Display of horrendous album sleeves to hit the Edinburgh Fringe

Customers at Assembly’s George Square Studios bar during the Fringe will be able to feast their eyes on a collection of the world’s most awful record covers.

They come from the collection of Steve Goldman – a computer programmer from Huddersfield – who has been collecting examples of the genre for a decade, and has even published some of them in a book.

His interest began when he bought Roadstar by Peter Rabbitt in a bargain bin for 10p 40 years ago.

‘I picked it up simply because it had such an extraordinarily bad cover – rabbits picked out of a hat, with the band's awkward faces amateurishly superimposed,’ he said. ‘Subsequently, I lost it and had never been able to find another copy. Someone told me about Discogs.com, a website where you can pick up old and obscure vinyl records. 

‘To my delight I found it there. I searched for a couple of other albums I knew of and I was off… I remember the moment I said to my family, "I’m going to start collecting dreadful album covers." That was ten years ago. Some people spend fortunes collecting fine art but no one collects dreadful LP covers.’

His collection now numbers 700, and he explains: ‘To get in my collection the album covers have to be unintentionally funny. I want records where the designers have tried to do something that’s gone horribly wrong. It can’t just be a performer in bad clothes or with an ugly face – though there are a couple of those that have got in that were irresistible! 

‘And it all has to be good clean family fun- I don’t collect any album covers that are gory, violent, sexist, homophobic or racist.’

He has shared his collections at music festivals, galleries and museums and on Instagram – while it has featured on  Radio 4’s Front Row and  BBC Breakfast as well as in The Guardian, Metro and the i newspaper. 

An accompanying book The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve, released in November 2023, features a foreword by Stewart Lee, who described the excruciating experience of reviewing the covers selected for the book.

‘I love records and I’m professionally obliged, as a stand-up comedian, to see the funny side of things, and so when they asked me to write a few hundred words introducing The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve I thought it would be fun. But I was wrong. Very wrong.

‘The relentless low quality and relentlessly poor aesthetic choices of the sleeves made me despair of humanity itself. I began to hate mankind for its ineffable and inexcusable shitness, its natural tendency towards ugliness and stupidity.

‘Up to a point kitsch is funny, then it begins to speak of our collective failure to understand true beauty, and makes me feel sickened to my soul. I began to hate this whole project, and specifically the men behind it.

More than 150 examples will be on display at the Assembly George Square Studios bar. Goldman, who had a stroke in 2020, aged 53, asks visitors to the free exhibition to make a donation to Different Strokes, a charity that supports young stroke survivors.

He said: ‘We’re looking forward to decorating the inside of the bar with dreadful, ill-conceived imagery, design failures, dodgy haircuts and musicians who really should have known better. 

‘In a festival full of people trying their hardest to make you laugh, the Worst Record Covers In The World exhibition is a chance to see just how simple it can be when you’re not trying.’

Published: 9 Jul 2026