I’m surely not alone in needing a palate cleanser after the Fulton County RICO case dominated the last two days. The R in RICO stands for racketeering so why not a post featuring album covers with rackets on them. It’s on the literal minded side, but what’s a little literal mindedness among friends?

These are albums I haven’t heard by artists I’d never heard of but they have one important thing in common: RACKETS.

Let the racketeering begin.

Our first cover is from an indie rock band called Blonde Redhead from their 2007 album, 23. It’s the best cover of the bunch.

Our next racket cover dates from 1960. Did it have anything to do with ping pong diplomacy? We’ll table that for now:

Martin Solveig is a French DJ, producer, and jack of all musical trades. That begs this question: Why is this album titled Hello, not Bonjour?

This rickety, rackety post concludes with perhaps the worst classical album cover I’ve ever seen:

The last word goes to Mary Chapin Carpenter; an artist I’ve heard of: