Cover This! Album covers which would almost certainly not be allowed now!

[Trollheart]

Albut art used to be, well, an art, back in the 1960s, when albums graduated from being just a collection of singles with filles to actual records people wanted to buy, and weren't getting just for the tracks they knew, and of course it came of age with the rise of both prog rock and heavy metal, each of these genres (and others) pushing the envelope till it often tore.

But while there may be the odd risque cover today, it's fair to say that some of the better - or worse - ones released in let's say the last quarter of the twentieth century would struggle to be seen on record shop shelves (what?) or even online today.

So post some you remember.

They can be lurid, sexual or just violent, really weird or even I guess homophobic or xenophobic (see standard disclaimer below). If you feel the need to, mask your efforts from the Google Gestapo by throwing it behind a spoiler tag, but that doesn't stop you from talking about it. Or them.

Anyhoo, one I remember, which certainly would raise eyebrows and possibly lead to more than one shop cancelling orders (which would have been a smart move, as it was, as we used to say back then, shite) is this one, from that well-known total flop metal band, Splitbeaver.

I mean, come on! Even the name screams BAN THIS! doesn't it? Could you have a more overtly misogynic title/cover? Well yes, as you'll see in the next few posts, you sure as hell could. But this is pretty bad. Perhaps, give how shit the album/band is/was, they were overcompensating? Whatever, it's not what you'd call fine art, in fact it's what you'd call exploitative art, but this is now and that was then. Or something.

A case of a time when you could judge an album by its cover.

Disclaimer: Posting of album covers dealing with subjects such as misogny or homophobia (or even worse, that curse of our time, people prejudiced against tramps - yes, I'm talking about hobophobia! - does not, I repeat not, imply any sort of agreement with or adherence to the values espoused on those album covers. Even if they're done ironically, in jest, to thumb their nose at society or because the artist got drunk and just thought it was cool. Such subjects are reprehensible, and if you don't think so, you're a homo.


Disclaimer addenda: Trollheart is now offering an exciting opportunity for new, young, hungry lawyers who know what the fuck they're talking about, as mine clearly don't understand the concept of a fucking disclaimer, guys!

[Lisnaholic]

Offhand, I can only come up with the famous Blind Faith cover of a topless eleven-year-old:-



...perhaps they were thinking in terms of the old hippy-dippy innocence when awareness of pedophilia was a lot lower. The original of this cover is another example of under-estimating the world's perviness:-



Blind Faith = 1969
Houses of the Holy = 1973

[Lisnaholic]

Anyone else remember this proud (and elaborate) celebration of blackface? When I was 10-12 years old, this long-running show was a regular fixture on Saturday night t.v.:-
(So more or less 1964.)