Banned and controversial album covers

[Mangorilla]

I was bored, so I've been looking up banned/recalled album covers and songs online. Thought it might make an interesting topic for the forum. Here's some of the ones that I've found: (Due credit to http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/04/30- ... -covers/1/ and http://rateyourmusic.com/list/quixote/s ... cover_art_)

Banned/altered album covers:
1. Alice Cooper - Love It To Death. The original cover has Alice's right thumb poking out from under his cape. People thought it looked like a penis, so it was later airbrushed out.

2. The Beatles - Yesterday and Today. The original cover had the band dressed in butcher smocks with doll parts and meat strewn across them, supposedly symbolizing how the band felt their music was being butchered to make what was essentially a best of album. The cover was recalled, and a sticker was pasted over the original image before being replaced entirely in subsequent pressings.

3. Scorpions - Virgin Killer. The original cover had a nude underage girl with broken glass covering her "naughty bits." It was replaced with a picture of the band.

4. The Black Crowes - Amorica. The original cover features American Flag panties on an otherwise nude body. The body was blackened out, showing only the panties on subsequent pressings.

5. Bow Wow Wow - See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah! City All Over, Go Ape Crazy! The original has a nude but covered 15 year old Annabella Lwin. The cover was changed to an alternate, fully clothed photo of the band.

6. Mayhem - Dawn of the Black hearts. Not an official release, but rather a bootleg of a live show. The cover is supposedly an actual photograph of the departed singer Dead's suicide, taken by the band's guitarist.

7. Big Black - Headache ep. The limited edition version included autopsy photographs from a victim of a shotgun blast to the head and came in a black plastic 'body bag'.

8. Tad - 8-Way Santa. The original cover has a shirtless man with a 70's porn moustache with his hand over the breast of a woman wearing a bra. The man in the picture became a born again Christian and objected to the use of the photo, so the cover was changed to a photo of the band.

9. Tad - Jack Pepsi single. The cover was originally a spoof of the Pepsi logo.

10. Guns & Roses - Appetite for Destruction. The original cover featured a picture of an alien & robot rape scene. It was changed to the five cartoon heads on the cross image. The alien & robot rape scene is still in the inside sleeve of the album.

11. Chumbawamba - Anarchy. Yep, the band that brought us Tubthumping ("I get knocked down, but I get up again, never gonna keep me down...") were really a controversial punk band. The cover to this album is a close up picture of a woman giving birth.

12. David Bowie - Diamond Dogs. Original copies have a more anatomically correct dog body on David Bowie on the reverse sleeve. It was airbrushed out on later issues.

13. The Five Keys - On Stage! Like the Alice Cooper album, the original cover featured a conspicuously placed thumb that people thought was something else.

14. Roger Waters - The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking. The original cover has a nude woman's butt. Subsequent copies placed a black bar over the image.

15. Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland. The original cover featured a group of nude women holding Jimi Hendrix albums. The cover was changed to a closeup of Jimi's face.

16. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Street Survivors. The original cover featured the band surrounded by flames. The flames were removed after the plane crash that left several members dead. The re-issue has restored the flame photo.

17. The Mama's and the Papas - If You Can believe Your Eyes and Ears. The original cover has a dirty toilet in the right corner. Subsequent copies placed a sticker over the toilet.

18. Poison - Open Up and Say...Ahh. The original cover has the cat's tongue running from its mouth to right between "say" and "ahh." Subsequent copies cropped the photo to show only the cat's eyes.

19. Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet. The original cover features a woman's torso in a torn Slippery When Wet shirt.

20. Nirvana - In Utero. Wal-Mart and K-Mart copies changed the song title "Rape Me" to "Waif Me" on the back cover.

21. The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers. The zipper cover was banned in Spain, but only because it tended to damage other records stacked against it.

22. The Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet. The original cover, featuring a toilet, was changed to a plain, fancy script. The original cover was later restored.

23. Roxy Music - Country Life. The original cover features two women, essentially topless but not completely exposed. An alternate cover was created, airbrushing the women out completely.

24. Scorpions - Lovedrive. The original cover features a man in a business suit sitting next to a topless woman in a limo. His hand has bubble gum sticking to it, leading to her breast. Subsequent copies feature only a band logo.

25. U2 - Achtung baby. The original back cover has a small photo showing the bassist's penis. Subsequent copies have the image x'ed out.

26. White Zombie - Super Sexy Swingin' Sounds. The K-Mart and Wal-Mart versions include an airbrushed bikini on the model. Some versions have an anime cartoon head on the body.

