AlkemestRedux
05.01.26 | we hate to see it don't we folks |
RunOfTheMill
05.01.26 | Pestilence - Levels of Perception almost had an AI cover, but fans rightfully bullied Patrick Memelli to replace it with a very boring "these are the band members" album cover |
Devastator
05.01.26 | August Burns Red - Death Below is a hilariously obvious slop cover |
Trebor.
05.01.26 | The worst part about AI to me is that I now have to consider whether something is AI or not. I'll catch myself saying to myself "This is AI slop" but I check the date of the content and it's from 3 years ago or whatever so it's just regular slop!
I honestly feel bad for people who make bad art now because people think it's AI lol
AI is the devil so it makes sense that Deicide used it |
Sharenge
05.01.26 | I'm not AI you're AI |
AlkemestRedux
05.01.26 | Added that Mickey Mouse ABR cover. That's pretty bad lol
And yeah I hate second guessing too. The silver lining is maybe it'll kill social media? Or more likely just drive everyone insane. |
pyroflare77
05.01.26 | Latest metal church |
frozencarl
05.01.26 | Vision Divine - Blood and Angels' Tears (confirmed)
Disarmonia Mundi - The Dormant Stranger (pretty sure confirmed)
The Unguided - Hellven (idk if the art is AI, but they are using tf out of AI to make videos promoting the "lore" of their albums. its gross) |
AlkemestRedux
05.01.26 | oof some hearty servings of slop |
unclereich
05.01.26 | it's fun and easy to make album covers. we'd mess with ms paint in high school and make ones for albums that didn't exist. i don't see what a band is gaining by not taking 5 minutes to make one w/o ai. very odd. most offenders seem to be boomers though who a fucking obsessed with it so makes sense |
budgie
05.01.26 | somehow less bad than all the photoshbop album covers from early to mid 2000s ,lol |
arthropod
05.01.26 | Myrath since at least two LPs |
Scoot
05.01.26 | https://open.spotify.com/album/5lJs3JfIysz3GOO1u9nyQJ?si=bLgGZYRaRViN0S8E7CQqhQ
this was 1000% made with gemini |
brickhed
05.01.26 | i would rather take photoshop abominations than something that took literally zero effort and maybe a bit of thought. it's art, not sure why AI has to take over that department, too. |
DaveyMonsoon
05.01.26 | Grave Digger's most recent album is definitely AI. Same with the latest Dark Angel album. |
budgie
05.01.26 | i too am terrified at what ai will do to the world but there's a pretty incredible amount of input controls that can go into the generated media. sure you can just type in "tree" into a generic model and get a picture of a tree, but if you can also make a full shortfilm about a tree that can look and be about whatever you want, there's basically no limit, and that takes making your own workflows and using different models maybe creating your own specialized models &c. there's a whole lot of finesse probably would take average joe with no coding or real PC experience a year+ to be able to produce something out of his own mind |
pyroflare77
05.02.26 | idk using AI still feels like bashing your head against a wall until the blood spatter looks close enough to what you want |
ConcubinaryCode
05.02.26 | Its obvious to me now that you say it but i didnt register these were made with AI seeing them before. |
ArsMoriendi
05.02.26 | Hmmm it's all metal and hardcore?
Did anyone notable do it outside of those genres?
Well I guess there's that music video Erykah Badu made with Alchemist, but that's not album art |
JoyfulPlatypus
05.02.26 | It's not an album cover, but I remember when 30 Seconds To Mars was doing their anniversary tour of A Beautiful Lie, they put out a SUPER shitty AI promo video that featured younger 2005-era Jared Leto meeting modern day Jared Leto.
