the fucking shirt for just a minute and pay attention to… stop looking at the shirt!!
3. Mwaha!! I bet you weren’t expecting me to be hiding in your closet!
4. I call this facet, “And Another Thing, Roger.” I like to use it when I think of more than 1 thing at a time.
5. I… I only wish I could show more than 6 of my many facets… Facet Number 47, for example, is illegal in 12 different countries.
6. It’s crowded in my brain, can I use yours?

1. Orion Reborn

And here we are at my Number 1 best-of-the-worst album cover of all time, Orion Reborn!

The only place to start with this cover is with a quick lesson in ultra-coolness. Pick the least cool person you know — the person who is so uncool you’re surprised he or she simply doesn’t spontaneously combust in social situations [5]. Okay, now… imagine that person wearing a mask…

I’m right, aren’t I? That person suddenly looks cool!

Yes, it’s a simple fact of life that wearing a mask automatically makes you look cool, and there is no-one in the world who looks more cool wearing a mask than Orion up there.

But the coolness doesn’t end with the mask. Oh hell no! Orion combines that mask with a blue satin shirt with pouffy pirate sleeves, a pair of matching blue cummerbund pants, a rock-’n-roll-god-of-the-1950s hairstyle, a fists-on-hips stance and an optional devil-may-care sneer, and what he delivers is pure sensory coolness overload. Seriously, you don’t just want to own this man’s album, you want to wake up one morning and find out you’re even half as cool as he is.

In fact, when you look at the complete package — particularly the hair and the sneer — it’s hard not to suspect that maybe Elvis didn’t leave the building after all, he just put on a mask and was reborn as Orion.

And there you have it

So what do you know, it’s surprisingly difficult to arrive at a list of 5 favourite album covers out of a potential pool of 50 candidates, many of which are just as wonderfully bad as any of the others. In the end, I had to cut more than a few worthy contenders from my list to arrive at the final 5.

Which leaves me wondering… If you did happen to take a look at the entire Sun-Sentinel list, what would you pick as your best of the worst, and why? Or, heck, what do you think of the list I’ve selected above?

As always, the comment section is the place to have your say!

Until next time,

Murray @ Midnight

Okay, so Krispy Kreme has finally come to Brisbane, but I’m confused.

What the hell is it about these deep-fried rings of sugar and dough that drives people so berserk?

I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m not a fan of the donut, per se, it’s just that I don’t quite understand the religious frenzy people get into over the Krispy Kreme version.

Is it the brand?

Is it a secret chemical additive?

Is it a mind-control experiment being conducted by some secret government agency somewhere [1]?

Or is it really possible that it’s because Krispy Kreme donuts are honestly that much better than any others?

Please discuss.

Thanks to Stark Raving Duncan for providing the photo.

I’m just saying, that’s all.

The building at Five Riverside Plaza was widely regarded as the city’s tallest and least sensible structure. Towering over the rest of the CBD, its upper reaches lost in clouds, the building boasted the most insanely exclusive floorspace in the city because it actually only had 5 floors, all jockeying for position somewhere near the top.

Nathan Blevvers, CEO of GrunkCorp Holdings Inc, edged closer to the floor-to-ceiling glass panels of his penthouse office. He was so high above the sprawling cityscape of Brisbane that it sometimes gave him a nosebleed just to look out the window, and if he was being perfectly honest, he hated heights, hated tall buildings and would have marvelled at the supreme irony that he had ended up working in an office where the ground was a half-hour elevator ride away, if only he had known the meaning of the word irony.

However, one thing Nathan Blevvers did know intimately was the fact that 98% of business was about appearances, and for this reason he forced himself to appear comfortable in his insanely high office every day, because his vast empire would crumble within minutes if he didn’t.

“Your morning meeting will begin in a few minutes Mr Blevvers,” a voice said from behind the CEO, interrupting his thoughts. He turned to regard the blank countenance of his Aide de Camp, a man he only knew as Spiteful Warren.

That was another thing, Blevvers thought, as he made his way to his huge mahogany desk, what the hell is an Aide de Camp? Along with the word ‘irony’, Aide de Camp was a term the CEO had never encountered before he had suddenly discovered he absolutely needed to have one. And that was only because that bastard Bernie Smathers, CEO of Cashcow Unlimited Limited, had sneeringly mentioned that he had an Aide de Camp one afternoon over a friendly game of golf, forcing Blevvers to say, “Really? Only just now? I’ve had one for ages.” Then he’d stomped back into his headquarters and ordered his receptionist to talk to someone who had Google to look up what the phrase meant and then to get him one, or maybe even a couple of them, if that would be better.

The very next day Spiteful Warren had shown up for work.

Nathan Blevvers stood before the wall of screens through which he conducted his morning meetings. Very soon Divisional Heads from all over the world would be online simultaneously, each framed by his or her own screen, each with a peppy couple of paragraphs to read about how amazing everything was running in their little part of the GrunkCorp empire. Of course, 80% of these reports were outright lies, while the remaining 20% were usually slightly more subtle lies. This was particularly the case given that Blevvers was in the process of having 5 of the 12 Divisional Heads replaced for incompetence, and another one assassinated for having an annoying, snuffly laugh. But this was simply another of those ever-present business realities — no-one ever told the truth. And if, by accident, anyone ever did tell the truth, you were so used to the lies that you would simply ignore the truth as being utterly implausible.

