List of Controversial Album Art - Others

Others

• The Beatles - Yesterday and Today (1966)
  • This album is remembered primarily for the controversy surrounding its original cover image, the aptly named "butcher cover" featuring the band dressed in white smocks and covered with decapitated baby dolls and pieces of meat. The album was recalled after an outcry and had an alternate picture of the Beatles cover pasted over it.
• The Mamas & the Papas - If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears (1966)
  • The original cover featured the group sitting in a bathtub with a toilet in the corner of the room. In a move reflecting the mores of the time (1966), this cover was pulled from stores after the toilet was declared indecent. A second cover was then released with a list of hit songs on the album obscuring the toilet, followed by a third with a black border that removed any hint that the picture was taken in a bathroom.
• The Rolling Stones – Beggars Banquet (1968)
  • The cover photo that the band intended to use was taken in a filthy lavatory. The record label refused to distribute the record with this photo, so a plain white cover with the name of the record was substituted. The original artwork has been restored to recent CD reissues.
• The Mothers of Invention – We're Only in It for the Money (1968)
  • The front cover of the album was originally intended as a parody of the cover for The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which was released a year before. However, this caused controversy and at the insistence of Verve Records, the image became part of the gatefold sleeve. Instead of the parody of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the cover art depicted a groupshot of the band members, although some later reissues feature the former cover.
• Alice Cooper - Love It to Death (1971)
  • The album cover caused much controversy at the time of its release due to Cooper's thumb sticking out of his pants, thus giving the illusion that it is his penis, leading Warner Brothers to censor it (four different versions of the front cover exist on LP). Cooper's thumb is clearly airbrushed out on censored versions.
• Michael Jackson - Ben (1972)
  • The original cover of the album depicted Jackson above a number of killer rats. Whilst the rats were not depicted as being killer, the same image was used for the film Ben, which was about killer rats. Motown Records discovered that the cover could scare children from buying the album, thus a 'second' cover replaced the original one, showing the same image except the rats were removed.
• Scorpions - Taken by Force (1977)
  • The album cover shows a man being shot by another man in a grave yard with a gun, with many cross tombstones clearly marking that the dead man is due to be buried under one of the crosses. The album cover was replaced in some regions with a different cover.
• Lynyrd Skynyrd - Street Survivors (1977)
  • The original cover sleeve for Street Survivors had featured a photograph of the band, particularly Steve Gaines, engulfed in flames. Five days after the album was released, several of the band members were killed in a fiery plane crash. Out of respect for the deceased (and at the request of Teresa Gaines, Steve Gaines' widow), MCA Records withdrew the original cover and replaced it with a similar image of the band against a simple black background. Thirty years later, for the deluxe CD version of Street Survivors, the original "flames" cover was restored.
• Cannibal Corpse (1990–2006)
  • Most albums by death metal band Cannibal Corpse were banned in Germany until June 2006, due to the graphic cover art on their albums. For example, Tomb of the Mutilated featured one corpse performing cunnilingus on another. The censored version features a further corpse presumably watching the act (not shown) in adoration.
• U2 - Boy (1980)
  • The album features the head and shoulders of a shirtless young boy on the cover. The subject is Peter Rowan, brother of a friend of Bono's, who also appears on the cover of War and other U2 releases. The Canadian and U.S. releases of Boy featured distorted images of the band members on the cover.
• Yoko Ono - Season of Glass (1981)
  • The cover caused controversy when it was admitted that the blood-stained glasses on the front cover were actually those of John Lennon which he was wearing after he was murdered, with the blood-stains being his own. Ono once explained that she chose this cover to "remind people that John didn't just die... he had been murdered".
• Black Sabbath - Born Again (1983)
  • The cover art, designed by Steve Joule, features an image of an infant with horns and vampire fangs. The cover eventually caused controversy and has been hated by some fans. Drummer Bill Ward has said that he did not like the album's cover and according to him, then-singer Ian Gillan told the press that he vomited when he first saw the cover. Guitarist Tony Iommi approved the album cover. Despite the controversy, the album has never had an alternate cover.
• Overkill - !!!Fuck You!!! (1987)
  • The original cover art featured a hand gesturing an upraised middle finger. The 1990 CD re-issue was sold with a reversible cover art booklet. The visible side when sold in the stores was a simple field of white with the band's logo, the album name reading as !!!**** You!!!, with a subhead that read "The Record THEY tried to ban". A Parental Advisory logo appeared in the lower right corner. The original cover art was able to be used if the booklet was opened and reversed by creasing the cover the opposite way. The expanded re-release, entitled !!!Fuck You!!! and Then Some, displayed the original cover photo.
• Guns N' Roses- G N' R Lies (1988)
  • The album cover depicts a newspaper article with various text written on it, alongside images. The original version of the album cover included the headines "Wife-beating has been around for 10,000 years" and "Ladies, welcome to the dark ages", which both become very controversial, due to the misogyny nature of both sentences. They were quickly replaced with "Lies Lies Lies" and "Elephant Gives Birth to Midget" respectively.
• Autopsy - Severed Survival (1989)
  • Two covers of this album exist but both of them have gained controversy: the original album cover depicts a creature with a hook in his tongue and is about to be slaugthered by some sharp objects, while the second cover depicts the point of view of the person receiving autopsy. The album has never had a "clean" cover.
• The Beautiful South - Welcome to the Beautiful South (1989)
  • The album cover originally depicted two pictures, one of a woman with a gun in her mouth, and another with a man smoking. The cover was banned by Woolworths because they thought it might cause people to take up smoking; the picture of the woman with a gun in her mouth also offended. As a result, a second cover was made, depicting a fluffy rabbit and a teddy bear.
