Offensive Beatles Parody Cover

from the editors of What Goes On Beatles News

Distributers and stores ban offensive Beatles parody cover

According to MTV.com, the new United Nations Side Project CD might not make it to stores. The cover of the CD uses the image of the Beatles' 1969 album Abbey Road, except in the United Nations version, all the Beatles are engulfed in flames.

Geoff Rickly, frontman of Punk group Thursday, said, "We've gotten some cease-and-desists. We worked with this British anarchist artist named James Cauty, and he did all this great stuff. But it had some copyright issues, and that's why all the distributors and stores refuse to carry it. We have 1,000 copies of this album sitting around with artwork that has been banned and we're trying to figure out what to do with those."

How about just destroying them? We're glad that responsible businesses have banned this CD, and sites like Amazon are not showing the cover image. In our opinion, this cover is offensive to the millions of Beatles fans all over the world, and it mocks what the Beatles stood for most, which was World Peace, and all you need is Love.

(info thanks to MTV, album cover thanks to Exclaim.)

You can see a picture of the cover at this webby:

http://www.whatgoeson.com/blog/the-b...ody-cover.html

Well....they WERE (and still are) pretty hot stuff!

I dunno, its not really the most offensive thing I've ever seen, its still not very nice though, so I guess its good that its been banned.

I don't understand why people bothering putting in the energy of using art to insult those they don't like. Why not use your talents for good?

Besides everything else, the Abbey Road setup has been done so many times over. Here are just two examples, grabbed at random! Hey, when something's been spoofed by the Simpsons it pretty much says it all!

Shadows:



Red Hot Chili Peppers:



Simpsons:

Lousy spoofs that I personally find tasteless, but it just goes to show you that you can't dodge the Beatle influence.

No surprise Marge Simpson plays the Ringo part as she's a Ringo fan. Remember the 1993 episode where she wrote Ringo a fan letter; painted pictures of the oldest Beatle and had him guest STARR on the show?

Nothing wrong with it besides using a copyrighted photo.

Except an abysmal lack of creativity!

Think, boys! Tap into those juices! Let them flow!

It's a crummy cover. Couldn't they come up with something better? I could to that effect on my lousy computer!

I'm not offended but I dont get it, really. What's burning Beatles got to do with the UN?

It has nothing to do with the UN organisation. It's a music group that calls themselves United Nations! I'll file this whole cover thing under "people who doesn't get it and are too full of themselves to even try."

Here's from the Stereoboard site:

Thursday Frontman's United Nations Side Project Might Not Make It To Stores
Copyright issues surrounding cover art could keep debut — which Geoff Rickly calls 'a mirror to show people how stupid they look' — off the shelves.

By Chris Harris
Friday, 05 September 2008

When the long-promised, self-titled debut from grindcore supergroup United Nations is released September 9, chances are you won't be able to buy it. That's because no stores are willing to carry it, according to one of the band's members, Thursday frontman Geoff Rickly.

"We've gotten some cease-and-desists," he explained. "We worked [on the cover art] with this British anarchist artist named James Cauty, and he did all this great stuff. But it had some copyright issues, and that's why all the distributors and stores refuse to carry it. We have 1,000 copies of this album sitting around with artwork that has been banned and we're trying to figure out what to do with those."

So what was so problematic about Cauty's cover image? It's the same one from the Beatles' 1969 classic Abbey Road, only in his version, the Beatles are all entirely engulfed in flames. The band will likely face similar copyright issues when they attempt to release their forthcoming 7-inch, Never Mind the Bombings, Here's Your Six Figures, as that record's cover art — by Australian artist Ben Frost — is strikingly similar to that of the Sex Pistols' sole studio LP, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.

Believe it or not, that's not the only legal snafu United Nations will be dealing with — at this point, Rickly is the only member of this side project who is not under contract. That will soon change, as Rickly claims Thursday is weeks away from inking a new deal. He would not reveal which label the band would be signing with but did say they've already started working on the follow-up to 2006's A City by the Light Divided with producer Dave Fridmann. That album should be in stores this coming spring.