And yeah it's bad just for being lazily AI-generated, but I can't stress enough how shitty the quality of this video was. |
NudeTayne
05.02.26 | set fire to your local data centers yeah |
SAPoodle
05.02.26 | Pretty much all the recent Merzbow releases have AI covers |
Asdfp277
05.02.26 | it always looks ugly as shit smh |
bach
05.02.26 | @Ars
Tears for Fears did it on their last live record. |
bach
05.02.26 | besides marveling at the capabilities of modern tech, all of this shit is pointless. all ai art makes me really depressed and lacks any soul or emotion. You're telling me Glenn Benton cant commission some twink on deviantart to draw up a picture of Jesus sawing his own head off for the new album? But i bet their record label is selling dumb shit like deicide leg warmers and mouse pads or some shit. what happened to the networking of artists across different mediums? like do you know how many youth pastors would love to do the art work for the new abr album? |
Pennywise_M
05.02.26 | I remember being pissed for a whole year about the ABR cover. Album was also one of their weakest imo |
Aerisavion
05.02.26 | “I remember when 30 Seconds To Mars was doing their anniversary tour of A Beautiful Lie, they put out a SUPER shitty AI promo video that featured younger 2005-era Jared Leto meeting modern day Jared Leto.”
Gross. |
cloakanddagger
05.02.26 | If you're a small artist with a limited budget, use public domain artwork.
If you're a big artist with a less limited budget, pay an actual artist.
There's no excuse imo, fuck this soulless ugly slop that steals work from actual artists and destroys the environment in the process. |
Aerisavion
05.02.26 | Hate to say it but sadly it looks like we’ve reached a point where there really is no going back… the likelihood is that AI cover art will probably become an increasingly common trend as people just give up fighting it. |
DoofDoof
05.02.26 | In the ranking of all my biggest fears about how AI will influence my life this rates outside the top 1000.
Still not a great thing though.
AI art should be restricted to the comedy potential tbh, because it does have comedy potential |
Dizchu
05.02.26 | tbh the best thing to do at this point is identify the aspects of art that AI slop is limited to and just... avoid them lol. so no more hyper-detailed surrealism, sorry. |
Sharenge
05.02.26 | can't stop the slop |
Azazzel
05.02.26 | an embarrassing amount for metal when you line them all up. https://rateyourmusic.com/list/BeardAlmighty/ai-hell-ai-album-cover-master-list/1/
I stumbled on the the Therion live album from this year 'Con orquesta' and when I searched it up to confirm found a post their fb page vociferously defending that it was not AI, that they would never and here look at this test result! but it so obviously is and if you look up the artist it was contracted out to his portfolio is rife with it. poor boomers. |
brickhed
05.02.26 | going through that list actually made my head hurt |
mryrtmrnfoxxxy
05.02.26 | butthole surfers- the new live album with an ai housefly cover
list of lame ass losers imo hire artists fuckos |
ArsMoriendi
05.02.26 | Damn an actual artist I like has an AI cover...lame |
mryrtmrnfoxxxy
05.02.26 | what do you mean cyan isnt a shade of blue |
ArsMoriendi
05.02.26 | It isn't |
Asdfp277
05.02.26 | i think it's both a shade of blue AND a shade of green |
Pennywise_M
05.02.26 | "the likelihood is that AI cover art will probably become an increasingly common trend as people just give up fighting it."
Couldn't be more true and this will be happening in all areas of life. |
Gameofmetal
05.02.26 | Idk what world you guys think you're living in but the majority of the public has become quickly hostile to generative AI and it's very demonstrably made a lot of businesses and artists back off using it. We're beating this shit, stop being cowards and rolling over for it from the jump.
Do not give me this helpless "welp it's happening anyway" bit, just be for it or against it like someone with a spine. |
Asdfp277
05.02.26 | personaly i don't care how normalized it might become, i'm still complaining. i stay complaining |
brickhed
05.02.26 | I just avoid anything gen AI. if I suspect it, I look for signs. and id im right I generally don't touch that person/website/whatever with a 20 foot pole.
I feel like people don't understand it enough to be cautious or do it because its easy and using brain hard |
unclereich
05.02.26 | next list goy slop album covers |
Kimm
05.03.26 | "Hmmm it's all metal and hardcore?
