NZ's worst album covers

Recently I asked you all to put forward submissions to Right This Blog! With that in mind please welcome today's guest post from m.s.p.

I remember as a kid before I knew anything about music, I would look through my parents' record collection and pick out ones to listen to based simply on whether I liked the cover or not. That was my way in. And the reverse was equally true.

There are, of course, plenty of good albums - great albums, even - with terrible front covers. nobody ever put Pet Sounds on because The Beach Boys hand-feeding llamas looked cool.

They say image is everything. There are those that will say how important is an album cover anyway? A musician's merit should be judged on their music alone! This is not in the least bit unreasonable of course (particularly now, in the age of the thumbnail) but it is fair to say many of us are guided in our initial relationship to the music by the visual stimuli on hand.

Radiohead's The Bends is one of the best albums of the last 20 years - but the cover is easily one of the worst. Once you hear the music, then that is really all that matters. But what if you never get that far, simply because the cover image is stink?

NZ Music Month is again upon us, so here are five of our own album covers that may have benefited from a rethink.

Tomachi - The Hotel Vermont Sessions (2005)  

Tom Atkinson - aka Tomachi - one of Auckland's most in-demand session drummers of the past decade, took time out from such bands as Breaks Co-op, SJD and one million dollars to create this solo album ("hip-hop soul with a jazz-funk twist") between 2002-2004. He called on an impressive array of star guests - 22 in total, including such luminaries as Dam Native and King Kapisi - to add to the songs he had built around his own (mostly improvised on the spot) performances on keyboards, analogue delay and drums. Indeed, the music within makes you want to dance. But the front cover makes you want to take a shower. Imagine pulling the curtains back and seeing that looking through your window.

Craig Payne - 2nd Time Around (2011)

Craig, formally of the band Dizzy Heights, is an accomplished rock guitarist based in Christchurch. He is also one of the Garden City's hardest-working musicians, having for many years balanced an impressively prolific output (during 2007 he released two albums in a single month) with the usual grind of various fulltime jobs. This even at one stage included a stint working as an embalmer (which may have inspired this album's cover photo). He looks here like he's had a bad lunch (or two). What "feeling" is he trying to project with this facial expression here? Is it anger? Is it defiance? Or has he just soiled himself?

Steve McDonald - The Riddle and The Rhyme (1980)

That's a shotgun Steve's holding. At first glance I thought it was a jousting stick. To be honest, I'm rather split on this one. On another day I would probably argue that this is actually one of the best NZ album covers ever. I couldn't wait to put it on. I mean, looking at this, you just have to know what it sounds like. It looks as though he's going to burst through the cover at any second and fly around your lounge, trailing stars. The album itself sounds like Steve Miller fronting Genesis doing Dennis Wilson covers. Quite brilliant, in other words.

Lionel Reekie - From Russia with Love (2011)

Lionel's album of well-known songs from stage and screen (such as Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables and My Fair Lady) was recorded in Novosibirsk, Russia, with the Siberian Festival Orchestra last year, which just in itself is an impressive accomplishment. But as well as being a versatile singer, he is arguably New Zealand's top accordion player. He is the Dan Carter of the accordion. Lionel is also an accomplished conductor - in 2007 he conducted the New Zealand North Shore Accordion Orchestra in Washington DC and New York. Accordion music doesn't get enough press in this country. This cover is a straight-up shocker, but it makes me kind of happy too. That's clearly a man who loves what he does.

Dave Dobbyn - Loyal (1988)

Long before New Zealand had Hobbits, we had Dave. Love him or hate him (I am in the former category), it is simply a fact that he is one of the best songwriters our country has ever produced. It is hopeless to argue. But it seems to me his biggest obstacle to wider world domination, his Kryptonite was his hair. Those trademark tight ginger ringlets just don't cut it in rock and roll. Never have. Not even in the 80s when the rule was, if you possessed a blonde mullet of spring-curl variety, you played the keyboard. And you weren't in the band photograph. In this picture he looks like someone who has stolen away from the barbecue because he has a bad case of wind to deal with. Worse was to come though: the infamous jumper he wore in the title song's video has gone unforgiven to this day. And quite rightly too. But Dave survived this and other such travails. Why? Simply because he is brilliant.

Now, your turn: have you heard any of these albums? What did you think? Do you have any of your own examples of Kiwi album covers that missed the mark?

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