Tuesday 24th December 2013 by Andrew Trendell

In these days of the download and streaming, it could be assumed that the album cover was a dead artform, but unless you're Kanye West, decent artwork is still part and parcel of getting your new album out of the studio, through the label and into people's homes.

Beautiful covers can turn your record collection into an art gallery, whereas these hideous specimens would turn it into a twisted nightmare. 

Admittedly, most album covers will only be viewed on a mobile phone handset or non-brand specific MP3 player, but that's still no excuse for some of the stinkers that have offended our eyes in 2013. There have been some intentionally terrible album covers from the likes of Action Bronson and Earl Sweatshirt (mission achieved, well done the rap world), but desperately earnest album covers from the likes of James Blunt and Matt Cardle have been equally terrible.

We're not judging the music content here, and in fact there are some bloody brilliant albums in this collection, it's just, some of them are so bloody ugly...