Holy crud, this album cover really happened. Not only did it happen, but it happened on the Columbia Masterworks label.

Anna Russell was a very talented musician who mixed classical music with comedy much in the same manner as Victor Borge, for example. It’s the kind of highbrow-meets-lowbrow comedy that played well  when In Darkest Africa was released in 1957, but frankly we’re just not sophisticated enough for it 60 years later. On the other hand, we’re much too sophisticated six decades later to release such a cringeworthy album cover, so I guess we’re maturing in some ways and regressing in others.

In Darkest Africa is the kind of record you find at a charity shop or in the dollar bin, and if you’re me you pick it up to stick it in the Bad Album Cover Hall of Fame. Happy hunting.