Banned album covers...

Does anyone remember the edited version for Queens "Bicycle Race" single? The original had naked women riding bicycles but the record company made the artist go back and paint over the exposed tushies.

DallasBlack wrote:

This from a county know for 'scheisser' porn?

Yes, because our government doesn't have a problem with Sex (All those alternate covers were never released here, from Scorpions - Virgin Killer (and all other Scorpions Covers that seemed to be so bad to some countries) to Amorica and everything else.
Our Government only has a problem with Violence.
There's a reason you get several hours of softporn/striptease every night on TV but some Schwarzenegger or Stallone movies are still banned

A lot of Death and Black Metal albums are banned.
We have two stages of "banned":
The first one means that you're not allowed to advertise this albums and you can't show them openly in stores, but stores are still allowed to sell them to adults.
Examples from Cannibal Corpse are: Eaten back to Life, Worm Infested, Hammer Smashed Face and Tomb of the Mutilated.
Oh an "Smurf like a Beast" from W.A.S.P. is also banned, not because of the Song but because of the Cover - for whatever reasons

The other means it's even forbidden to sell them. It's not forbidden to own them (because when those laws were made the government thought it's enough to forbid the sell) so you can still buy them in another country.
One example is Butchered at Birth from Cannibal Corpse and therefore the band is also not allowed to play the songs from that album during their concerts.
Another completely banned album is Re-animated dead flesh from Mortician.

I guess a perfect example for the stupidity of our censor-happy government is the complete ban of NOFXs Eating Lamb because of the Cover. That's the LP version of the album Heavy Petting Zoo. Heavy Petting Zoo, despite having a similar "offensive" cover is not banned

We used to have the same censoring madness here in Norway too, but we had it with movies. Blood, guts and violence was cut out of movies, and several of them were totally banned. It was so ridiculous watching the Norwegian versions of Commando and RoboCop, because with all the cuts the movies the storylines were hard to follow! The irony is that Even the censored movies you had to be 18 to watch. Nowadays they don't cut in the films, and the highest age limit is 15!

What if Cannibal Corpse simply performed the Butchered at Birth songs as instrumentals (no lyrics)?

Then they'd indeed be butchered.

kmorg wrote:

We used to have the same censoring madness here in Norway too, but we had it with movies. Blood, guts and violence was cut out of movies, and several of them were totally banned. It was so ridiculous watching the Norwegian versions of Commando and RoboCop, because with all the cuts the movies the storylines were hard to follow! The irony is that Even the censored movies you had to be 18 to watch. Nowadays they don't cut in the films, and the highest age limit is 15!

It was quite mad in Finland too. During 1987-2001 every movie with the age limit of 18 was banned. In other words, if a movie had either too graphic violence or pornographic images, the movie would be forbidden from people under 18, and as it was against the law to distribute these "K18" movies, they had to be cut to fit the K16 restriction. So, if a movie was thought to be too pornographic or violent to be shown to people under the age of 18, then NO ONE could see them. Not even your father or grandfather.

It started to loosen a bit nearing the end of the 90's, as some previously banned movies like Scanners, Superstition and The Hills Have Eyes were checked again and were given the K16 restriction. They even released a porn film called Zazel with the age limit of 16.

In 2001 that law was completely removed and adults can finally watch whatever they want, most of the time uncensored too.

There is one funny thing to this though. Now the rules are that every single movie is K18 and if the distributor wants to have a lower age limit, then they must pay to the people who check out the movie and decide the age limit. This has led to a system where some distributors who don't want to pay extra for getting a lower age limit are releasing stuff with the 18 limit. Even the first box set of The Little House on the Prairie was K18

kmorg wrote:

We used to have the same censoring madness here in Norway too, but we had it with movies. Blood, guts and violence was cut out of movies, and several of them were totally banned. It was so ridiculous watching the Norwegian versions of Commando and RoboCop, because with all the cuts the movies the storylines were hard to follow! The irony is that Even the censored movies you had to be 18 to watch. Nowadays they don't cut in the films, and the highest age limit is 15!

Robocop is banned here in Germany too. There's a version for people 16 years and older, it's missing about 11 minutes, basically all the violence is gone. They even cutted the fake-advertisement for that family game "Nukem"

The funniest thing i saw recently, was about from Dusk till Dawn. The movie is banned but some label released a new DVD/BR with a sticker saying "New cut version! Only 2 minutes missing!"
The weird thing about this cut version is, they left in everything from the titty twister, all the violence and splatter - but they took out the beginning of the movie were that cop complains about the burger he ate. Apparently that's way too harsh and politicaly uncorrect

Hadley wrote:

What if Cannibal Corpse simply performed the Butchered at Birth songs as instrumentals (no lyrics)?

I remember one time, the german punk band "Die Aerzte" played their banned song "Geschwisterliebe" (translates to "sibbling love" it's a not to be taken serious song about incest, sadly the censors took it serious) as an instrumental during a concert, the fans of course sang the lyrics and it ended with the band being in court because the concert was also visited by minors. They had to pay 1500 DM because of it.
I guess at an "Adult only" concert, there shouldn't be any problems.

ultmetal wrote:

Replaced with a generic logo:


Apparently the first image was too dramatic/shocking for the Christian bookstores, so they created the censored version for them to sell.

I love the "Gnarly" cover way better. Finally got a copy of the "safe" version.

shamgar75 wrote:

ultmetal wrote:

Replaced with a generic logo:


Apparently the first image was too dramatic/shocking for the Christian bookstores, so they created the censored version for them to sell.

I love the "Gnarly" cover way better. Finally got a copy of the "safe" version.

Never would have gotten that one if it weren't for the orgional cover. One of the best Christian metal abum covers IMO.

DallasBlack wrote:

shamgar75 wrote:

ultmetal wrote:

Replaced with a generic logo:


Apparently the first image was too dramatic/shocking for the Christian bookstores, so they created the censored version for them to sell.

I love the "Gnarly" cover way better. Finally got a copy of the "safe" version.

Never would have gotten that one if it weren't for the orgional cover. One of the best Christian metal abum covers IMO.

Yeah - Jayson Sherlock drew that cover (as well as SOTM). Cool dude and definitely one of the best album covers by a christian metal artist.

became

Jimi Hendrix Electric Ladyland originally had nude women sitting in a group on the cover.

W.A.S.P.--Animal F**k like a beast

Great White....Hooked originally had a nude woman on the hook

"This album cover got banned for more of a timing issue. The album features the twin towers in New York engulfed in fire. If that weren't enough, it was released on Sept. 11, 2001, how's that for timing? The record label quickly pulled all versions of the album from store shelves and re-released with a new cover."

became

became

became