There was a polite little cough from behind the CEO. A little cough that had been meticulously gauged to impart a maximum payload of smug derision, while offering as little concrete offensiveness as possible.

“Ahahaha,” said Spiteful Warren, “Sir is having his little jest. I’m certain Sir is aware that he is standing in front of the wall of portraits of the GrunkCorp board members, and that his video conferencing screens are, in fact, over here.”

Blevvers frowned at the wall to which his Aide de Camp was gesturing, and then back at the wall in front of which he had been standing. “How the hell do you tell the difference?” he asked.

“Well, aha ahahahaha,” said Spiteful Warren, “Sir will perhaps recognise that the pictures on this wall are moving.”

Blevvers chewed obsessively on his lower lip, his left eye beginning to twitch in a meaningfully psychotic way. He rearranged his tie, checked his cufflinks, and then sidled over to the other wall, doing his best to ignore the sardonic smile on his assistant’s face.

Approximately 48 times a day Nathan Blevvers fantasised about sacking his Aide de Camp. Sometimes, in these fantasies, he slapped the neat little man first. In others, he somehow managed to open the windows and shoved his assistant out, yelling “You’re fired!” as he fell away from view, presumably hitting the ground a number of minutes later. In each of the fantasies the horrid little man broke down, begged for forgiveness and mercy, but was of course denied these things because that was the kind of guy Nathan Blevvers liked to pretend he still was. Cold and vicious. Ruthless and dynamic.  Not-afraid-of-the-sarcastic-little-man and not-utterly-terrified-of-thinly-veiled-criticism. Yes, in his fantasies he was all of those things and more.

The reality was that he was no longer the master of his own destiny, forget about the destinies of the thousands of employees that worked, directly or indirectly, for GrunkCorp Holdings. At least, when it came to his Aide de Camp he wasn’t.

He’d once speculatively typed the man’s name into his gleaming desktop computer, to see if an intranet search might at least turn up the little bastard’s surname. The computer had told him that it had zero results for the search, and 4 minutes later Spiteful Warren himself and bustled efficiently into his office, packed up his computer, and wheeled it out, telling the CEO that it needed an urgent upgrade.

And that was the last time he had seen his PC.

Even though he was something of a technical moron, Blevvers soon discovered that he missed his computer. In particular, he had looked forward to the occasional times when one of his employees would mistakenly include his name on the CC list of the latest funny email making the rounds, and he’d giggle at the usually topical shenanigans that Dilbert and Dogbert were getting up to in their comicstrip version of corporate hell, and then he’d sack everyone who had ever sent or received the email and have them escorted off the premises by very large guards.

Good times, he ruminated.

Another grating cough brought him back to the present, and it was time for the hookup.

Nathan Blevvers, CEO of GrunkCorp Holdings, gazed at the cold, passionless faces of his Division Heads and said, “Okay, shoot.”

There was a muffled sound from the speakers attached to monitor six, and the Division Head of the European offices of the company suddenly slumped over at his desk and then slowly fell to the floor. A ninja-clad face leaned in from the side of the screen and said, “The one with the snuffly laugh has been terminated.”

“Excellent,” said Nathan Blevvers with his first smile of the day, “now Division Head Pacifica, tell me what you know about the fires that burned down the Jojo-a-rama offices and warehouses.”

None of the players need to go into a side dungeon full of bad bad evilness…except one player ‘Leeroy’ needs some special magical armour bits. So reluctantly they plan in great detail about how best to tackle this. The detail is extraordinary and kinda disturbing… I must admit I am a bit of a Leeroy myself in terms of gaming. If I can’t figure something out I like to shoot it. …..Meanwhile it seems that Leeroy’s human controller has left the game briefly for chicken… he returns, and having missed all the strategy, he runs brandishing his sword and screaming his name into the cave. Startled, the other ‘team’ members feel compelled to follow. The chaotic results are a disaster… but Leeroy has chicken.

Since then the guy behind Leeroy has been given his ‘15 Minutes’ and I understand he is now celebrity at video game tradeshow and gaming competitions commentator (what tha!). He even has his own wikipedia entry, and as is the American popculture way - has sparked a mini merchandising industry. I’ve noticed that within the online gaming community he has entered folklore with his own gaming card and now gamers claim to have been “Leeroy-ed” when a mission goes terribly pear shaped because one of the multiplayers did not following the agreed upon strategy.

Sheeesh. All this from a blunder. It makes me think… is Leeroy a hero or is he simply a certified twack. He seems to have profited from this but how will he feel in the future when he is still regarded as that… it makes me think of Gary Coleman from the TV show ‘Different Strokes’ or that overweight boy practicing light sabre moves made popular during the YouTube infancy. I believe neither are living a happy life now dogged by their “15 minutes”.