Did anyone notable do it outside of those genres?"
Kesha did in 2024 for her single, 'Delusional', and then changed it in 2025 after the backlash:
“When making the single art for my song ‘Delusional,’ I wanted to make the point that it’s DELUSIONAL that the world expects artists to continue making art when we are so undervalued. I’ve realized that living in alignment with my integrity is more important than proving a point"
I have a crazy and inexplicable affinity for Kesha, but even I thought that was pretty cringe (and possibly bullshit) |
Dizchu
05.03.26 | "the likelihood is that AI cover art will probably become an increasingly common trend as people just give up fighting it."
I don't think this is such a bad thing, there's already too much music in the world to fully digest. If an album has AI art it's a good indication the band doesn't care and neither should I. |
Dreamflight
05.03.26 | Good point.
And If you're a small band who can't afford to pay a designer / illustrator try to come up with something simpler for your artwork. You don't need all that larger than life grandiose crap that's on that RYM list, which ultimately turns out into smt lifeless and stale. Sometimes less is more. And there are tons of examples out there (candlemass self-titled and COL's Salvation come to mind).
It's especially frustrating seeing big bands like Dream Theater or Venom on that list. |
Krpa
05.03.26 | The Pineapple Thief's It Leads to This has an AI-generated cover. I love the band so I'm a bit saddened to see that. |
Dizchu
05.03.26 | The crazy thing is when these generated slop covers are made by established album artists. Makes you question how much thought or care they put into their pre-AI work. |
Hyperion1001
05.03.26 | “ I don't think this is such a bad thing, there's already too much music in the world to fully digest. If an album has AI art it's a good indication the band doesn't care and neither should I.”
this is exactly my feeling. i already use bad album art to filter releases, so AI garbage has just become another addition to that filter. |
Dizchu
05.03.26 | Terrible artwork should come from the heart, not a prompt. Consuming Impulse by Pestilence is one of the goofiest album covers I've ever seen but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Certainly not for some disposable generislop ephemera. |
heck
05.03.26 | the label Reigning Phoenix Music (formerly Atomic Fire) released multiple albums on this list and seems to have a track record of using AI for most of their less-major releases (meaning not artists like Meshuggah, Opeth, etc.) |
Dreamflight
05.03.26 | "The Pineapple Thief's It Leads to This has an AI-generated cover. I love the band so I'm a bit saddened to see that."
Seriously, these guys needed AI to create this? That's just laziness. |
kkarron
05.03.26 | yeah Consuming Impulse is a true all-timer |
TheAntichrist
05.04.26 | ai is fvckin' awful unless u like the great displacement of humans which sounds like something satan my baby daddy would enjoy but even he can't get behind that cus he's got a way of culling the herd which doesn't involve copyright infringement and stealing jobs and all that fvcked up stuff |
ToSmokMuzyki
05.04.26 | i for one welcome our ai overlords |
Christbait
05.04.26 | ^^AI is so dumb cause it scrapes content like yours, Smok.
I doubt that DT cover is AI. They just make horrific album covers period. |
ToSmokMuzyki
05.04.26 | nah i could never do what ai does |
Christbait
05.04.26 | You do it every day, bud. You're like grok with a viking fetish. |
ToSmokMuzyki
05.04.26 | these beauties are beyond my imagination:
https://ibb.co/Vc93mbqJ
https://ibb.co/bMzvFcG7
https://ibb.co/TM0dZZ97 |
Donchivo
05.04.26 | To be honest some of thsee albums sound like AI slop too. like writing a prompt: 'please create an album sounding in line with these 15 previous albums of the band'.
