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Ever since Elvis Presley beginning shook his hips, controversy has dogged rock'n'whorl's every move. Notwithstanding, while all style of backlog-fuelled misadventures feed the media automobile in the short term, a provocatively-designed tape sleeve can make the most lasting affect when it comes to riling the moral majority – and lasting notoriety is especially assured if the anthology cover gets banned. uDiscover Music investigates the virtually controversial anthology covers of all time.

The Beatles: Yesterday And Today (1966)

A far weep from the Mamas and the Papas "indecent" album encompass for If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, which seemed to generate controversy considering a bathroom had a toilet in it, this Beatles compilation album featured a baroque sleeve shot of the Fab 4 clad in butcher's coats, draped in slabs of meat and dismembered doll parts. Intended as pop art satire, the artwork was quickly rehoused in an inoffensive replacement sleeve and topped the Billboard charts. Capitol retrieved over 50,000 copies of the original encompass from uneasy retailers.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Electric Ladyland (1968)

The original UK edition of Jimi'south landmark, Billboard chart-topping third album originally appeared sporting a contentious sleeve featuring 19 nude women. Information technology was changed when Hendrix himself expressed displeasure.

John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins (1968)

The sleeve for John and Yoko's advanced archetype was shot using a fourth dimension-filibuster camera allowing them to have nude photographs of themselves. Predictably, the resulting artwork provoked outrage, prompting distributors to sell the anthology in a patently brown wrapper. Only 5,000 copies were originally pressed in the UK.

The Rolling Stones: Beggars Banquet (1968)

The original "banned" sleeve The Rolling Stones submitted for their classic Beggars Banquet album featured a sleazy-looking bathroom wall covered in graffiti and was rejected by their tape label. Initially, the anthology came out in an almost plain white sleeve designed like an invitation bill of fare.

Bullheaded Religion: Blind Faith (1969)

Lensman Bob Seidemann'south cover image of a topless pubescent girl property a machine hood ornament was intended to symbolize the achievement of human inventiveness in the summertime that man walked on the moon, merely it caused a furor instead. For the US edition of Blind Organized religion, the epitome was replaced with a photo of the band.

The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers (1971)

The legendary Andy Warhol had a paw in conceiving the artwork for the Stones' formidable Viscous Fingers . Reflecting the innuendo-laden title, the paradigm featured a close-up of a jeans-clad male crotch – and the original vinyl pressing even featured a working attachment. Retailers, all the same, complained that the zipper was actually causing harm to the vinyl in transit, so the sleeve was reworked.

David Bowie: Diamond Dogs (1974)

David Bowie's eighth studio LP featured a gatefold sleeve which, when – when seen in full – literally depicted the star with dog's bollocks. The image was intended to represent Bowie'southward own George Orwell-influenced vision of a post-apocalyptic world, but the offending genitalia was subsequently airbrushed until the 1990 EMI/Rykodisc CD reissue reinstated them.

Roxy Music: Land Life (1974)

The candid sleeve artwork for Roxy Music'due south acclaimed fourth anthology featured two scantily-clad models, one of whom was the cousin of Can guitarist Michael Karoli. Predictably, it acquired outrage and was censored in several countries, including the US, though the anthology still cracked the Tiptop forty of the Billboard 200.

Scorpions: Virgin Killer (1976)

The 4th LP from difficult-rockin' High german outfit Scorpions featured an image of a nude pubescent girl, patently intended to reflect time as the killer of innocence, simply it ended up on the receiving end of moral outrage. It was somewhen sold in sealed black plastic in some territories.

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Street Survivors (1977)

This famous cover is just controversial due to tragic coincidence: The Skynyrd plane crash happened only days after the album's release, and so the cover paradigm of the band engulfed in flames was now dramatic in all the wrong means. It was replaced by a somber-looking cover of the same photo against a dark background, but the original embrace has since been reinstated for history's sake. – Brett Milano

Sex Pistols: Never Listen The Bollocks, Hither'southward The Sexual activity Pistols (1977)

Arguably the most controversial album embrace of them all, Sex Pistols' lonely studio album caused utter anarchy. It was at the center of an obscenity-related UK courtroom instance after a Nottingham-based record retailer was arrested for showcasing the sleeve (which prominently displayed the give-and-take "Bollocks") in his shop window. Virgin boss Richard Branson hired ace lawyer John Mortimer, QC, to defend him and the charges were somewhen dropped.

The Slits: Cut (1979)

Equally challenging as the slap-up music contained inside, The Slits' debut album, Cutting , featured the all-girl band subverting their pin-up potential by actualization looking warrior-similar, topless, and liberally caked in mud.

Bow Wow Wow: Come across Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Our Gang, Yeah, City All Over! Become Ape Crazy! (1981)

Though based on painter Edouard Manet's 19th-century piece Le Déjeuner Sur fifty'Herbe, the sleeve to Bow Wow Wow's debut LP nonetheless featured singer Anabella Lwin (then anile fourteen) posing nude. The consequence? A Scotland Thousand police investigation was instigated by Anabella's mother.

Dio: Holy Diver (1983)

Dio'due south terrific debut LP came housed in a sleeve featuring the band's demonic mascot, Murray, surrounded by waves and watching a chained priest presumably sinking to his death. Frontman Ronnie James Dio, however, argued that appearances are misleading, and that it could only as easily be a priest killing a devil.

