Avert Your Eyes: It’s The Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament’s Elite 8

Above, your quarterfinalists in our Worst Album Cover Of The Year Tournament. Themes that I am noticing are common: Inappropriate chewing; the color purple; clouds and stars (but no green clovers); more bad fonts than you can shake a copy of The Print Shop at. Also of note: only one of the cover subjects is smiling, although it is Toby Keith, so you know that he’s just doing it to be an ass.

Here’s how the final three rounds are going to work: Today and tomorrow, we’ll have the bracket faceoffs. Christmas Eve will kick off the semifinal round–because what’s more suited to the holidays than looking at some aesthetic travesties?–and voting for that round will close at 11:59 p.m. next Wednesday, Dec. 26. Then the finals will begin next Thursday at 10 a.m., with voting closing–and a winner being declared–sometime around noon on New Year’s Eve. (Jess and I have a half day and I’m certainly not going to spend my first minutes of 2008 mucking around with our poll software.) Anyone have thoughts on a prize that we can send to the No. 1 offender’s art department? Perhaps a Spirograph?

Earlier: The tournament so far