World's worst album cover?

Believe it or not, this post is related, albeit somewhat tangentially, to my area of expertise, breast cancer. It's also related to one of my great loves in life, namely loud, obnoxious rock and roll. Unfortunately, it involves bad art and an album cover so puzzling that, even when considering the source, I have a hard time figuring out just what the heck they were thinking when they put this album cover together.

I'm talking about, believe it or not, the cover of the new Ted Nugent album Love Grenade.

I know, I know, it's not as if one expects the cover of a Ted Nugent album to make sense. It's also not as though one expects it to be in any way tasteful. Most of the time these days, Ted has gone for minimalist album art, such as he did for Spirit of the Wild or Craveman, his last two albums (both of which, by the way, were actually quite good--not quite as good as his 1970s heyday, but better than the excreble Damn Yankees crap he put out in the late 1980s and early 1990s). And these days certainly no one expects anything other than songs about sex, hunting, and jingoism from Terrible Ted, who has inexplicably morphed from a rock 'n' roll madman to a right wing icon of some sort.

But how do we explain this album cover?

Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but, besides this being a really ugly album cover, what is a Claymation pink ribbon doing in front of a Claymation hand grenade? After all, a pink ribbon is the accepted symbol of breast cancer support? Is Ted saying that he's down with women in the fight to defeat breast cancer? Maybe that's the significance of the grenade. Maybe it's a Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch-like device, which, instead of having a cross on it, has the symbol of breast cancer awareness, the better to smite breast cancer with.

Who am I fooling? If such had been the intent, it might have been amusing, but remember: This is Ted Nugent we're talking about. Just look at a few of the song titles, and you'll see what I mean:

• Love Grenade
• Still Raising Hell
• Funk U
• Girl Scout Cookies
• Bridge Over Troubled Daughters

Hardly sounds like breast cancer awareness, does it?

In fact, I've heard part of Girl Scout Cookies. The song is practically an ode to pedophilia, with all sorts of double entendres based on the song title. Creepy. How on earth "family values" conservatives can view Ted Nugent as any sort of spokesperson for their cause is beyond me.

But it's even worse than that. If you dare, look at this "alternate" album cover. It's about as misogynistic as you can get. It makes his old chestnut from the 1970s Stranglehold look like sweetness and light. (You have been warned.)

You know, growing up in the Detroit area, I really used to like Ted Nugent's music back in the 1970s. No one could rock harder, louder, or crazier than he could. I saw him on at least three occasions during that time, and he always put on a hell of an ear-splitting show. Moreover, he even had a renaissance of sorts during the last decade or so. For example, Spirit of the Wild and Craveman are close to as good as his best stuff from his glory days 30 years ago. Sadly, this latest album, from what I've heard of it thus far, is even more raunchy and childish than his most raunchy and childish stuff from the distant past, such as Wang Dang Sweet Poontang or Wango Tango.

I guess I'll just never understand how conservatives can embrace this guy these days as a spokesperson--or ever, for that matter. Ted should stick to his bowhunting and do instrumental jams. He'd be less apt to look like such a creepy dirty old man that way.