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“It’s like a body hijacker attack,” says JT Thompson, former lead singer of the 1970s US rock band Peter Rabbitt, looking at what is considered one of the world’s worst songs.
The 1979 album Roadstar shows all five members of the California rock band with their faces fixed on the bodies of rabbits, Thompson emerging, like a nightmare, smiling from a top hat.
“We didn’t know he was going to do it,” he said. “This actually happened after we broke up.”
The cover is one of several hundred that have been featured in the latest version of the show that has become something of a phenomenon.
Four years ago The Guardian unveiled the World’s Worst Covers in Huddersfield. Since then there have been many exhibitions in galleries and festivals, and will be on Edge of Edinburgh, shown at the Assembly Rooms Studios Bar in George Square later this year.
All the covers have been collected by the curator of the exhibition, Steve Goldman, and it all started with Peter Rabbitt – the reason why Thompson, from San Diego, was the guest of honor at his opening weekend at the Mansfield Museum in. Nottinghamshire.
Goldman said he bought a rabbit album 40 years ago for 10p because it had a bad cover. “It made me laugh … I was worried.”
He eventually lost the album but never forgot it and when the internet came along he was able to track down a copy of it.
He said: “When it arrived it was one of the happiest moments of my life. “That evening I said to my family, ‘you know what, I think I’m going to start collecting LP covers’.”
Goldman’s rule is that if it makes him laugh, he collects.
Among the albums shown are Oil and Vinegar and Dave McKenna / The Wilbur Little Quarter, and the naked family and their disturbing, perhaps disgusting, use of what could be chard; Gay Gay Songs by Paddy Roberts; Do You Wanna Hold Me By Johnny Carroll and Kris Jensen Sings: Abuse.
Goldman said his preferences change from week to week. He is currently covering All My Friends Are Dead with Freddie Gage, which features the singer – a Southern Baptist preacher – kneeling at the grave.
“It’s the most expensive album I’ve ever bought – £110 – but it’s worth every penny.”
Most of the albums are from the 1970s and 1980s, but artists and bands are still releasing albums with terrible covers.
Goldman points to the source album Norway’s Satanic Panic Attack, Handgemengin which five members of the group stripped naked to be touched by grief on the rug. “They just look funny,” Goldman said, laughing.
Because the Mansfield Museum will probably have more children visiting, some of the scary covers from Goldman’s collection will be missing. Not featured will be Letzte Naach German singer Kingsize Dick or Let Me Catch Him on the Minister’s Quartet.
On Friday, Thompson, 74, toured the show recognizing people he worked with over the years. There’s Dee Snider from Twisted Sister almost full of beef; and a nearly naked Ted Nugent with hands like a Terminator guitar.
“He’s a wild man,” said Thompson of Nugent. “One of those guys you never knew what was going to happen.”
Thompson said that when he first saw the rabbit album cover he thought it was ugly and “funny as hell… what can you do?”
Visitors are encouraged to vote for their favorite song covers and take part in divisive album selections, for example Prince’s album Lovesexy, featuring the singer, brooding, sitting naked on a giant lily pad. Dangerous or smart?
Goldman said her favorite part of the show is seeing people’s reactions. He hopes that people will laugh.
He remembers a friend seeing a song called The Nimble Fingers by Jean Pierre Jumez, which featured a guitarist in a dinner jacket and no pants.
“He laughed more than I’ve ever seen him in his life,” Goldman said. “That’s when I thought I had to show them. We still don’t know why they’re not wearing pants and I’m afraid.”
