10 Classic Albums With Terrible Album Covers

The Beatles are one of the first bands to turn the album cover into high art. Rather than just a piece of merchandise to sell to fans of the band, albums like Abbey Road and Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band have covers that are just as visually stunning as the actual music that lies within. However, every band has to start somewhere, and this is about as milquetoast as the Beatles' artwork got.

Many would probably nominate the band's minimalistic White Album cover for this slot, but the plain canvas of that album actually plays to your advantage by having you focus on the music within. On the other hand, this album cover feels like the band just had to throw any old thing on the front of their album to make it sell.

On the surface, Please Please Me is actually a damn good start to the band's career, with most of it being cut live in the studio, but this cover does have some issues. Though the shot of the band looking down would have been fine on its own, the generic "includes the big hits" text ends up cheapening the cover's worth. There have been a lot of people who call the Beatles the world's first boy band, and while they had the talent to back it up, this cover is probably the most artificial thing they could have put forward.