Museums

Saturday 3 May – Sunday 22 June 2025
Free Admission

The Worst Record Covers in the World exhibition brings together over 500 gloriously dreadful LP sleeves curated by collector Steve Goldman — a celebration of bizarre design choices, questionable taste, and the sheer joy of creative failure.

The collection, which began in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, has since entertained audiences at festivals, galleries, and museums across the UK. It has been featured on BBC Breakfast, Front Row, Have I Got News For You, and in The Guardian, Metro, and the i newspaper.

BBC Radio DJ Mark Radcliffe described the show as “an unmissable exhibition of the world’s worst album covers,” adding:

“Honestly, it’s lovely because the room is full of people HOWLING with laughter. It’s great, it’s great.” — BBC 6 Music, Radcliffe and Maconie, November 2024

An accompanying book, The Art of the Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve, released in 2023, includes a foreword by comedian Stewart Lee. In his typically dry wit, Lee reflected on the experience of reviewing the collection:

“…the relentless low quality and relentlessly poor aesthetic choices of the sleeves made me despair of humanity itself… 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.”

Steve Goldman, a computer programmer from Huddersfield, began collecting awful album art nearly a decade ago after rediscovering Roadstar by Peter Rabbitt — the record that started it all.

“Some people spend fortunes collecting fine art,” Steve says. “But no one collects dreadful LP covers. I wanted records where the designers have tried to do something that’s gone horribly wrong — unintentionally funny, family-friendly disasters.”

Now boasting a collection of over 700 records, Steve will exhibit around 150 of the most popular covers at Northampton. Visitors can even listen to tracks from the albums and vote for their favourite “worst” design.

The exhibition is free to attend, but Steve encourages donations to Different Strokes, a charity supporting young stroke survivors — a cause close to his heart since suffering a stroke himself in 2020.

The book, The Art of the Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve, is available at the museum shop.