Balance album cover

[Cato]

why isn't it banned? I think it's obviously child porn.

discuss...

[ZahZoo]

Banned... From what? The local landfill..?

[VHscraps]

It's an awful album cover, but my guess is that as a pre-internet era album there really wasn't the same kind of focus on the way the children are represented. It's not blatantly sexual, like the Scorpions' 'Virgin Killer', which I think has now been changed; and it has less nude children on it than Zeppelin's 'The Song Remains the Same' album cover.

It's just a bad and boring album cover that says to me: 'we are a band with no identity, and no direction, and our drummer is in charge of the cover art'.

It sort of sums up to me the lack of leadership that has overtaken the band's management of its own identity and legacy since the first Roth departure, and EVH assuming real control, which continues to this day.

To be fair to Alex, while he is the one responsible for picking the bad art on that album, he also apparently picked the 'Fair Warning' cover art, which is the only really good VH album cover.

I love the first album cover, of course, and the photos with the kind of vapor trail effect on the images of the band members - I think that cover does a good job of representing the band, and the sound of the band if you were picking it up and wondering, WTF is this. It says, 'in case you are wondering, the record sounds a bit like this looks - whoosh!'.

But all the other album covers have been pretty lame, really. ADKOT, which was ripped off from another album, is probably one of the better ones.

[Seshmeister]

The Van Hagar albums covers are all shit, 5150 is not just horrible it's also WTF?

OU812 is maybe the most appropriate as it just looks like a typical mediocre AOR album cover...

As for Van Halen, apart from Fair Warning 1984 get's an honorable mention but for the others it seems that the rush that they were recorded in was also reflected in the covers.

[Terry]

OU812 looks like a rip off of the Fair Warning inner album sleeve.

The 5150 album cover is...a bit ghey.

I'd agree Fair Warning and 1984 were the best album covers. The rest of the CVH ones were either generic or just plain lazy in the case of Diver Down.

[Nickdfresh]

I wonder if Sammy was contractually allowed to oil up the bodybuilder?

[Seshmeister]

I guess the Atlas struggling and then dropping the globe which had them inside was meant to show them as being heavy.

As the 80s continued Sammy and Ed got fatter as the music got lighter so it took on a whole new meaning.

It's like Bon Jovi calling their second album 7800 degrees Fahrenheit because that is the temperature at which rock melts, sometimes it's almost like the bands thought they could cover up their cheesy pop with marketing.

[Nickdfresh]

I guess the Atlas struggling and then dropping the globe which had them inside was meant to show them as being heavy.

As the 80s continued Sammy and Ed got fatter as the music got lighter so it took on a whole new meaning.

It's like Bon Jovi calling their second album 7800 degrees Fahrenheit because that is the temperature at which rock melts, sometimes it's almost like the bands thought they could cover up their cheesy pop with marketing.

Or maybe Atlas heard Why Can't This Be Love, and said "fuck this!"...

Sometimes there is truth in marketing...

[Terry]

I guess the Atlas struggling and then dropping the globe which had them inside was meant to show them as being heavy.

As the 80s continued Sammy and Ed got fatter as the music got lighter so it took on a whole new meaning.

It's like Bon Jovi calling their second album 7800 degrees Fahrenheit because that is the temperature at which rock melts, sometimes it's almost like the bands thought they could cover up their cheesy pop with marketing.

Bon Jerkoff. Sheep in wolves clothing. And 7800 degrees Fahrenheit probably DOES deserve mention for being one of the dumbest rock album names ever, so in that respect at least they were distinctive at something.

[Seshmeister]

It's important to point out that Bon Jovi never 'sold out' since they started out pop and if anything got more rock on the advice of their accountants.

No one would have objected if their second album had been called 175 Fahrenheit since that's the temperature that cheese curdles at...

They adjusted in their subsequent one to 174F and the rest is history...

[Nickdfresh]

Bon Jovi had some severe delusions of grandeur in trying to become an NFL owner by purchasing the Buffalo Bills, lying about keeping them in Buffalo, and then moving them to Toronto, ONT. That's fine, but he doesn't have near enough money to own a team despite his apparent hard-on for hob nobbing with NFL owners as sort of a hangers-on and towel boy. He had something going with the Canadian cable giant Rogers, but what his actual role was I know not. Like were they going to have the actual money while he was the PR face? It just seemed to be so douchey that it made everyone pretty leery, including a lot of people in Toronto...

[damngoodtimes]

OU812 was a ripoff/homage to the Meet the Beatles album cover. As if that was a worthy comparison....

[Seshmeister]

Bon Jovi had some severe delusions of grandeur in trying to become an NFL owner by purchasing the Buffalo Bills, lying about keeping them in Buffalo, and then moving them to Toronto, ONT. That's fine, but he doesn't have near enough money to own a team despite his apparent hard-on for hob nobbing with NFL owners as sort of a hangers-on and towel boy.

I was under the impression that most NFL owners are some of the biggest douchebag pricks in the world but I don't pay very close attention.

[Seshmeister]

Talking of album covers and Bon Jovi the late 80s was the period where the famed rock album designer Hugh Symes worked out a way of making his living by simply going down to his local bathroom tiling center.

I wonder how much he got for churning this same stuff out again and again - no one seemed to notice.























Anyone starting to notice a theme?


The guy has done dozens of album covers for everyone including just about everything Rush ever put out but it is funny that there was that commercial hard rock bathroom tile phase for a few years back then...

[78/84 guy]

I guess the Atlas struggling and then dropping the globe which had them inside was meant to show them as being heavy.

As the 80s continued Sammy and Ed got fatter as the music got lighter so it took on a whole new meaning.

It's like Bon Jovi calling their second album 7800 degrees Fahrenheit because that is the temperature at which rock melts, sometimes it's almost like the bands thought they could cover up their cheesy pop with marketing.

I always took it as a shot at Roth. He's Atlas holding up the Van Halen world....or so he thought. Then Van Hagar breaks out and crushes him......laughable really, then and now listening to the music....