It’s hard to believe, but there was an era, long ago, in which CDs, cassette tapes, and even vinyl albums were purchased and carried around. These primitive objects had to be covered with something, anything, really. There are some awful album covers out there. We’ve all seen them, but the genre in which artists seemed to truly excel in the realms of the gaudy, vulgar, and simply bizarre is . . . heavy metal (let us not forget some of the truly classic heavy metal album covers).

Head on over to MusicRadar.com to scroll through the list of the worst of the worst. We’ll start you out with six choice examples.

I’m not sure, but I think I drew this one on the inside flap of my Trapper Keeper in seventh grade. How they got their hands on it, Lord only knows.

I would never have drawn something this stupid (meaning it’s incredibly awesome).

Then, we can just oil the guys in the band up for the cover . . .