Jane's Addiction - Ritual De Lo Habitual
I think the original album cover for Ritual De Lo Habitual is actually pretty silly looking. That's why it's so shocking that it was banned. I just can't imagine that anyone found the paper mache figures to be lewd. The good news is that Jane's Addiction responded with a more powerful cover to replace it by simply displaying the First Amendment. I'm never happy to see censorship, but at least something good came from it here.
Labels: jane's addiction
posted by bob_vinyl at
12:02 AM
4 Comments:
I like the original cover. As I recall, there were several L.A. bands who were dabbling with Mexican folk art, but Perry Farrell's unique and disturbing vision provided one of the most interesting cultural/artistic mixes. I was working in an L.A. record store when Ritual came out, and I was disgusted by the alternative cover. In retrospect, however, it is a strong cover in its own right, and they made the best of a bad situation. It's certainly better than something like the censored cover for Tin Machine II.
There was a time when things were censored and you had to wonder why. Like this cover and that second Poison album. Now it's much more commonplace for these things and much worse to just come out and no one bats an eyelash.
EXACTLY what Mark said on the Poison album. I almost wanted to hunt down the uncensored copy to post here, just because of the long tongue. I didn't think anything about it when I bought it on tape, then they censored the shit. WTF?
I mean, maybe because there's bush on the cover, paper mache or not, I dunno. And why Tin Machine II got censored, I dunno either. Sometimes the wrong people infiltrate good art
I think there's always been inconsistency in censorship. Look at the Robert Palmer album Ray posted about that wasn't censored versus Roger Waters' Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking that was. I think it ebbs and flows as the social climate changes. I'm sre there will be another big push for censorship again. I'm actually surprised it didn't happen while John Ashcroft was Attorney General.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home