Musical artists want to make a point of selling their albums, of course, because they have to make a living. Bands and solo performers can create album covers that cause one to squirm in their seat, and it might still be called art. But others go beyond the pale.
Such is the case with the four albums that follow. We won't show the album art (sorry, as it's tasteless, and you can probably Google the image), but we will tell you why the album artwork is not good.
In a couple of cases, the bands use nude or sexually suggestive images of pubescent girls. Why? Maybe they should have thought of what art is and what is simply trying to get any possible reaction? Those are two completely separate things.
Four controversial album covers that should have never been created
Bow Wow Wow - See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! (1981)
At least the band was shown in the photo? The issue is that the original album cover was based on a Édouard Manet painting, but the album art had lead singer Annabella Lwin pictured nude. The problem was that she was only 14 years old at the time of the photo.
Lwin's mother began an investigation with Scotland Yard, and the album cover was replaced. Still, it reappeared on the band's EP The Last of the Mohicans. Seems like the rest of the band would not have felt comfortable taking part in the photo shoots for the album art.
Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction (1987)
The revamped artwork, which was seen on the cover when the record was released, is iconic now, but it was viewed as the second-best option by the band. The original cover might have made the record unsaleable, and the band that we know today might not have existed.
Based on a Robert Williams painting, the original album art featured a woman leaning against a wooden fence who had clearly just been sexually assaulted. The robotic rapist is about the be squashed by some kind of monster.
The band stated the first artwork was a "symbolic social statement, with the robotrepresenting the industrial system that's raping and polluting our environment." Yeah, because, you know...GNR has always been an environment-first band.
The Beautiful South - Welcome to the Beautiful South (1989)
Questionable choices here. The original album cover had two photos. One was of a man smoking. Fine. The other was more problematic. It featured a woman with a gun in her mouth.
UK chain Woolworths (there also used to be a bunch in the United States, too) refused to stock the record because of the cover. Perhaps the band was attempting to make a statement that smoking is as bad as having a gun in one's mouth. Seemed a pointless effort, though.
Foreigner - Head Games (1979)
First off, the album cover is simply stupid. A pubescent girl is in a men's restroom, holding a roll of tissue paper against a mirror while she looks back clearly in fear. How the band would think this is cool is unknown, or perhaps they were trying to appear interesting. They failed.
The look is even worse, though. What is the girl looking at? Why does she have tissue paper? Why is she in the men's room? Poor taste by the band and the record company.