• The Offspring - The Offspring (1989)
  • The album cover originally featured a picture of a man's body exploding as a creature resembling the xenomorph from the Alien franchise holding a Stratocaster guitar emerges from his chest. Copies of this album were banned and an alternative cover was created for later reissues.
• Pestilence - Consuming Impulse (1989)
  • The album cover was originally going to depict a group of people eating each other, but at the last minute, without the band's permission, Pestilence's then-label Roadrunner Records replaced the cover; the band never liked the outcome. The replacement cover features a face covered with ants.
• Paris - The Devil Made Me Do It (1990)
  • The album cover originally showed a picture of a police officer choke-holding a young black male, it was later replaced with a face shot of Paris, himself.
• Paris - Sleepin With the Enemy (1992)
  • The original album cover showed Paris hiding behind a tree with a gun (while then-president Bush was waving to the crowd) waiting to assassinate him. Like his previous album, the final release showed another regular face shot of him.
• Ugly Kid Joe - America's Least Wanted (1992)
  • The album cover depicts the impostor statue of liberty's right hand gesturing an upraised middle finger. Several national chains refused to sell the album, and a more censored version was manufactured for some retailers that featured the same boy on the original cover, who is tied up and wrapped in chains, and has his right hand covered in duct tape.
• Brujeria - Matando Güeros (1993)
  • The album cover depicts a person out of shot holding up a decapitated head, which was taken from Mexican newspaper ¡Alarma! Because of that cover, some stores in the United States and other countries refuse to sell the album. Roadrunner released a censored version with the cover showing just the name of the band and album title on a black background.
• Ice-T - Home Invasion (1993)
  • The album's cover depicted a white boy listening to rap music in the midst of a home invasion in which Blacks are attacking Whites (presumably the boy's parents). Sire Records, owned by Time Warner, refused to release the album with the cover, and Ice-T resigned from the label as a result.
• Nirvana - In Utero (1993)
  • When In Utero was released, there were many objections to the song "Rape Me", despite the band's claims that the lyrics were "anti-rape." Wal-Mart and Kmart also refused to stock the album because of its artwork (featuring an anatomical figure and model fetuses), so a "clean" version was released for them which featured an altered version of the back cover collage and listed the title "Rape Me" as "Waif Me", though the song remained unchanged.
• Mayhem - Dawn of the Black Hearts (1995)
  • Infamous for bearing a photograph of Mayhem's vocalist, Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin), after his suicide in April 1991. This photograph was allegedly taken by Mayhem's guitarist, Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth), upon discovering Dead's body.
• Master P - Ghetto D (1997)
  • The original album cover was pulled from the shelves deemed inappropriate. It depicted a crack addict sitting on the curb smoking from a glass pipe. It was promptly replaced by a collage style cover.
• Pitchshifter - Deviant (2000)
  • Pitchshifter's album cover used a picture of one of Gee Vaucher's Paintings which the painting shows a morph between the Pope John Paul II and Queen Elizabeth II. The album cover was banned in Poland, due to the some of the public's response to the image of the Pope John Paul cross between Queen Elizabeth II.
• Dream Theater - Live Scenes from New York (2001)
  • This is a 3 disc live album originally released on September 11, 2001, but when it was noticed that the cover artwork depicted the twin towers of the World Trade Center in flames, it was recalled and re-released a short time later with different artwork.
• The Coup - Party Music (2001)
  • The original cover art, designed in June 2001, depicted Boots Riley and Pam the Funkstress appearing to detonate the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. After the September 11 attacks, the album's release was delayed until November 2001 to allow new cover art to be used.
• Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006)
  • The cover sleeve showing Chris McClure, a friend of the band, smoking a cigarette, was criticised by the head of the NHS in Scotland for "reinforcing the idea that smoking is OK". The image on the CD itself is a shot of an ashtray full of cigarettes. The band's product manager denied the accusation, and in fact suggested the opposite — "You can see from the image smoking is not doing him the world of good".
• Caeser Pink & The Imperial Orgy - All God's Children (2007)
  • The cover depicted cartoon images of a green dinosaur, an African child with a machine gun, and Mickey Mouse portrayed as a Nazi with a Hitler mustache and a red armband. The cover caused the CD to be banned from radio stations across the country. WFCF Radio of Florida stated that the station "Did not want to subject their listeners to a band that would portray Mickey as a Nazi." Band leader Caeser Pink defended the song as a statement against consolidation of mass media, and the use of media to keep the public engaged in shallow entertainment, such as the flood of pop stars from the Disney Studios that have dominated American culture. Pink further claimed that the radio station bans constituted censorship of free speech on political grounds.
• James - Hey Ma (2008)
  • The album cover was promoted on billboards, although all billboard posters for the album were banned less than a month before the album's release because of fears concerning that the baby is depicted with a gun in the cover image. Despite the controversy, the band refuse to replace the image.
• Manic Street Preachers - Journal for Plague Lovers (2009)
  • The album art depicts a painting by Jenny Saville. A number of UK supermarket deemed the red/ochre colours on the portrait to be blood, and therefore used alternative packaging to stock the item. The alternative packaging in question is a longbox, a type of outer packaging used for some CDs in the 1980s and early to mid-1990s.
• Michael Jackson - Michael (2010)
  • The original cover featured the symbol of pop artist Prince in a bubble on the cover, which lead to some believe that the artist had some involvement with the album. When asked about the rumour to Prince's camp, they said "No permission was granted!". The symbol was later removed.