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Noise Pollution
In light of the current controversy regarding the exhibition of photographs by Bill Henson, I thought about some occasions when rock n roll has generated similar debate.
Of course rock's lyrics have come under Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet perle diamond imitation scrutiny since its very beginnings, but sometimes the container in which the music is sold and stored has also been the subject of controversy and censorship.
Album covers have been controversial for a number of reasons and have been the target of community, legal and even governmental concerns as well as record companies and retailers who have objected to them. Even rock royalty like the Rolling Stones and The Beatles have had dust ups with their record companies over their choice of cover art.
In 1966 EMI Records decided to put out a compilation of the Beatles' material called Yesterday And Today, compiling tracks from the Help, Rubber Soul and Revolver albums without consultation replica Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet gold and diamond or consent from the band themselves and with little regard to the care that they took with sequencing their albums. Perhaps because of this, the then lovable Mop Tops decided to use a photograph that has since been referred to as "The Butcher Shop" cover for the album's release. Capitol Records in America pressed 750, 000 copies but only a handful were sent out for promotional purposes. The adverse reaction to the cover was so strong that the company immediately withdrew all copies for sale, pasting an inferior substitute cover on top of the original and re marketing them. This led to fans peeling back the cover to get a glimpse of the original, copies of which have become highly sought after items in the record collector market, fetching up to $40, 000! The album was The Beatles' only commercial failure.
The Rolling Stones' choice of a cover depicting toilet wall graffitti for their 1968 album Beggars Banquet was rejected by their record companies; the band insisted, but after a couple of months standoff the band relented and substituted a simple imitation invitation card cover instead.
But as with the current headline brouhaha, sex and nudity has been the main bone of contention.
The most public and controversial case concerned not an album cover, but an insert that Jello Biafra chose for The Dead Kennedys' Frankenchrist album in 1985. The offending piece Landscape No. 20: was by Swiss artist HR Geiger, best known for his art design for the Alien movie, and led to the band being bought to trial for distribution of harmful material to minors after the mother of a 13 year old girl complained. Biafra's windows were smashed when the police raided his home and dragged him out of bed to arrest him. The case dragged on and led the band to the brink of bankruptcy, Frank Zappa, Little Steven Van Zandt and Paul Kantner appeared to support the band at the trial, before the case was finally dismissed. The band broke up and Jello had material for his spoken word performances for years.
In 1968 Jimi Hendrix's musical masterpiece, and his only Number One album Electric Ladyland, also experienced cover controversy. However the cover was not a deliberate decision by Jimi but the result of mistakes. Apparently Jimi wanted a photo of children by Linda Eastman for the cover, his record company ignored him and his English record company grew impatient and without consulting Hendrix produced a cover photograph of naked women on a black background. The American record company produced their own substitute cover which has since become the official cover; Jimi always disliked the British nude cover.
John and Yoko's Two Virgins album featured full frontal nudity on the front cover and full rear nudity on the backcover, creating controversy and outrage leading to its impoundment in America as obscene and retailers selling it a brown paper sleeve to cover the offending images.
British super group Blind Faith featuring Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker and Rick Gretsch did not have a name when they commissioned a cover shot for their only album in 1969. The resulting cover of a topless nude 12 year old girl holding a model plane created a storm of controversy and led their American record company to substitute a shoddy coverinstead. The fact that the cover did not have any name or credits on it may have also given the record company commercial concern. The photographer called his piece "Blind Faith" which the band adopted as their name.
Agent provocateur Malcolm McLaren, fresh from his great rock n roll swindle, created tribal pop band Bow Wow Wow, featuring 14 year old Annabella Lwin as their lead singer. When she appeared nude on the cover of their 1982 EP in a supposed pop homage to Manet's The Luncheon On The Grass, her outraged mother instigated a Scotland Yard investigation into child exploitation.
In later years Nirvana used a photograph of a naked male baby on the cover of Nevermind, the record company and retailers used strategically placed stickers to obscure the offending male member. Janes Addiction's Ritual de lo Habitual album cover by Perry Farrell led to retail chains boycotting the album, so he created a "clean" cover in plain white with the first amendment protecting free speech printed on it. Guns'n'Roses used a painting by artist Robert Williams on their Appetite For Destruction album cover but when retailers objected substituted the now well known tattoo cover. Hard to tell if it was the stars and stripes G string , the crotch shot or the pubic hair peeping out, or perhaps all three, but The Black Crowes' Amorica album cover from Hustler magazine was disembodied and de pubed by their record company. The offending Art wasn't on the cover itself but inside, while the outside has a computer rendored "ribcage", inside featured a full frontal naked man (whom was quite "large"), when the cover was held up to light it appead that the ribcage on the front hugged him. Quite a nice bit of album art that was cleverly thought out. Wal Mart replaced it with a giant barcode.
In my experience, there's quite a few album covers that might be considered obscene, but generally speaking they're by bands that are too obscure for the censors/media to take much notice of, if any.
A couple of years ago I went to the US and at one stage wandered through a Walmart and browsed through the extremely limited CD section there. They actually sold the "Bloodhoung Gang" CD "Hooray for Boobies" in a Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet gold high imitation cheap brown paperbag cover, titled only "Hooray". What made this especially ironic was that a few shelves to the left of the CD section they had a section where they sold shot guns, massive knifes, bullets, etc. But I'm sure some 5 year olds potentially being exposed to the word "boobies" does a lot more damage than a shot gun.
But for really horrendous artwork, check out covers by a band called "The Handsome Beasts". Not so much explicit as, uhm. suggestive.
