15 Bands That Really Shouldn’t Have Been On The Cover Of A Magazine


The hoopla over that Boise Weekly preview of a Nickelback concert – and the hate and love that followed its printing and Internet success – got me thinking about another dumb band with a dumb name that has become a musical punchline due to their unwarranted success. Here’s a hint: “*Sings a bunch of nonsense about sacrifice, while sounding like a growling Eddie Vedder with a dildo from Kid Rock’s collection stuck in his throat.”

I’m, of course, referring to Creed, whose second album, Human Clay, has gone 11 times platinum, good enough to be one of the top-selling records…in U.S. history. (It’s tied with Nevermind and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, among others.) As you can see above, they were also once popular enough to grace the cover of Spin, when that still meant something. (It should be noted that this isn’t relegated to just Spin; being on a magazine cover has lost much of its shine over the past decade – I’d like to think it’s because Shel Silverstein wrote “The Cover of The Rolling Stone,” but really, it’s because LOL printed word.) Ask any Spin editor now about whether they regret their decision to take a photo of a shirtless Scott Stapp and put it into newsstands and mailboxes worldwide and they’d take a shot of whiskey and proceed to repeat “WHY WHY WHY” for hours and hours, until they finally collapsed out of exhaustion. Yeah, Creed will do that to you.

Here are 15 (mostly crappy) bands and artists on magazine covers that must have made sense at the time.


It’s sexist AND dumb. Like Jessica! (Via)

A part of me was hoping that I had just imagined Gay Dad after eating a bad slice of eel pie. Nope. (Via)

Is “no one’s” an option? Also: could use more Dashboard Confessional. (Via)

I love “Torn” as much as the next guy, but Natalie Imbruglia as the “perfect pop star”? Does that mean fellow one-hit-wonders Deep Blue Something are the perfect rock stars? The answer: yes. (Via)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

“Low Fidel-ity.” (Via)

This magazine cover would make for amazing rolling paper. (Via)

I’ll let Danger Guerrero explain this cover in the comments. (Via)

And Burnsy for this one. (Via)

I think they confused the “Jewish Lesbian Folk Singer” with Charlie Sexton. (Via)

It’s the backwards pink hat that sells this cover. Not the “sex, golf, & rock and roll” or the yellow shirt or the affirmative action headline or the Jesus Lizard having to share space with Hootie and the Blowfish, but the backwards pink hat. (Via)

That guitar was one day away from retirement. (Via)

If you read the text from top-to-bottom, it says, “Poo.” Heh. (Via)

Let’s add another ellipsis:

“…and came out on top

…and then lost it all and went on to host Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious.” (Via)

I had felt bad cutting Stapp off at the torso. Well, not so much bad as, were it only true. (Via)

Survey says: two pieces of wood that grow when doing something naughty. (Via)

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