Bon Jovi: Slippery When Wet (1986)

We hear you asking: What'due south and so controversial about this cover, showing nix but the album title scrawled on a wet plastic trash bag? Nothing at all, of form – but information technology was a last minute substitution for the original cover, a Playboy-type shot of a faceless model in a moisture T-shirt with the title inscribed. Even the band has since admitted that this cover, which did appear in Japan, was a mistake. – Brett Milano

XTC: Skylarking (1986)

Taboos may come and go, but public pilus on album covers is an enduring no-no. Brazilian creative person Gal Costa showed a bit of her own on the 1973 Troplcalia classic Bharat. Xiii years later, XTC'due south Andy Partridge designed a Skylarking sleeve that shows male and female nether regions decked with flowers – which fit both the album'due south pastoral tone and its lyrics. Virgin and Geffen both said no, but the original cover was restored in subsequent reissues. – Brett Milano

Guns N' Roses: Appetite For Destruction (1987)

Hard stone and glam metal has had its fair share of controversial album artwork over the years. (Jane's Addiction and Poison's Open and Say… Ahh! come up to mind.) The original artwork for Guns N' Roses' multi-milling-selling debut anthology featured a robotic rapist nearly to be punished by a metal avenger. Later retailers refused to stock the anthology, Geffen housed the record in a less contentious jacket featuring the skulls of the band members on a cross and moved the offending artwork to the inner sleeve.

Jane's Addiction: Ritual de lo Habitual (1990)

The comprehend of this album – an abstract painting of a naked Perry Farrell with 2 women, taking off from the vocal "Three Days" – was adequately tastefully done, and certainly less controversial than the naked sculptures on the previous Nothing's Shocking. But the chain stores demanded an alternate, and Farrell provided it: A plain white cover with the First Subpoena quoted on the front and a few words about creeping fascism on the back. – Brett Milano

Nirvana: Nevermind (1991)

Nirvana's stellar second album features four-calendar month-old Spencer Elden swimming in a pool for babies. Geffen were worried, as the baby's genitals were clearly visible in the motion picture. They prepared an airbrushed alternative cover, but Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was adamant the original moving-picture show should remain.

Tad: 8-Way Santa (1991)

In ane of the funnier censorship stories, this embrace came near when the Seattle grunge band happened upon a suitably ridiculous, austerity-store photo of a random couple: He'south got his mitt perched on her bikini top and they both wear the silliest of grins. The adult female in question, who'd since become a born-once more Christian, was not pleased when she constitute out. The story does have a poignant plow, every bit the adult female died after winning the lawsuit, and her sis then bought an original copy as a emblem. – Brett Milano

Ice Cube: Decease Certificate (1991)

Hip-hop has no shortage of controversial album covers (see Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, below), merely former NWA member Ice Cube brandished one of the first. Depicting a toe-tagged dead body, Death Certificate pulled few punches, just with outspoken songs dealing with drug dealing, racial profiling, and arms-related issues, Water ice Cube's second album was ever going to courtroom controversy – not to mention instigate a state-broad ban in Oregon.

Pantera: Far Beyond Driven (1994)

The main job of an anthology cover is to sell records – and then who could maybe resist a cover photo of a power drill going up somebody's butt? Probably non Pantera's audience, but we never got the adventure to find out: Their label thought the chain stores would never deport it, and then they replaced it with the more saleable image of…the same device drilling into someone's skull. You were expecting possibly hearts and flowers? – Brett Milano

Megadeth: Youthanasia (1994)

Metal, of course, has plenty of controversial covers in its history, from Cannibal Corpse to Alice Cooper. Megadeth was no exception. Based on the concept that social club was euthanizing its young people, the comprehend to Megadeth's sixth album controversially depicted an elderly adult female hanging babies past their anxiety on a washing line. Nevertheless, it however peaked at No.iv on the Billboard 200.

The Black Crowes: Amorica (1994)

Pubic hair raises its, uh, head once more on this 1994 Crowes album, with a close-upwards image (lifted from a Bicentennial result of Hustler magazine) of a woman wearing an American flag thong. Though this one actually made it to the stores, the large-box chains demanded (and got) a censored version, which showed only a cutout of the thong. – Brett Milano

Kevin Rowland: My Dazzler (1999)

For reasons known only to himself, Dexys Midnight Runners' frontman Kevin Rowland appeared on his much-trumpeted covers album, My Beauty, dressed in drag and heavy make-up. Confused by his radical new management, fans pelted him with bottles when he wore the same ensemble onstage at the 1999 Reading Festival.

Marilyn Manson: Holy Wood (In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death) (2000)

Howling moral outrage and a ban from U.s.a. stores Walmart and Kmart greeted Holy Wood – merely and so its sleeve does depict Manson portrayed equally a crucified Christ with his jawbone hanging off. Possibly unsurprisingly, it's just one of several controversial album covers created by Marilyn Manson.

Slayer: Christ Illusion (2006)

This truly grisly cover features a Jesus effigy in rather bad shape, crossing a ocean of dismembered trunk parts. It wasn't nice and wasn't intended to be, since the lyrics largely concerned the moving ridge of terrorism that included ix/11, and questioned the role of faith. – Brett Milano

Kanye West: My Beautiful Night Twisted Fantasy (2010)

Kanye West deliberately ready out to create an artwork that would rank alongside the most controversial album covers, allegedly wanting his fifth album to be housed in a sleeve that would be banned. Thus, he commissioned this George Condo epitome of himself being straddled by an armless winged female. The ensuing controversy didn't hurt: the hugely ambitious album debuted at No.1 in the The states and won a Grammy Laurels for Best Rap Album in 2012.

Know of any controversial album covers more than startling than these? Let us know!

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Source: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/most-controversial-album-covers/

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