Friday - May 15, 2009

A painting on a CD sleeve banned in some stores. Right or Wrong?

I didn’t have a clue that I’d be posting this for your opinions. In fact, I don’t even know who the heck they are talking about.
Here’s another one of those ... BUT…

I was off checking my email just now and on the left was a question, I read the question and thought, what’s that all about?
I didn’t have to read far as the ‘so called art’ caught my eye.  A bleeding beaten girl? It a painting but why?  And it’s on a CD cover.

Well, I’m not one for censorship and I do understand that what I call dreck (crap, something worthless, junk) others see as art. OK. Not my taste and I don’t think much of the person who creates this stuff.  Just another thing that coarsens the culture. What’s left of it anyway.

One thing that did surprise me were the comments made at the end of the story. (see the link) I am definitely in the old fart minority I guess.
Truth to tell however, I didn’t care for this sort of ‘art?’ when I was 20. I don’t understand it and don’t see the point of it. I also don’t understand the so called music group(s) with odd or silly names that are generally made up of would be musicians who haven’t really learned their instruments but simply bang away, bump and grind and screech the same tired line a hundred times to an equally talentless and tone deaf crowd ... BUT. 
That is NOT the subject here.

Some stores found the painting so distasteful that they have refused to stock the CD in it’s sleeve with THIS PICTURE .

But some of those complaining about this decision are also trying to compare magazines with sexy women and bare butts or photos of guns, with a picture of a girl with a bleeding face and a black eye, as though she’s been beaten.  I don’t see that comparison at all.  Do you? 
Alright. Some of you may not approve of semi-nude young women on display in the papers and magazines. But would you compare that to the picture here?

I’d rather see a photo a pretty lady or a beautiful car or even a blank cover, then be confronted by this at the checkout. But that’s me. Others will disagree.

Tastes sure have changed radically. And what a title.  Journal for plague lovers?  Oh how inventive and literate. But I’m sure it matches whatever they call music on that CD.

Manic Street Preachers Banned
Posted Fri 15 May 2009 11:34AM BST by Dave Rumour in Snap, Crackle and Pop

You probably wouldn’t know it looking at their rather tired 21st century image but the Manic Street Preachers used to be a quite terrifying prospect for some, full of provoctive teen rage, playing “Top Of The Pops” in balaclavas, while tragic lost member Richey Edwards famously slashed the words “For Real” into his bloody arm in a bid to impress former music journalist Steve Lamacq.

They might be a lot older now but that’s not stopped their new album being banned by four of the UK’s big retail giants, with one supermarket calling the artwork “inappropriate”.

The cover for “Journal For Plague Lovers” (pictured) depicts a girl seemingly with a bloody and battered face and has been painted by acclaimed artist Jenny Saville. The record is considered a follow-up to the Welsh rockers’ landmark 1994 album “The Holy Bible”, which also featured one of her controversial works.

Sainsburys, Tesco, Asda and Morrisons have all refused to stock it with the original image, as Nicola Williamson, music buyer for Sainsbury’s explained: “We felt that some customers might consider this particular album cover to be inappropriate if it were prominently displayed on the shelf. “

The Manics have reacted with bafflement at the news, calling their decision “truly bizarre” and pointing to the fact that such shops regularly display products of a similarly graphic nature.

“We just thought it was a beautiful painting. We were all in total agreement”, explained singer James Dean Bradfield, continuing: “You can have lovely shiny buttocks and guns everywhere in the supermarket on covers of magazines and CDs, but you show a piece of art and people just freak out”. “Journal For Plague Lovers” is released on Monday but will only be available in these stores in a special sleeve provided by the publisher.

Posted by peiper     on 05/15/2009 at 08:37 AM   
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff • Music • UK •  
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