Top 10 Banned Album Covers

Album covers were banned for various reasons years ago but nowadays it takes quite a bit to get an album cover and it’s artwork banned or altered, obviously we are far more tolerant than our mothers or fathers or even grandparents ever were. These banned albums were cited as too rude, had explicit language or depicted scenes of violence, for many people to handle. But some of these, when I was trawling through album reviews , were banned for entirely different reasons, reasons we wouldn’t even think twice about. Like when someone connected to the album died and that it seemed inappropriate to use it, so some were modified.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd’s album Street Surviours, was one of these such albums to be reworked after the tragic plane crash that took the lives of some of the band members. The marketing company and producers removed the flames and had the pic of the band standing on just a plain black background, as they thought the flames would upset many people after what had befallen them.

Albums of course nowadays don’t seem to be sanitized half as much as they were years ago, virtually anything goes, stuff that was considered indecent or unsavory, is now just the norm. Although there does sometimes seem to be a few that just can’t get away with it, like Kanye West’s album!

But years ago even things like dirty toilets and suggestive pictures of jeans were banned or altered, because either the general public found it offensive and vulgar or that shops would refuse to stock the album, which just seems totally ludicrous these days!

A lot of things 40 years ago that were considered unsuitable for public consumption, so to speak, were either just changed to photos of the band or singer, while others had the offensive parts either airbrushed out or crudely covered up. I find this so funny that this was done, people today would more than likely just laugh it off or think nothing of it. Oh how the world has changed in the last 40 years!

So here is the Top 10 Banned Album Covers…

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Guns N Roses album cover, Appetite for Destruction, that showed a weird rape scene was banned for it’s violent and rude context. I however have this cover,as I think it wasn’t banned everywhere. The cover was changed to a more mainstream pic of a cross with the band members skeletal heads decorating it!

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The Beatles album, Yesterday and Today was banned for looking more like a butchers shop front window than and album cover. It was changed and re-released with the band and a suitcase as a cover?

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Well we can plainly see why this album cover by Gorgasm was banned!

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Poison’s album cover, Open Up and Say….Ahh! was banned for being too seductive, it was changed so that just the eyes were showing. I think the new version was much better visually anyway!

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Pantera’s album cover, Far Beyond Driven, was banned for…well you guessed it, a giant drill being rammed up a man’s backside!

What were they thinking?

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This album cover was banned due to timing rather than anything else. The album featured the Twin Towers in New York,  but it was pulled from shelves after it was released on Sept 11 2001, the fateful day when the Towers fell.

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KMD’s album cover was banned for all the right reasons, no one tolerates Racism these days and rightly so!

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Jimi Hendrix’s album cover Electric Ladyland was banned as there was too much nudity on it for people in 1968 to handle. The replacement was a shot of Jimi Hendrix’s face.

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I can see why this album cover was banned, as it depicts a scene of a baby about to be killed by zombies after its mother was mutilated as it took it’s first breath. But if they have banned this one I can’t see why all their other artwork has been left alone. Not that I mind this one,it’s just a drawing after all, it’s what Heavy Metal or Death Metal bands use for  album covers. Controversial and shocking, they have to to get their point across…

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Controversy surrounds Kayne West’s Album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Supposedly banned in the US in 2010, but other sources say that it may have been Kanye himself that decided to use alternative artwork, so that Wal-Mart and the likes would stock his Album.

I am now wondering how many of you out there, are looking through you old vinyls to see if you have any banned album covers in your collections. I have one or two for sure!!
Hope you enjoyed these. Until next time…

Demon Chick xx