Hilarious or nightmare? Gallery showcases the worst album covers of all time | music

“It’s like an invasion of rabbit body snatchers,” says JT Thompson, former lead singer of the 1970s American rock band Peter Rabbit, looking at what is considered one of the world’s worst record covers.

The 1979 album Roadstar shows all five members of the California rock band with their faces transformed into rabbit bodies, with Thompson appearing, like a terrible dream, smiling from a top hat.

“We had no idea they would do that,” he added. “This actually came up after we broke up.”

The cover is one of several hundred featured in the latest edition of the show that has become something of a phenomenon.

Four years ago, The Guardian presented the first exhibition of the world’s worst record covers in Huddersfield. Since then, it has had numerous exhibitions at galleries and festivals, and will be on display on the outskirts of Edinburgh at the Assembly Rooms Studios bar in George Square later this year.

All the covers were collected by the exhibition’s curator, Steve Goldman, and it all started with Peter Rabbit – which is why Thompson, from San Diego, was guest of honor for its opening at the weekend at the Mansfield Museum in Nottinghamshire.

Goldman said he bought the Rabbit album 40 years ago for 10p because it had a very poor cover. “He made me laugh…I was hysterical.”

He then lost the album but never forgot it, and when the Internet came along he was able to track down a copy.

“When I arrived, it was one of the happiest moments of my life,” he said. “That evening I said to my family, ‘You know what, I think I’m going to start collecting trashy LP covers.’”

Goldman’s rule of thumb is that if he makes him laugh, he collects them.

Among the albums featured are Oil and Vinegar by Dave McKenna/The Wilbur Little Quarter, with a nude couple and their disturbing, perhaps provocative, use of what might be chard; Songs for Gay Dogs by Paddy Roberts; Do You Wanna Touch Me by Johnny Carroll and Chris Jensen Sings: Torture.

Goldman said his favorites change week to week. At the moment, those songs include All My Friends Are Dead by Freddie Gage, which shows the singer — a Southern Baptist missionary — kneeling at a grave.

“It’s the most expensive album I’ve ever bought – £110 – but it’s worth every penny.”

Most albums are from the 70s and 80s, but singers and bands still release albums with terrible covers.

Goldman points to the album “Handgemeng” from the Norwegian Satanic Panic Attack album, in which the five band members strip naked to hug a rug in grief. “They just look comical,” Goldman said with a laugh.

Since the Mansfield Museum is likely to be visited by a lot of children, some of the more serious covers from the Goldman collection will be missing. Neither Letzte Naach by German folk singer Kingsize Dick nor Let Me Touch Him by the Minister Quartet will be featured.

On Friday, Thompson, 74, visited the exhibition to get to know the people he has worked with over the years. There’s Dee Snider from Twisted Sister about to eat a cow bone; And a semi-naked Ted Nugent with Terminator-like guitar arms.

“He’s a wild man,” Thompson said of Nugent. “One of those people where you never knew what was going to happen.”

Thompson said when he first saw the Bunny album cover he thought it was terrible but also “very funny… What can you do?”

Visitors will be encouraged to vote for the worst cover of their favorite album and also take part in a poll for the most divisive albums, for example Prince’s Lovesexy, which shows the singer, lost in thought, lying naked on a giant lily. Awesome or genius?

Goldman said his favorite activity during fairs is watching people’s reactions. He hopes people will laugh.

He remembers a friend seeing a record called The Nimble Fingers of Jean Pierre Jumez, which featured a concert guitarist wearing a dinner jacket and no pants.

“She laughed harder than I had ever seen her laugh in her life,” Goldman said. “And that’s when I decided I needed to show it. And I’m afraid we still don’t know why he’s not wearing pants.”