Intelligent Life On Planet Rock
Ten Record Sleeves That Wouldn't Be Approved Today
Posted by David Hepworth on 8 December 2008 - 12:18pm.
In 1976 Scorpions put out an album called Virgin Killer. The cover was a naked pre-pubescent girl. A few eyebrows were raised but I don't remember riots in the street. Not surprisingly, they had to change it for the States. Now Wikipedia finds itself being blocked by some ISPs because it published the original on its Scorpions entry. They object that this is a slippery slope. We would show you this ourselves but it's simply not worth the grief.
Virgin Killer is the most extreme example of an album cover image that you wouldn't be able to get away with today. Here's a few more.
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| Rod Stewart: "An Old Raincoat Will Never Let You Down" (1969) His first solo album. A child molester pursues his quarry. Changed for the US, funnily enough. |
Tom Jones: "A-Tom-Ic Jones" (1966) At the height of the Cold War he's pictured in front of a scene of mass slaughter. Bit like calling your 2004 record "Tom's Tsunami". |
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| Blind Faith: Blind Faith (1969) The photographer stopped a school girl on the Tube and asked her if she would pose naked. She suggested her younger sister instead. She got a pony as a fee. This actually happened. |
Boxer: Below The Belt (1975) Some people reckoned that the boxing glove in the crotch might encourage violence against women. Changed for the US. |
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| Sugar Ray: Lemonade & Brownies (1995) It's perfectly innocent. She left her mobile downstairs and she's listening for the ringtone. |
Mom's Apple Pie (1971) Anyone want a piece? |
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| Silverhead: Sixteen and Savaged (1973) Let's see. She's celebrated gaining the age of consent by entertaining all the members of Michael Des Barres' band. Ah, we made our own entertainment in those days. |
Van Halen: Balance (1995) Only twelve years ago this was considered an appropriate way to package an album by America's premier hard rock band. Nominated for a Grammy. |
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| Nirvana: Nevermind (1991) Try walking into a record company in 2008 and saying you want to have a naked baby's penis on the cover of your new album. See how long you last. |
The Coup: Party Music (2001) Originally slated for release in September 2001, the cover was swiftly changed when real-life events overtook the band's choice of image. Ouch. |
The internet Thought Police are back
I always thought the Blind Faith cover a bit "iffy", even as a teenager in the 70s. But censoring wikipedia (since apparently the accompanying article is banned)is just heavy handed and ridiculous. I can hear the ghost of Mary Whitehouse chuckling away in the corner
I cannot post pictures on this site for some reason...
... but do google the image for Johnny "Guitar" Watson's Ain't That A Bitch. It's safe for work by the way, just astonishingly sexist.
I seem to remember one of Word's competitor's doing something like this a few years ago and almost all of the albums were 70's funk or 80's metal. I had about three quarters of them.
Do also check out the Ohio Players as well...
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil
is for the good to do nothing (Edmund Burke, I think)
I know it's during the working day, but the apathy with which this blog item is being treated disturbs me. The "offending image" is one that you can find in plenty of places on the net, and is not in itself banned or illegal to own - yet a reputable site like wikipedia is being censored by some non-governmental body.
You're right of course ... thin end of wedge clearly in view
The hardest thing must be knowing where to draw the line when you are the self appointed guardians of the nation's morals. I heard a comment on the radio this morning that they had targetted Wikipedia but not Amazon UK for "pragmatic reasons". Commercial clout is, I suspect, the appropriate translation. But still they got themselves on the Today Programme without the inconvenience of having to sit on a runway.
My only consolation is that this sort of approach is usually self defeating in the long run. But you can be sure in the short term that no politician is going to defend free speech while standing on a stack of Scorpions' albums.
If my memory serves me well....
almost any cover from a Millie Jackson album could feature here. I remember buying one just because the cover showed her sitting on a toilet, but I know she made far worse images available.
You bought it because of this picture?
http://www.zonicweb.net/badalbmcvrs/badalbumcoverstopten/toptenbadalbumc...
You're a very sick man.
Julie's Sixteenth Birthday...
http://www.bizarrerecords.com/galleries/country/BultJulie16.jpg
I have a feeling John Bult is probably on some sort of register somewhere.
Afghan Whigs - Congregation
The cover photograph of The Afghan Whigs third album - Congregation depicts a naked black woman holding a naked, white baby girl.
There seem to be two versions of this cover in circulation. On my CD copy, the woman and the baby are staring directly into the camera.
I've noticed that that on Amazon and Wikipedia they use a slightly different version, in which the woman has her head bowed, the baby has its eyes closed and the sensitive areas have been blurred.
