Coverology: judge these records by their covers

Hurley

Hands All Over

I could spend time listening to and then commenting on the cultural significance of and/or the musical contributions of two new albums by bands I've come to absolutely loathe. I really could. But why bother? What's the point? Much has already been written elsewhere (I assume, because I haven't bothered reading any of it, to be honest) about Weezer's Hurley and Maroon 5's Hands All Over.

No sense in adding to the public outcry, the weeping and wailing these records must have caused all across the country.  There's nothing to gain in subjecting myself to all the layers of gut-wrenching putridness -- the cliched phrases and recycled riffs. I get the spins just thinking about it all...

No need to listen to the records. Just look at them!  Both have covers that encapsulate in detail the depth of  tacky godawful-ness just beneath the surface. Maybe people don't pay much attention to these things, but if you think about it, both bands have created beacons of badness with these so-called artworks. These records don't just hurt to hear, they're tough to look at.

Take Hurley, a closeup headshot of a paunchy Lost character of the same name. The cover accomplishes much worth loathing at one glance. First is that sepia-70s toned high school photo quality -- the ironic hipster-cool corny that's exemplary of the lame nostalgic pastiche in which Weezer's Rivers Cuomo has trafficked from the get go. It's also a low-cultural reference that, like so much pop culture cross referencing today, is of no apparent relevance whatsoever -- think of the eternally unfunny Family Guy for instance. 

Like so much of his music lately, Cuomo has gone for the one-shot, one-dimensional gag "Hah! It's the fat guy from Lost! What will Weezer do next! Nyuk, nyuk nyuk...." No, this promises to be as obese and uncomfortably sweaty a work as the fella whose face is on the cover.

But one can at least take Hurley for being a tongue in cheek gag, a goofball quality that can't explain the weird and woeful cover art of Maroon 5's Hands All Over. Like the band, this cover has a certain faux sexiness that recalls Victoria Secret and Herbal Essences shampoo commercials . Has the woman's hair been shocked by static electricity? Set aloft by an off-camera fan? or just moussed to look like either/or? 

And the extra hands... Why? Is she being molested by a pole-thin man? Are those arms hers? Is she Shiva?  And then, what is she doing to herself? There are many men, it seems, who believe women spend their free time behind closed doors in nude self embrace. I'm sure the eternally prepubescent-voiced Adam Levine feels this way about women. Maybe he feels like this kind of woman... 

It certainly sums up the the thematic variations of Maroon 5's songs, all of which are about loving, losing and longing for girls named Jane or Kara, etc and so forth. Like this picture, Maroon 5 is a bad attempt at  seductive (don't know about you, but I draw the line at four arms...) -- repulsive and phony at the same time. Not to mention the inexplicable bad taste, the thorough absence of cool. 

You see, you don't need to listen to records to know what they're like. If an album looks bad, it probably is bad.