My favorite album of all has the worse cover
Emancipation

runner ups...
the rainbow children
prince
for you
chaos and disorder
TGE

Hah, I had already forgotten the Angels & Vampires -thing. I'm sorry but it just proves to me that Terence's been somewhat delusional over the recent years about the quality of his output.

The Gold Experience cover doesn't really work - the insides look much nicer though, - but it was originally supposed to have been done by using gold ink (or whatever the appropriate term would be). They just apparently chose to cut down the manufacturing costs and went for that orange / yellow -coloring instead.

Lotusflow3r/MPLSound/Elixir are all nightmares.

Crystal Ball looks pretty shitty.

The Rainbow Children is pretty ugly too.

The Rave Unto's are embarassing as well.

ZombieKitten said:

The thing with Prince is that he always puts out current visuals.

You see the cover of Lotus Flower right? Sure it looks smooth and cool now, but give it a few years. We're going to be looking at those graphics with a cock eyed face.

Though his art visuals are contempory and lack longevity, his musicianship is what carries him through.

Contemporary? The Lotusflow3r cover looks more like digitized mid-90s dross to be honest.

The worst for me is The Vault Old Friends 4 Sale

It's just so basic and lazy.

Musicology comes to mind,but he has alot of them that aren't great.Someone needs to give him a new photshop program or something, or tell him about Discmakers and let them handle that...

novabrkr said:

I think it's awesome in an absurd way

novabrkr said:

really? how about gold foil with hologram ultimate in tacky

soulyacolia said:

when that came out I thought it was a bootleg, totally looked like something home-made

Are you guys on here trying to tell me that I am the only one on here that finds the Lovesexy album cover to be the most atrocious cover of his. Wow.

For You front cover is quite sad, he is all blurred and the disco style font dosen't help and yes the Prince cover look has dated badly, with the coiffure, soft lighting and tacky font, it looks like Fran Drescher designed it.
TRC is sad, album and cover and I think the black players lips are too big, making them look like 30s sambo caricatures.
NPS is just plain scary, also the photoshopping on The Vault, Rave and Emancipation may have been cutting edge in the 90s now looks tacky and cheep ass. The outfits he wears in Rave you could puke on.
But the Worst is Crystal Ball, some creepy lettering in a crystal shape and the cheep ass package.

Huggiebear said:

Wasn't that intended for Crystal Ball because it was supposed to look like a bootleg?

I agree on "The Vault" - such a great album, but the horrible recycled artwork made me overlook this masterpiece for a long time.

I almost peed my pants at the Fran Drescher comment...

ZombieKitten said:

I dont understand that whole lamb thing on the Rave CD, can someone help me out here?

JesusFreak said:

Bullcrap. Parade, SOTT and Lovesexy are timeless.

JesusFreak said:

No it doesn't.

EmancipationLover said:

Except plenty of bootlegs look great.

So we all seem to like
Dirty Mind
Controversy
1999
Purple Rain,
Around the World in a Day,
Graffiti Bridge,
Diamonds and Pearls,
,
and Come

Since they havnt been on the list

So looks like we'r not too keen on the Symbol times of Prince's Albums lol!

SexyMotha said:

Just thinking about it I LOVE the Come album cover WOO
[Edited 9/16/09 12:53pm]

ZombieKitten said:

I have bootlegs with packaging way sexier than most of the official cds.

SexyMotha said:

yeah was it about becoming vegan? or animal testing? I can't even remember any more

Lovesexy, Rave, Planet Earth, Prince.

EmancipationLover said:

He looks like Naveen Andrews here.

I like:

1999
Purple rain
ATWIAD
SOTT

I don't care for the rest because I'm simply not interested in seeing Prince in some extravagant clothing making poses, I prefer artsy covers.
The ones I hate:

Prince (this one is really really bad)
Lovesexy (hilarious)
Emancipation (ridiculous)

I find TRC scary and ugly. But Musicology is nice.

I can't really say, I like em all

Jesus, I mean how long did it take before Lovesexy got mentioned on this thread?

Surely that's the worst cover period. I mean it's all wrong, you'd get beaten up at school for having that in your possesion.

Veej said:

That utterably suprised look and scream of shock and horror of his said it all when Ellen pulled it out to prove she was an old time fan

JesusFreak said:

Thank you!!

I was wondering when people would start discussing Lovesexy (I see it got one additional mention above). IMO this is easily Prince's most atrocious album cover.

I'm stunned at how many people take issue with the album artwork for The Rainbow Children. It perfectly sets the tone for the music and has a great aesthetic to it. If only more of his album covers were this thoughtful and appropriate to the music.


As far as worst cover goes? There are many.

His art direction started taking a nose dive with Graffiti Bridge...Emancipation,Rave,Musicology and Planet Earth are eye sores as well.