Some album covers make an impression as soon as they hit stores. The retouched album cover omits the image of the genitalia, though Spotify persists with the uncensored version “Nevermind” (1991) by Nirvana We’re using this only to get attention,'” he told Blasting Zone the following year. But then, when we had to do the interviews about it, we said ‘Look, listen to the lyrics and then you’ll know what we’re talking about. The record company guys were like, ‘Even if we have to go to jail, there’s no question that we’ll release that.’ On the song ‘Virgin Killer,’ time is the virgin killer. Shame on me - I should have done everything in my power to stop it,” former band guitarist Uli Jon Roth told Classic Rock Revisited in 2006.įor his part, Rudolf Schenker, blamed the band’s former record company, RCA Records, for this aesthetic choice. Back then I was too immature to see that. “Looking at that picture today makes me cringe. Over the years, members of Scorpions have spoken out several times about the controversial “Virgin Killer” artwork.
The music press was also not particularly indulgent about the project, with Cracked magazine naming it the worst album cover of all time. The cover of “Virgin Killer” was censored and replaced by a picture of the six members of the band in some countries. According to the German hard rock band, it was supposedly a representation of the loss of innocence. One such offering is the artwork for the Scorpions’s fourth album, “Virgin Killer.” This features a 10-year-old girl completely naked, posing in a suggestive way. Rock music often courts controversy, as have some of the genre’s album covers. “The picture was to prove that we are not a couple of demented freaks, that we are not deformed in any way and that our minds are healthy,” the artist explains in “The Beatles Anthology.” “If we can make society accept these kinds of things without offence, without sniggering, then we shall be achieving our purpose.” This is more acceptable version of the album cover, compared to the original work deemed pornographic “Virgin Killer” (1976) by Scorpions In the US, the record made it to number 124 in the charts, with 25,000 copies sold.įor John Lennon, this flop was not so much about the explicit nature of the “Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins” cover photo, but more to do with the physical appearance of its two models.
Only 5,000 copies of the album were pressed in the UK, where it failed to chart. This precaution did not prevent “Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins” from being perceived as obscene, and therefore from suffering commercially. The image caused uproar when it was released in the fall of 1968 - so much so that some distributors decided to sell the album in plain brown packaging to effectively censor it. The couple used a time-lapse camera to take this black and white shot, where they can be seen posing completely naked.
Most controversial album covers - Yup, this is the censored version shown on Spotify “Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins” (1968) by John Lennon & Yoko Onoįew album covers are as famous as this one by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Here’s a look back at some of music’s controversial album covers. Other artists have seen their controversial album covers censored or even banned. Drake recently experienced this with the cover of his latest album, “Certified Lover Boy,” which sparked debate and was swiftly parodied on social media. It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and this is especially true for album covers, which are ideological and aesthetic statements. Here is a list of controversial album covers met with polemic. Album cover art - much like other forms of art - is subjective.