In light of the current controversy regarding the exhibition of photographs by Bill Henson, I thought about some occasions when rock n roll has generated similar debate.
Of course rock's lyrics have come under Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet perle diamond imitation scrutiny since its very beginnings, but sometimes the container in which the music is sold and stored has also been the subject of controversy and censorship.
Album covers have been controversial for a number of reasons and have been the target of community, legal and even governmental concerns as well as record companies and retailers who have objected to them. Even rock royalty like the Rolling Stones and The Beatles have had dust ups with their record companies over their choice of cover art.
In 1966 EMI Records decided to put out a compilation of the Beatles' material called Yesterday And Today, compiling tracks from the Help, Rubber Soul and Revolver albums without consultation replica Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet gold and diamond or consent from the band themselves and with little regard to the care that they took with sequencing their albums. Perhaps because of this, the then lovable Mop Tops decided to use a photograph that has since been referred to as "The Butcher Shop" cover for the album's release. Capitol Records in America pressed 750, 000 copies but only a handful were sent out for promotional purposes. The adverse reaction to the cover was so strong that the company immediately withdrew all copies for sale, pasting an inferior substitute cover on top of the original and re marketing them. This led to fans peeling back the cover to get a glimpse of the original, copies of which have become highly sought after items in the record collector market, fetching up to $40, 000! The album was The Beatles' only commercial failure.
The Rolling Stones' choice of a cover depicting toilet wall graffitti for their 1968 album Beggars Banquet was rejected by their record companies; the band insisted, but after a couple of months standoff the band relented and substituted a simple imitation invitation card cover instead.
But as with the current headline brouhaha, sex and nudity has been the main bone of contention.
The most public and controversial case concerned not an album cover, but an insert that Jello Biafra chose for The Dead Kennedys' Frankenchrist album in 1985. The offending piece Landscape No. 20: was by Swiss artist HR Geiger, best known for his art design for the Alien movie, and led to the band being bought to trial for distribution of harmful material to minors after the mother of a 13 year old girl complained. Biafra's windows were smashed when the police raided his home and dragged him out of bed to arrest him. The case dragged on and led the band to the brink of bankruptcy, Frank Zappa, Little Steven Van Zandt and Paul Kantner appeared to support the band at the trial, before the case was finally dismissed. The band broke up and Jello had material for his spoken word performances for years.
In 1968 Jimi Hendrix's musical masterpiece, and his only Number One album Electric Ladyland, also experienced cover controversy. However the cover was not a deliberate decision by Jimi but the result of mistakes. Apparently Jimi wanted a photo of children by Linda Eastman for the cover, his record company ignored him and his English record company grew impatient and without consulting Hendrix produced a cover photograph of naked women on a black background. The American record company produced their own substitute cover which has since become the official cover; Jimi always disliked the British nude cover.
John and Yoko's Two Virgins album featured full frontal nudity on the front cover and full rear nudity on the backcover, creating controversy and outrage leading to its impoundment in America as obscene and retailers selling it a brown paper sleeve to cover the offending images.
British super group Blind Faith featuring Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker and Rick Gretsch did not have a name when they commissioned a cover shot for their only album in 1969. The resulting cover of a topless nude 12 year old girl holding a model plane created a storm of controversy and led their American record company to substitute a shoddy coverinstead. The fact that the cover did not have any name or credits on it may have also given the record company commercial concern. The photographer called his piece "Blind Faith" which the band adopted as their name.
Agent provocateur Malcolm McLaren, fresh from his great rock n roll swindle, created tribal pop band Bow Wow Wow, featuring 14 year old Annabella Lwin as their lead singer. When she appeared nude on the cover of their 1982 EP in a supposed pop homage to Manet's The Luncheon On The Grass, her outraged mother instigated a Scotland Yard investigation into child exploitation.
In later years Nirvana used a photograph of a naked male baby on the cover of Nevermind, the record company and retailers used strategically placed stickers to obscure the offending male member. Janes Addiction's Ritual de lo Habitual album cover by Perry Farrell led to retail chains boycotting the album, so he created a "clean" cover in plain white with the first amendment protecting free speech printed on it. Guns'n'Roses used a painting by artist Robert Williams on their Appetite For Destruction album cover but when retailers objected substituted the now well known tattoo cover. Hard to tell if it was the stars and stripes G string , the crotch shot or the pubic hair peeping out, or perhaps all three, but The Black Crowes' Amorica album cover from Hustler magazine was disembodied and de pubed by their record company. The offending Art wasn't on the cover itself but inside, while the outside has a computer rendored "ribcage", inside featured a full frontal naked man (whom was quite "large"), when the cover was held up to light it appead that the ribcage on the front hugged him. Quite a nice bit of album art that was cleverly thought out. Wal Mart replaced it with a giant barcode.
In my experience, there's quite a few album covers that might be considered obscene, but generally speaking they're by bands that are too obscure for the censors/media to take much notice of, if any.
A couple of years ago I went to the US and at one stage wandered through a Walmart and browsed through the extremely limited CD section there. They actually sold the "Bloodhoung Gang" CD "Hooray for Boobies" in a Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet gold high imitation cheap brown paperbag cover, titled only "Hooray". What made this especially ironic was that a few shelves to the left of the CD section they had a section where they sold shot guns, massive knifes, bullets, etc. But I'm sure some 5 year olds potentially being exposed to the word "boobies" does a lot more damage than a shot gun.
But for really horrendous artwork, check out covers by a band called "The Handsome Beasts". Not so much explicit as, uhm. suggestive.
The Wall