Idolator

Paisley's album cover looks like something I could have done in word. That text is awful. As for for animal collective they win by default.

5th Gear by a hair thanks to the fonts of "Brad" and "Paisley." I actually don't think either is especially bad.

Honestly, if you're a graphic designer working on album covers, you should have gotten that perspective shit locked down by now.

Animal Collective is disturbing, but it's disturbing in a very intentional way, whereas the Paisley cover makes me wonder why they hired a twelve-year-old to play with Photoshop.

Yeah, the Animal Collective cover looks kind of gross, but upon close inspection it's pretty well photographed and, if nothing else, a vivid piece of imagery (although in conjunction with the album title it still comes off pretty stupid). The Paisley one is truly nightmarish.

Intentionally trying to sicken me with a bloody strawberry steak wins in my book.

Although in my heart of hearts I would like to vote for Animal Collective, simply because what is on that cover looks a lot like some road kill that I helped my brother dislodge from his car's undercarriage years back, but 5th Gear wins by wacky unnecessary guitar placement. It's like someone thought "Hey we better throw this guitar on the cover or someone might not know this is music!

One is in poor taste, the other is just poorly done.

@beta.rogan: I think the guitar neck-as-road stripe might have been kind of clever if it was photographed better and didn't have that giant 1/2 Paisley head floating in front of it.

The guitar neck/lane divider is just too awful for words.

@beta.rogan: Agreed on the paisley. it's like you could see the marketing meeting that went into that. It says 5th Gear so why don't we photograph something out on route 66? How brilliant would it be if we put made road divider into a guitar! Don't forget to put a big picture of Paisley up! That's our money shot.

@summeroflove: Strike put, insert a. argh! No english today.

Why do we need 2 pictures of Brad Paisley? Pick either the horrible close up or the sobriety test, not both.

Animal Collective would win a lot of matches, but not this one.

Strawberry Jam's cover is just gross, not actively terrible. At least to me. Vote goes to Paisley.

My gut reaction caused me to vote for the Collective simply because it stabs the eye. That's a letdown since the AC usually have great, vivid cover designs. The 5th Gear cover is uninspired but not offensive - the font reminds me of so many racing video games from the mid-90s.

Brad got my vote because of that horrible "evil chipmunk", "deer-caught-in-the headlights", "Hey-I-got-hit-in-the-groin-by-a-football" look on his face in the half photo. Yuck.

I didn't think that anything would out-gross Animal Collective, but that guitar roadstripe and "Brad" in canned scriptish typeface just did it for me.

Animal Collective - gross but arty

Brad Paisley - lazy and inexcusable for a major label release. Looks like something sold on cdbaby.com

advantage: Paisley

Any sane food photographer would veto that Animal Collective album cover.

Oh man, please don't let your blog-rock loyalty overlook how horrible the Animal Collective cover is. It's even worse in person. I implore you! Vote for Animal Collective!

Is this even a contest?????????? How can Brad Paisley's cover look worse than some disgusting food????? Well, it doesn't. Brad does NOT look like a deer in the headlights. I think the guitar is really clever. That food makes me want to throw up, and reading how "Brad looks terrible." " the guitar is too awful for words" makes me want to hurt someone. It's fine to state your oppion. I mean I certainly am. Somebody said the writing looks like a race car game. Well, maybe its supposed to look that. 5TH GEAR, as in like cars. More on the guitar, people would be really shocked if he didn't have a guitar on the cover. Because he is the BEST guitar player of any genre. Anybody ever heard Time Warp? I don't know if people are against country music, Brad, or you honestly think his cover looks worse than that um food. No matter what the votes say Your cover is better than anything, Brad.