I came across this record this week in a Value Village. I was attending a wedding out of town so I decided to go and do some digging the day before. Most Value Villages have the same picked over stock littered with Barbara Streisand and Bee Gees albums so expectations were low. In the third stack, behind a copy of a beat up Dionne Warwick album
After I paid my $1.49, I could not find a record player fast enough. Was the music as terrible as the cover? Luckily, it was worse.
"You're My Superwoman, You're My Incredible Man" by Louise Mandrell and RC Bannon is possibly the most perfect example of the bad album. From the cover art which features both artists in super hero costumes that look like they were stitched together from the polyester remains of the wardrobe department of "The Greatest American Hero" set to the comic sans font on the back cover, this album has absolutely every bullet point when going down a checklist of bad album must-haves. Case in point... The back cover has a picture of Ms. Mandrell holding a stool with one hand. On this stool sits Mr. Bannon, looking like a creepy child lover, eating an ice cream cone. His facial expression says, "Come hither young boy for I want to lick you in the manner in which I am licking this yummy strawberry cone." Too friggin' disturbing!!! I love it!!!
Although, Ms. Mandrell does know how to fill out a knock-off Wonder Woman costume, she should never have agreed to this. Seriously... who would ever let themselves be photographed for something that was just waiting to come back to haunt them in a random internet blog decades later? The art director, whose name is actually on the cover, Gabrielle Raumberger, should have been bashed in the head with the heaviest, bluntest instrument available at the time. A public lynching would not have been an over reaction.
The music is your standard country fare from this era. Mundane and boring it does not do the cover art justice. I am not sure what they would have had to record to live up to the this eyesore. One of the tracks, "Some Of My Best Friends Are Old Songs," actually makes me feel that some of my best friends are old, SHITTY album covers.
This album was enlightening to me. It helped remind me that there are still many covers out there that I have yet to discover. It humbled me. It filled me with a sense of wonder and with a renewed vigor for finding that perfect bad album cover. I am not sure I will ever find anything to top this one but I will never again be so bold as to think it might not be out there waiting for me. Thank you Louise Mandrell and RC Bannon. I will never forget you.
