Kanye West‘s 2016 release The Life of Pablohas made it into the top 10 of a list by Rolling Stone, but not for a good reason: the magazine voted TLOP the seventh-worst album cover of all time.
The list of “The 50 Worst Album Covers of All Time” was published on Friday (July 19).
AD LOADING...
“[D]oes he actually believe that this is a compelling album cover, or is he trying to push an eyesore aesthetic so far that it goes around the bend and becomes art, or is he just too distracted by the squirrels inside his head to care?” the magazine wrote of Ye and Pablo‘s cover.
“The answer: It doesn’t matter! Just like Ye said actual antisemitic things, and you don’t have to waste your time parsing whether he was being ‘ironic,’ you can say that whatever his intentions were, this album got hit by the ugly stick and then move on.”
AD LOADING...
Just a few places above Kanye at number 10 is one of two other Hip Hop albums to make the cut, Cappadonna’s 2021 LP Black Tarzann.RS calls it “the worst Photoshop atrocities of the 21st century.”
The “winner” at number one is Limp Bizkit’s 2000 release Presents Chocolate St★rfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water.
AD LOADING...
In addition to placing in the top ten in a worst-covers-of-all-time list, West has been facing some other recent setbacks. He was recently sued for allegedly using uncleared samples on his 2021 release Donda.
According to a report from Billboard, a case was filed in Los Angeles federal court on Wednesday (July 17) accusing Ye of borrowing elements from a song called “MSD PT2” for Donda cuts “Hurricane” and “Moon” – even after he was denied permission.
This, the lawyers write, was less about not paying a fee and more about the fact that “intellectual property owners have a right to decide how their property is exploited and need to be able to prevent shameless infringers from simply stealing.”
The suit notes that in an act of “blatant brazenness,” Ye even credited the song’s four creators as songwriters.
AD LOADING...
The suit was filed not by the artists, however, but by a company called Artist Revenue Advocates (ARA), which owns the copyrights to “MSD PT2.” The four writers went to ARA after they “unsuccessfully attempted to collect their share of the proceeds from these songs” for nearly three years.
