The last day of our second-round battles in the Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament brings us to the Southeast Bracket, where the behatted Toby Keith faces off against Technicolor revolutionary M.I.A. Man, this is one battle that I wish would be fought via in-person debate, and not proprietary poll software. Could you imagine? There would be things flying around the room 10 seconds in! Anyway, voting’s after the jump.
top
The Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament Brings M.I.A. To Toby Keith’s Christmas Dinner
Categories:
top
top
@Letterb: The other hand is why I’m voting for Toby Keith.
Toby Keith no contest. He’s got pointy elf ears. And a lazy eye! Just overall creeeeeeepy
Jordin’s nostrils should be filling the space where MIA’s cover currently is.
So, Toby wins. Especially because there cannot be anything “Classic” about his album.
My vote goes to MIA since the Keith cover is so unremarkable that it’s camouflage in any Target or Wal-Mart music section. I love 8-bit art but MIA’s clash of blotched type and a murky background only strain the eye. The worst part is her portrait where she looks arrogant and dictator-like in her shades and fur hat. I could go on about her cool breakbeats disguise her empty political sloganeering, but that’s for another thread.
@Bouncy: That’s just the cowboy hat he’s wearing UNDER the Santa hat. I know this to be true - but it still gets me every time and I think he’s got pointy elf ears.
@tigerpop: Yeah, why did I say Party On?
I usually vote for the aggressively over-designed and let the mediocrity slide, but yeah, M.I.A. grows on you - the cover and the contents both. Cam, the dictator arrogance is part of the whole effect. It’s supposed to look like a propaganda poster from an Atari 2600 game about the military coup on the tiny island republic of Colorblind Pixel Party-stan.
Good god. Every time I look at the M.I.A. cover (after it stops moving and shifting), I find something new to ironically love about it. It’s a hilarious exercise in ‘how could we uglify this shit up more?’. The blue and purple center stripe. The sloppy white cut-out behind the ‘A’. The white and purple tiger-striped triangles - why? The black falling arrows. You literally can’t take in all the awfulness at once. Now I’m actively thinking that it’s great. Please send help.
It’s not Santa hat over cowboy hat that gets me, it’s that Toby looks so damn proud of himself for coming up with the idea.
“Contemplative Christmas Honky” is my least favorite carol ever.
Okay, MIA’s cover hurts my eyes, Toby Keith’s makes me want to bust out the eraser function on photoshop.
Also, the Santa hat on top of the cowboy hat makes me want to punch his stylist in the face.
M.I.A tries too hard.
Hence, my irony-meter votes for it.
Toby Keith’s sucks, but it’s par for the course in the country realm. MIA’s looks like Broderbund Print Shop threw up on my old Apple IIe. And it says “Party On” all over it. That’s just lame. And I LIKE that album (despite her questionable political non-stances).
@Lucas Jensen: I think it actually says “Fight On!”
@lastclearchance: It would be better if it said “Party On.”
I’m voting for the pixel splatter, which is as unpleasant to me as the music contained therein.
Oh wow, Christmas hat over cowboy hat? I’m voting for Toby Keith, although his hat-on-hat combo is all kinds of awesome. At least M.I.A might have had an inkling as to the lo-tech vomit vibe of her cover, an intentional worst cover, no?
I gotta vote for the Vulcan.
Again, I vote for M.I.A. for unauthorized use of the “Iron Maiden” font. Plus, the album’s crap.
No contest. I’ve actually grown to like the M.I.A. cover. Toby is still the laziest.
@El-Zilcho: And how!
Just like the album itself, the more I’m exposed to the M.I.A. cover the more I like it (and it is a perfect reflection of the music itself). But photoshopping a Santa hat onto a stock press photo, like those Christmas versions of movie posters? That’s just blatant rip-off. Wonder how long he spent actually recording the record.
I can’t believe I just voted against Toby Keith in a poll for Worst (anything). Oh well, that MIA cover has been assaulting my eyes since it came out.
FUTK FTW!
I’m voting for Toby purely based on the fact that his gentle, smiling face is all OVER MY FUCKING TOWN because his restaurant is here. And maybe elsewhere, but thats your fucking problem.
Toby easily wins this one. It looks like one of those horrid christmas cards that you get where the family dresses up in stupid matching sweaters and stands uncomfortably around each other in the hopes that upon receipt you would be excited to hang such a masterpiece on the mantle. At least we were spared having to look at the Keith clan all decked out in cowboy santy regalia. Too bad they shot it at the local Olan Mills Portrait Studio.
And MIA’s cover reminds me of the video for Pump Up The Jam and for that sole reason has been granted immunity from criticism.
You people are crazy. MIA is clearly the more horrific of the two. I’d also argue that Toby Keith makes better music than MIA, but that’d be opening a big can o’ worms, now, wouldn’t it?
Hey, what the hell is Toby Keith doing with his other hand? Also, I bet M.I.A. just wishes she had thought of that Cowboy/Santa hat combo first.
@stephenbush: If by “worms” you mean “endless snark from people who spend way too much time being angry about how much they hate M.I.A.”, the can has already been opened, washed out and thrown into the recycling bin.
I hope Toby Keith wins this poll so we as a people can move on to new frontiers in hating critical darlings. Maybe Sleater-Kinney can put out a box set or something.
You just gotta love TOBY no matter what he has on!!!! He is the best and I love that he is patriotic, stands up for what he beleives, strong, handsome and looks great in a santa hat!!!!!!!!!
Matter of fact I would take him in only the Cowboy/santa hat combo anyday.