The Worst Band Photo in History

No, what you see above is not the photograph in question.  Keep reading for the reveal.  Oh why, ghastly world of ours, why do you permit such things to exist?  It’s band photos of this nature that make us question if there really is a point to it all.  The answer in this case is no, we’re only here to entertain ourselves until we die, to quote something a friend said to me years ago, and usually in the form of people feeding laxatives to seagulls or writings articles such as this.  So, let us carry you into death with the only true article ever written on the subject.  There are plenty out there, we know, but here, at Deaf Sparrow, we are about to introduce to truly the worst band photo ever taken, for any genre, for all time.  Nothing can overcome the dreadfulness of this photo, unless purposefully arranged, but that doesn’t work and that’s the true beauty of achieving the title of “Worst Band Photo in History.”  It has to be an accident, it has to be an instance of that ‘one thing’ life is directed towards, of achieving that one mark of greatness for which you will never be forgotten.  2Black is a thrash/power metal outfit from out of Switzerland.  Honestly, their latest release, Mind Infect, is decent, though highly-produced, modern thrash.  Let’s state again our stance that thrash should very rarely be so produced, but the point is they play well, they put together well, and it sounds like thrash, so that’s nice.  Before we show you the horror, let us take you into a bit of the release so you can see what we mean, via this video promo on Youtube.

 

 

Now then, that’s out of the way, let us move on to an investigation of this, the worst band photo ever taken.  2Black consists of four guys and one girl (on bass, in case you were interested), and apparently rose from the ashes of an old Swiss thrash band called Excruciation, or at least one of the members came from this former creation of the early 1980s.  Now, they play highly-produced thrash, and that’s fine.  What is not fine is the album art leading to the subsequent horror of the worst band photo ever taken on Mind Infect.  Let’s analyze by starting with this, an altered version of the photo that started this article.

Here we have a simple band-shot of 2Black.  Typical metal, atypical for thrash because we don’t have any battle jackets.  But the rest is there.  The serious faces, the gray overtones, the classic metal shirts, at least two of which have no sleeves, yeah that’s what we’d expect.  Nothing wrong with this at all, nothing unique, much like the music itself, but it easily achieves a passing grade with little effort.  Now let us consider the actual album art.

Now then, Mind Infect, somewhat above-average thrash aside, has a pretty cool cover.  Really, this is beautiful artwork when you consider it.  Album title, clear, okay, we got that, something about the mind being infected, likely by typical things (films, pop culture, sex, drugs, etc.).  2Black decided to focus primarily on the sexual element, with the utilization of female and male genitalia that feed into the brain design.  Whoever did this artwork, which seems to be an oil painting, is actually quite skilled.  The image, though nothing necessarily unique, is confrontational in its design, so it works with the theme of the album.  Now then, imagine combining the above with the same band photo we saw earlier, and you get the following, which is the photograph in question, utilizing Photoshop for some fading so they bleed together.  You ready for this?

Oh no.  No no no nnooooo.  Here it is, folks, the worst band photo in history.  Nothing can defeat it. Taken directly from the traycard, by the way (the cardboard insert that sits directly under the CD in its case).  What’s interesting is that the photo itself, and the artwork behind it, actually work perfectly fine in separation.  When combined, you see the result.  It all comes down to one little detail.  Other photos that have vied for this coveted title have involved innuendo, kitschy backdrops, ridiculous band names that also lead into innuendo, and the like.  Here, however, innuendo is taken to the level of WTF.  If you can’t see it, let’s spell it out.  Dude in the center has a vagina.  Yes, that’s right, stare, let it all sink in.  The thing here is so simple, it’s shocking the designer didn’t pick up on it.  In fact, when I first popped this in to listen to it, my eyes immediately went to the vagina when I looked.  The fact that the perspective is nearly perfect, making it truly look like his lower portion is that of a woman in the nude (with a large penis conveniently near), it’s almost unbelievable no one noticed it.  Was it some joke of the artist?  Was there perhaps a blood feud finalized via this work?  That would require asking the band, but at this point we’ll save them further embarrassment and leave it at this.  This is a case of quality control, friends, and very carefully inspecting your work before you release it.  If you’ve started at it too much to miss something like this, have a fresh pair of eyes check it out.

 

Written by Stanley Stepanic