2012 Year in Review: The Worst Album Covers Of The Year

Album art is shrinking, from the LPs we once fondled to the tiny digital covers we now squint to comprehend. But they'll never be too small to bring out the worst in musicians and their art directors, as cover art always has. Nothing in 2012 could quite compare with the horror that was Lady Gaga's Born This Way album artwork in '11. But a lot of artists made their best/worst attempts to uglify their covers, from Ke$ha to Carrie Underwood to the Killers. Here are a dozen of the year's weirdest or most wretched album sleeves. -- Chris Willman

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  1. 6. Blake Shelton, Cheers, It
  2. 12. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, This Christmas - As if they deliberately intended to destroy any fond memory we had of Grease, Danny and Sandy made their long-awaited reunion on a wan album
  3. 11. Ke$ha, Warrior - No one will accuse Ke$ha of blowing her budget on album art, as we
  4. 10. Carrie Underwood, Blown Away - Carrie
  5. 9. Ministry, Relapse - It
  6. 8. The Killers, Battle Born - A horse and a really cool vintage muscle car play chicken in the Southwestern desert! Who will win? Metaphorically, we
  7. 7. David Byrne and St. Vincent, Love This Giant - There is an argument for taking the boomerang-shaped jawbreaker out of your mouth before the photographer says cheese. Or, she could have at least off
  8. 5. Swans, The Seer - You felt bad when they had to shoot Old Yeller, but if they hadn
  9. 4. Lupe Fiasco, Food and Liquor 2 - All-black is the new black! Or is it? Listen, Lupe, we
  10. 3. Blood On The Dance Floor, Evolution - One small step for EDM, one small step backward for EDM, at least imagery-wise. Listen, Blood On The Dance Floor, there
  11. 2. Game, Jesus Piece (Deluxe Edition) - Combine Christ with cannabis and gang symbols, and what could possibly go wrong? Predictably, Fox News and other conservative outlets took the bait, but Game pa
  12. 1. Two Door Cinema Club, Beacon - This looks like an attempt to pull off the kind of photorealistic but surreal imagery the Hipgnosis designers specialized in with Pink Floyd covers. Or maybe in Irela