27. Aerosmith - Nine Lives. The original cover features a dancing cat surrounded by snakes. Fans from India complained because the album features a song called The Sweet Taste of India, and snakes are sacred in India, so the cover was changed to the cat strapped to a wheel.

28. The Beautiful South - Welcome to The beautiful South. The original cover features a picture of a woman with a gun in her mouth. It was changed to two teddy bears in some markets.

29. Tin Machine - Tin Machine II. The penises are airbrushed out on most copies.

30. Jane's Addiction - Ritual De Lo habitual. The original cover features artwork of three nude bodies. To Perry Farrell's chagrin, an alternate cover was ordered, so Perry plastered the text from the first amendment on a plain white background.

31. John lennon & Yoko Ono - Two Virgins. The cover features John and Yoko nude. Most copies came with a paper bag cover to hide the nude photo.

32. Blind Faith - Blind Faith. The original cover features a nude underage girl holding a model airplane. Alternate covers were used in several markets, featuring only a photo of the band.

33. Moby Grape - Moby Grape. The original version features an extended middle finger. They attempted to airbrush it out, to varied effect.

34. Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking. The original cover features a sculpture of two nude women. Several retailers refused to carry it, and some that did put a brown bag around it.

35. Brujeria - Matando Gueros. The original cover supposedly features an actual severed head from a man that was hit by a train. Subsequent copies are black with an explicit material warning label.

36. Ministry - Dark Side of the Spoon. The original cover features a large nude woman in a dunce cap. The edited cover only says Ministry.

37. Dream Theater - Live Scenes from new York. The original shows an image of the World Trade Center surrounded by flames. The edited version features a band logo instead.

38. John Cougar Mellenkamp - Mr. happy Go Lucky. The original features the devil and jesus in the background. Wal-Mart requested an alternate cover with the devil and jesus taken out.

39. marilyn Manson - Holly wood. Circuit City placed a cardboard cover around the original image of MM in a Jesus pose.

40. Slayer - God hates Us All. The original cover features a bloody Bible pierced by nails. subsequent copies were changed to four golden crosses.

41. Great White - Hooked. The original version features a nude woman straddling a large hook. Subsequent copies were cropped, showing the woman and the hook submerged in water, thus covering her naughty bits.

42. Hurricane - Slave to the Thrill. The original version shows a nude woman on a machine. Subsequent copies removed the woman.

43. Mama Lion -- Preserve Wildlife. The original version features a woman nursing a lion cub. The edited version shows only the woman's face behind a cage.

44. Pantera - Far Beyond Driven. The original cover features a drill bit entering an anus. The more common cover features the drill bit going through a skull.

45. Type O Negative - The Origin of the Feces. The original cover is a somewhat blurry picture of a nude ass (allegedly Peter Steele's). Subsequent copies were replaced with cartoon dancing skeletons. The re-issue restored the original cover.

46. Gwar - This Toilet Earth. The original version includes the song B.D.F. (Baby Dick Fuck). The song was banned, and the track was removed on subsequent copies, throwing the track list numbering off (There is no track 9 on the edited version). The original booklet also featured a cartoon of the lead singer licking a baby's head during childbirth, a cartoon of Hitler, the Pope and other world leaders sitting at a table at Stonehenge, a catroon of a diseased alien penis, a cartoon painting of the band engaging in nude debauchery, and cartoons of Balsac the jaws of Death punching a woman, and a man smoking a pipe with a nuclear mushroom cloud blowing his mind. The artwork on the cd is also different, featuring cartoon caricatures of the band on the unedited version, and the tracklist on a black background on the edited version. The edits to the booklet also removed lyrics to songs and biographies of band members Flattus Maximus and Sleazy P. Martini.

47. Mom's Apple Pie - Mom's Apple pie. The original cover features a "hidden" labia in the cherry pie. The edited version placed barbed wire around the cut out slice and filled in in with bricks and an American flag.

48. Scorpions - In Trance. They sure are naughty boys, eh? This album had an exposed breast on a woman crouching over a guitar. The breast was airbrushed out later.

49. UFO - Force It. The original cover features a couple making out in a bathtub, with the girl's butt exposed. Subsequent issues blurred out the couple.

50. Dead Kennedys - Frankenchrist. The original album came with a H.R. Geiger poster called Penis Landscape. Subsequent copies did not include the poster, but did include an anti-censorship message from the band.

