10 Hilariously Terrible Album Covers And Why They Exist

8. Black Sabbath €“ Born Again

The cover for Black Sabbath's eleventh studio album Born Again is so terrible that musician Ian Gillan claims to have vomited when he first saw it. it depicts a baby with bright red skin and crudely edited fangs and claws. The band's drummer Bill Ward claims to have personally detested the cover, despite the fact that Sabbath's lead guitarist Tony Iommi approved it. Unfortunately for Iommi, time has not been kind to the cover of Born Again, and it's routinely regarded as one of the worst album covers in music history. While the intent was clearly for the image to be unsettling and slightly disturbing, the whole thing just looks hilariously cheesy. The cover was produced by Steve €œKrusher€ Joule, and was based on a photocopy of a baby from a 1968 magazine. Amazingly, Joule claims the idea for the cover was actually supposed to be a joke. Joule submitted the design expecting to receive nothing but a small rejection fee for it. The reason Joule wanted a rejection was because at the time he had a close relationship with Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, and Ozzy had just been kicked from the band. Much to his amazement, however, the cover received Tony Iommi's approval and Joule was offered "a ridiculous amount of money" to finish the design.