Roxy Music's "Country Life"
caused a bit of a stir as I recall. Perhaps we should we ban it and replace the sleeve with someone in hunting pink? And didn't that nice John Lennon once get his penis* out on an album sleeve? Crikey, the modern world - it's a real moral maze.
*Expletive replaced.
roxy -for your pleasure
that cover always reminded me of spinal tap's smell the glove tour
***Not work safe***
It's all here for now at least. The Scorpions, Millie Jackson & some mind-boggling Country sleeves. The design of the site is reminiscent of some of the homemade sleeves it features but perhaps that's deliberate.
The most disturbing sleeve I ever saw...
Gratuitously offensive sleeve art was de rigueur for metal acts back in the seventies. Black Sabbath's 'Sabotage' cover art left a horrible impression on me when I first pulled it from the racks at an innocent age.
The memory of the back cover image still gives me pause today.
Scorpions
They have form. I used to love them when I was a teenage metal fan, but I remember thinking that their album covers were a little dodgy even then. If I could copy images I would, but look up Lovedrive and Animal Magnetism.
Young Gasper
I guess this wouldn't be too popular these days either:
Ah yes...
the baby Nick Lowe with wings.
I've obviously led a sheltered life, but...
...Mom's Apple Pie?
Am I missing something obvious?
Yours confusedly
PS: Was there ever an occasion when the Blind Faith cover was anything but completely and utterly beyond the pale?
Come closer to the screen ... but not too close
http://friends.s5.net/mazzini/plosce/pie.html
Erm...
Yes. you are.
Told you.
Sheltered life.
The entire Ohio Players catalogue
would cause a few issues. Bit tame by the standards of what you can find with a quick search of soft porn on the web, but enough to attract the attention of the usual suspects. Can't attach a pic I'm afraid, but a check of amazon should tell you what you need to know. We are talking about a band that called one of their compilations "Orgasm"...
Disgusting
and amusing. A record I like a lot. Wither Bunk Dogger?
That's hilarious
They wouldn't allow it nowadays and yet the world is so much more brazen now than it was then.
The single from the LP
uses the same sleeve and was called French Lessons. That is hilarious but I cannot find a sound clip for it on t'interweb.
What's the fuss?
She's only showing them how big her pet rabbit is... :-D
The best thing is the expression on the face of the girl to her right. The pie-eyed terror is a wonder to behold.
Bracknell, Ascot & Wokingham News
In the late 70s I was writing for the above esteemed journal under the name Mike H in the column Mainly For Youth, submitting reviews that just by chance happened to feature my own personal favourites - I swear that the only review I ever saw of the OST of Voices was my own, including a pic of Jimmy Webb, the composer, to boot.
One day I slid by to drop off my copy only to be buttonholed by a lady sub-editor who had taken objection to my reference to the attractiveness of a young lady on a record cover. Boy did I get it in the neck, unsuspecting as I was then.
That's all really. The sub went to Argentina, punk arrived and Mainly For Youth was no more.
Did any of you read me? Must have been close to Ellen Mansions. Perhaps I inadvertently inspired his hack career with my sexist ramblings.
Surely not!
People actually buy records just because of the sleeve?
Er, guilty m'lud. In my defence it was in a bargain box. The group No-Man is also 50% Steve Wilson of Porcupine Tree (but I did not know that at the time). I will dispose of it immediately. It's worth a mint.
Let me guess ...
Rula Lenska and Anne Aston?
Most offensive album sleeve ever
Carcass, The Reek Of Putrefaction.
The sleeve was a collage of images of burns victims, cadavers and mutilated children & the like taken from various medical textbooks.
Totally offensive. Gut churning. And they knew it.
Just a thought and a blatant plug ...
The fact that Virgin Killer is freely available (sleeve art on display) from your local branch of Amazon rather makes a mockery of the IWF's crusade.
AND if trawling the internet for music gubbins is your bag, why not try the Rocking Vicar's Prize Christmas Quiz over at www.rockingvicar.com?
Turn over for the full story...
The front cover of Sad Cafe's Fanx Tara was 1970s sexist in a Silverhead kind of way...
But you had to connect it to the back cover to understand the full grubby story of this particular lads' night out...
Misplaced Ideals
...and this is the sleeve that got banned. Seems nobody wanted to buy it with this sleeve. Wonder why?
This one terrifies me
Yes... hideous.
It's like watching your mum doing it in public.
And in this year of the AC/DC
Cracking album, mind, from AC/DC wannabees.
This is the place to go, if minds need to be blown.
http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/worst-album-covers