|
Tunaboy45
05.04.26 | The only two AI-generated album covers I can tolerate are Squid's Bright Green Field and Everything Everything's Raw Data Feel, primarily because:
a) it was still a new, novel exciting technology at the time and both bands have since said they wouldn't use it again
b) it was an intentional stylistic choice and not a way to lazily cut corners or avoid having to pay an actual artist
c) they weren't using commercially available platforms, they worked with academics to develop programmes and provided the input themselves, unlike a lot of the albums here where the band clearly just put a load of lazy prompts into ChatGPT |
ToSmokMuzyki
05.04.26 | my only problem with the venom cover is theyve done it 4 other times already |
RunOfTheMill
05.04.26 | I hate to say it, but I'm reminded of Judas Priest's Invincible Shield
idk if the actual album cover is AI, I don't think it is (Mark Wilkinson has been making these kinds of illustrations for decades) but there is art in the liner notes that is so obviously AI it hurts
seriously some doodles on loose-leaf paper would be 10000% more endearing and interesting |
AlkemestRedux
05.04.26 | Gonna start adding some more today m/// |
RunOfTheMill
05.04.26 | lmao all of this depresses me |
Dizchu
05.04.26 | rage against the dying of the light |
Feather
05.04.26 | Megadeth potentially |
butt.
05.04.26 | That ABR absolutely takes the cake. AI was still just abstract garbage at that point too, you can spot it from a mile away. Such a stain on their legacy lmao |
Christbait
05.04.26 | I remember a couple of years ago when image AI was really making waves and I was able to get like 5 prompts worth of free "art". I remember thinking, "oh these look pretty cool" and then immediately forgot about it and have never been compelled to use it since. You could just see how soulless it all seemed. It was during the time where AI was seemingly copying nothing but Salvador Dali since all my prompts returned an image mid-melt. |
cylinder
05.04.26 | i'm disappointed in the Butthole Surfers |
BookoftheFallen
05.04.26 | the new Rage album |
Deathconscious
05.04.26 | The Pestilence dumbfucks are at it again lol. |
unclereich
05.09.26 | Action Bronson- planet frog |
Djang0
05.09.26 | "I doubt that DT cover is AI. They just make horrific album covers period."
True however Hugh Syme is known to use stock images and likeness of other works to create his god awful art and I would not be shocked if he's eating gen AI up. The tour visuals looked almost entirely AI too lol
Also it was prolly mentioned in this thread but it's common for artists to AI generate separate assets but them compose them together (as if that makes it better) |
BSX
05.09.26 | you can get copyright free png images and layer them together to get something similar to these albums. . . or pay an actual artist. |
ScuroFantasma
05.09.26 | > and destroys the environment in the process.
Super overblown but very popular talking point unfortunately
I don’t really care about AI, but there’s nothing really special about AI data centres compared to any other, and there’s nothing particularly special about data centres compared to other sources of pollution, water and energy consumption, heat etc. You’re better off skipping a single beef patty than skipping AI prompts for a lifetime.
Can still talk about it being a contributor or whatever but scale is really important. |
Wilt
05.09.26 | Hundredth - Faded Splendor |
XingKing
05.09.26 | Stormo - Endocannibalismo. AI skramz art |
brickhed
05.09.26 | "Super overblown but very popular talking point unfortunately"
what, does it make it invalid? even if you ignore that, it lives in a modern age limbo of exploiting unregulation and using lobbying to keep AI unregulated (sounds familiar). then there's stuff like Texas politics that use corruption to have data centers all over. not even gonna get into the horrendous noise pollution and how it's slowly killing rural residents
is the AI scandal of the week still alive and strong? it was for a good few months this year. |
ScuroFantasma
05.10.26 | > what, does it make it invalid?
Yeah, it does. AI has a lot of other issues, as you’re mentioning and which are worth addressing separately, including noise and air pollution, but energy and water consumption just aren’t really up there, at least not to any special degree, but that’s one of the main talking point against it. Your average golf course uses more water than a data centre, but I don’t think that’s the impression most people would have if you read headlines about it. That wasn’t my impression either, until I looked into it a bit. |