The rules.
Like we said, making your own album is easy (well, as long as you're just creating a fake album cover!). Just follow these simple steps and you'll have a shit on your hands in no time.
1) First things first. You need a band name.
According to the BBC, "choosing a band name is dead hard. You want something that's punchy and memorable, while reflecting the music you make and maybe your attitude to the world."
Bollocks to that. You need a name that will cause utter astonishment and complete bewilderment. A name that people will regularly fail to understand. A name that your peers will laugh at and ridicule for years and years to come. Something like "Orto Botanico del Monte Baldo", or "The Syracuse Orange Men's Basketball Team", or erm... "Kate Fox".
So here's how you choose it. Head over to Wikipedia. Hit the 'Random article' link on the left hand side of the page. Grab the title of the first random article it shows you.
Just FYI, the band name I've just gotten from there is "Koolhoven F.K.52". And y'know, if I had a real band, that's exactly what I'd call it.
2) Next up - naming your album.
We have it on good authority that people have died during the naming of albums. That's how important it is. The name of your album can make all the difference between you hitting the big time, or regularly waking up in the mornings in a puddle of someone else's piss behind a bush in the gardens of a hotel in the middle of Warsaw with a name you can't quite pronounce, no matter how hard you try. And no, that's not a metaphor.
So how do you go about it? Simple. Visit a random quotations page (we suggest http://www.quotationspage.com), click the random quotations link, and then take the last few words from the last quotation on the page. Honestly, it's how all the top bands do it.
And here's the proof that it works: I can now proudly announce that Koolhoven F.K.52's first album will be called "The Dreams Of Thy Youth". It's genius in its purest form.
3) Finally, design your album cover.
A quick search on Google offers up 302,000 articles on designing album covers. Get stuck into them and you'll soon find that it's all about making sure your design stands out, that the concept reflects the content, and that more often than not, it's a good idea to use a professional designer.
Yeah, right.
Why spend your drinking budget on some shortarsed flouncer who wears black turtleneck jumpers, has a pointy goatee beard, talks with a lisp, and loves cats, when you could go straight to the last 7 days' worth of interesting shots on Flickr, choose the third picture along no matter what it is, and use that as your album cover - all for free? Sheesh.
Still don't believe us? Well, after following these simple steps, I've just come back from the printers where "The Dreams Of Thy Youth" by Koolhoven F.K.52's is hot off the press, and will be in the shops next Monday...
Things to remember.
Don't forget, your album cover needs to be at least 400px square, and no more than 512KB in size.
You'll need Photoshop or something similar to put it all together.
When you're uploading to the site, PLEASE credit the photographer by entering the URL to the image you're using. It's only fair!
And above all, NO CHEATING. We want random band names, random album titles, and random cover images.
We'll find out if you do...