Musical Monstrosities

Within the hallowed halls of this forum, there have been threads about monsters from anime, monsters from videogames, monsters from books... but none about monsters from that oft-overlooked art form; the album cover.

From Iron Maiden's recurring "corpse..."
http://www.mystrands.com/photos/1/4/5/normal/14556.jpg

...To this horrible, horrible creature.
http://musiccourt.files.wordpress.com/2009...chumbawamba.jpg

Any others you guys can think of?

Tarkus and the menagerie of beasties in its gatefold. The cover is actually quite well-known; it's been ripped-off, paid homage to and parodized countless times. People have made LEGO models of it, papercrafts, and I've seen at least one cosplay. Keith Emerson himself approved of a limited-edition medallion of the creature.




A previously unseen additional painting of Tarkus from the artist's webpage. It's likely to have been for a poster advertising the album.

Hedorah is on one of Frank Zappas album covers and pink floyds movie features GREAT monster art throughout the entire movie. There are t-shirts and figures of everything.


Then of course, theres Eddie the mummy of Iron maiden, which is always featured as a giant prop onstage, as well as in all their album art.


Then theres "cultasaurus", from one of blue oyster cults albums". They also sing a song about aliens called "take me away", as well as godzilla which has some of the most awesome solos ever.


Painkiller by judas priest is a great song- too.
I cover it alot onstage. Its one of the only songs that will get me jumping off amps and stuff. Really good to get you pumped up. The lyrics tell a story about a guy on a motorbike coming form the heavens saving the world from an apocalypse.

oh man, I love album art.


just note on the Blu Oyster Cult "Cultasaurus". Check out the little yellow thing near its neck. While it's hard to to tell with the pic provided, that's a spaceship. Cultasaurus is fucking huge!

I GET KNOCKED DOWN! BUT I GET UP AGAIN! I SAID YOU'RE NEVER GONNA BRING ME DOWN!
I GET KNOCKED DOWN! BUT I GET UP AGAIN! I SAID YOU'RE NEVER GONNA BRING ME DOWN!


I like this green thing from the cover of Less Than Jake's "Losing Streak". It got me into their music, and for that I salute it.

I love Meatloaf's creativity in naming albums

Meatloaf also appeared in the rocky horror picture show!!

It sounds like it should be fairly incredible that I have never in my life heard or seen any of this until now.

Usually when you learn of something new you can look back and remember seeing it everywhere, but nope, I can't recall a single reference to this stuff D:

EDIT/ oh, it's British, that explains everything. A lot of things in the UK that are just household names are utterly unheard of in the states.

It's probably cheating to put GWAR as an example, since those monster pictures are essentially just pictures of the band themself. Still, I feel they at least deserve a mention.

There are two rather neat guys on the covers of Converge's "Petitioning the Empty Sky" and "When Forever Comes Crashing."





These were released together as a Double Gatefold LP several years after their release, which is what I have.

And then there's this gem in Electric Wizard's "Witchcult Today"



Very 70s Japanese Sci-Fi.

Then we have virtually EVERY album by The Locust:











My favorite monster is probably the Red 7" Self-titled monster.

Morbid Angel's "Gateways to Annihilation" is the only Metal release I'm going to mention, since there are just too many. While not exactly a monster, it appears to be alive.



The Residents' "Commercial Album" needs no description to be appreciated.



The BACK of Skinny Puppy's "Too Dark Park," one of my favorite albums of all time, has some lovely monsters as well.



Perhaps the scariest yet is Yip-Yip's "In The Reptile House." These guys used to perform in these very outfits in front of checkerboards. Quite the interesting sight.



AND THE SCARIEST MONSTER OF ALL, from EMF's "Schubert Dip."



Really, that is one of the worst albums ever.

I love those locust covers!


Here's one kinda special to me, "Race With the Devil" by the band Gun, painted by Roger Dean:



I've never heard the actual music of this band or album, but I had a huge book of Roger Dean artwork as a kid that I'd thumb through for what felt like hours. By huge, I mean not only hundreds of pages but the size and shape of an actual record album, which made it seem like a COLOSSAL book to my tiny self when opened up on the carpet. I couldn't even read yet, so I didn't know what the pictures were actually for. I just loved looking at the surreal fantasy and sci-fi scenes.

The book started falling apart later, but I saved several pages and now keep them on my walls. Race with the Devil is one of them, and it's actually the raw painting, no band logos or anything. The album also crops it on every side. Maybe I should get my copy framed.

Its not unheard of that bands go to comic book artists for album art and the likes, although i can draw- if i ever got a cd out, i'd much rather get some insane artist like an artist from the heavy metal comics to do something for me.

Are any of you readers of it? Its a really gruesome, sexual collection of stories that comes out every month. I have a few of the super old issues and they're absolutely charming, also including the old porn and hentai ads in them.

The movie that came out featured bands like cheap trick, black sabbath and blue oyster cult- and the new one is sapposed to feature a whole lot more.

Rob zombie, Vasquez, Tenacious D and a group of very big directors will be joining together to create a new movie which will be out in the future. I'm super excited for it because the first movie is super meaningful to me.