Anthrax
‘Fistful of Metal’ (1984)
Mr. Abrams said hapless illustration and anatomical misjudgment mar the debut album by the New York band Anthrax, which joined Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth as the big four of thrash metal. “The tongue is in the wrong place,” he said of the cover drawing, which helped put “Fistful of Metal” in the list’s No. 1 spot. “The way the guts are coming out is weird.” Mr. Jenkins said it “looks like Davy Crockett is eating a mean Michael Jackson’s hand.”
Mr. Abrams added: “You can almost picture them saying, ‘O.K., we have to have a cover that expresses this really brutal action. We’re going to have some guy holding another guy’s head and he’s going to ram his fist from the back of the guy’s head through the mouth and you’re going to see the fist.’ But there’s nothing scary about it.”