5. The Strokes - is This It. The original cover features a side view of a nude woman's hip with a leather gloved hand resting upon it. The alternate cover is a microscopic closeup of a particle collision.

I'm sure there are pleanty more, but hopefully you found this interesting.

[Owen]

The Wildhearts had the original cover for the single of 'Greetings from Shitsville' banned as it featured their producer shitting into a pitta bread that was being held by Ginger and CJ

[Owen]

And Spinal Tap had the album cover for 'Smell the Glove', which featured a woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck, banned for being too sexy

[LongGoneLoser]

An old thrash band from Australia called Massive Appendage had an album called Severed Erection and the album was sold in brown paper bags. It's a much sought after record and very hard to find now.

I know Sonic Youth's "Dirty" album caused a stink because of the hidden photo under the tray of the people fucking teddy bears. I also believe that they were the first band to do the ole picture under the tray trick.

Speaking of Chumbawamba... i heard a story that when the Tubthumping album came out, the label in the USA removed all the poltical propaganda that was written in the booklet explaining the lyrics to each song. This resulted in drunken louts thinking that annoying "I get knocked down" song was a pro-drinking / violent drunken behaviour / beating people up song.

Then again I knew people who didn't realise Rage Against The Machine were straight edge and when they found out they refused to listen to the band. Yeah, seriously. There ARE people that dumb in the world.

[Sleazy Rock N Roll]

It must be an American thing as most of those album covers are still available unaltered in the UK.

[BenFrom Philly]

Scorpions 'Virgin Killer' cover.. Thats some fucked up kiddie-porn shit right there!
Also the first Fotomaker album has a little girl made up like a sex kitten that is also pretty sick and wrong.
Also, how is Cannibal Corpse and Carcass not on this list

[LongGoneLoser]

Also, how is Cannibal Corpse and Carcass not on this list

Kinda close but PUNGENT STENCH got banned in Australia. The cover of the 2 dead corpses kissing. I don't know why. It just was. How weird they didn't like that but thought it was ok for Cold Chisel to have a live album called "You're 13, you're beautiful and you're mine!"

[Mangorilla]

Also, how is Cannibal Corpse and Carcass not on this list

Mostly because I was lazy, and the list was getting long.

Cannibal Corpse: (All covers are cartoon drawings, not actual photographs)
Eaten Back to Life - Uncensored: A jeans wearing corpse in a graveyard tearing at his torso, with entrails and blood splatter.
Censored: Black background with the band's name and album title in white.

Butchered at Birth - Uncensored: Two corpses in butcher's smocks, cutting open a dead woman and holding her baby, with other corpse parts hanging from the ceiling.
Censored: White background with the band's name and album title in red, with a mail in offer for the uncensored version.

Tomb of the Mutilated - Uncensored: Male corpse performing cunnilingus on a female corpse.
Censored: Male corpse standing over a white sheet

Hammer Smashed Face (single) - Uncensored: Hammer impaled in an exposed skull with brain matter and muscle tissue.
Censored: Skull surrounded by candles

The Bleeding - Uncensored: Group of corpses.
Censored: Bloody sheet

Vile - Uncensored: Stitched together corpse torso with maggots spilling out from its stomach.
Censored: The corpse is cropped, showing only it's face and chest.

Gallery of Suicide - Uncensored: Man in a business suit after shooting himself in the head, man with his wrists cut, man with his throat slit, three hanging corpses, a bloody skeleton, a topless woman cutting herself with exposed entrails, another bloody man up against a wall.
Censored: A castle.

Bloodthirst - Uncensored: A demon holding a severed head and severed arms, with a headless bloody corpse in the corner.
Censnored: Less horrific demon standing on top of a pile of bones.

Live Cannibalism - Uncensored: A colliseum of mutilated corpses, with a corpse on stilts walking over them.
Censored: Pilar with demon statues.

Gore Obsessed - Uncensored: Group of corpses, tearing apart a large man.
Censored: Three corpses, one with his hands raised with a knive in his hands, about to attack a pair of arms.

The Wretched Spawn - Uncensored: Nude woman with a demon bursting form her chest and vagina, with a demon shoving his hands in her mouth, as two more corpses stand over her weilding knives.
Censored: Skull with the band's name and title in red.

Photos here: http://sleevage.com/cannibal-corpse-uncensored-covers/

All of their albums were apparently banned from sale in Australia until 2006, and the first three albums were banned in Germany upon their releases, and the band couldn't play any songs from those albums live in Germany until 2006.