Bad album covers collector puts trash hits on display

A collector of "dreadful album covers" has put his favourite finds on display.

Steve Goldman, 55, from Huddersfield, has amassed more than 200 weird and wacky examples over five eccentric years.

Rediscovering a bizarre childhood favourite set him off on a quest to unearth "unintentionally funny" albums and to "give people a laugh".

Mr Goldman said: "Some people spend fortunes collecting fine art but no one collects dreadful LP covers."

The album that started it all - 1979's Roadstar by Peter Rabbitt - features the band's faces superimposed onto the bodies of a group of bunnies.

Mr Goldman said he originally bought it about 40 years ago because it had such a strange cover.

"Somehow, I lost it over the years and had never been able to find another copy," he said.

That was until he managed to track it down again using a website dedicated to obscure vinyl records.

"I was off," he said. "I remember the moment I said to my kids, 'I'm going to start collecting dreadful album covers', that was five years ago."

Since then, he has gathered an impressive, if sometimes alarming, array of 12-inch curios.

His habit has spread, and the pursuit has become a "family obsession", he said.

Mr Goldman has spent as little as five pence or sometimes splashed out £50 for a rarity in his particular field. He also has about 100 CDs with weird and wonderful covers

They will all be displayed alongside Peter Rabbitt's magnum opus in his exhibition at Huddersfield's Piazza shopping centre.

Visitors will be able to vote for their favourite cover, and the atmosphere promises to be boosted as tracks from some of the albums are piped into the centre.

Mr Goldman, who suffered a stroke 18 months ago, is staging the event in aid of Different Strokes, a charity helping younger stroke survivors.

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