"Officially, we can't use any names, except for mine," he said. The band also features one former member of the Number Twelve Looks Like You and one current member of Head Automatica. "This band is so possible because none of us gives a sh-- what happens to it. We've all got our other stuff and this is just for us to say, 'F--- it — we can do whatever we want here.' "

While Rickly has been talking about the United Nations project for three years, the band certainly spent its time in the studio well. Rickly said they already have enough material for their sophomore album, which could be released early next year.

"It's been really crazy — the response has been insane," Rickly said. "We got a message from MySpace. ... We were one of the bands on the front page, but so was Snoop Dogg and this hot R&B chick, and they told us not only were we the most listened-to band that week but that the second one behind us had only half as many listens. I think it was 186,000 listens in the first 12 hours. So, for me, it's a little weird. I don't know what I was expecting would happen with this band, but it wasn't this."

According to Rickly, the idea behind United Nations is to get people pissed off again and to stir the musical pot a touch.

"To me, it's like we're living in 1984 again, and there's no Dead Kennedys," he said. "To me, it was like, maybe speaking sincerely about things isn't enough to make people pay attention. Maybe you have to make fun of people — and be a mirror — to show them how stupid they look, to get their attention. That's the idea. Punk is just way too safe these days, so we're hoping by making some audacious claims and doing some strange things and breaking a few laws, we can get people to think at least. It's the idea that you need to embrace the absurdity or it will f---ing kill you. The world doesn't make sense, and trying to make sense of it is a fool's errand."

But the record is a tongue-in-cheek affair. One track on United Nations is about the Beatles and their plot to blow up the world so they can all live in the yellow submarine. Another is about a toy-company lobbyist who is obsessed with yo-yos.

"There has been so much great, really aggressive music in the last couple of years, whereas around 2003, I was wondering if heavy music was dying on itself," Rickly said. "Everything became so predictable and formulaic, and in the last couple of years, bands like Young Widows, Ceremony and Cursed have come along, and they've been electric and awesome. This is basically us trying to kick that [heaviness and attitude] back into gear and remind bands that if they do anything safe, it just sucks."

Link to Article

Instead of destroying the album covers,they could take a picture of the group sitting on a trunk and paste it over the offending cover.

How about a cover with these guys going up in flames THEMSELVES!!! I can help!

He's missing the point anyway. REAL punk rockers used to inflict the pain on themselves, not others. Remember the green hair, the mohawk cuts, the safety pins, the tattooes, the ripped to barely-holding-together clothes? THOSE were punks!

Hibgal, how about using their faces as bull's eyes in a dart board and aiming darts and pies flambe at these artists?

Good point about self mutilation as being part of the early punk scene. Not my cuppa, but then neither is this.

Originally Posted by hibgal

Remember the green hair, the mohawk cuts, the safety pins, the tattooes, the ripped to barely-holding-together clothes? THOSE were punks!

My mohawk was purple.

Originally Posted by hibgal

It has nothing to do with the UN organisation. It's a music group that calls themselves United Nations!

Oh! Okay. I was confused that the UN would even be putting out music in the first place!

Oh, so THAT explains the UN!

I hate the Red Chili Peppers' spoof cover.

It's important to note that the MTV article, titled "Thursday Frontman's United Nations Side Project Might Not Make It To Stores," makes it clear that "no stores are willing to carry [the album]" due to "copyright issues".

The title of the What Goes On post is "Distributors and stores ban offensive Beatles parody cover," and its writer, employing the editorial 'we' and later presuming to represent the "millions of Beatles fans all over the world," opines "this cover is offensive... it mocks what the Beatles stood for most, which was World Peace, and all you need is Love". One could easily get the impression, from the WGO post, that the album cover was banned because it was "offensive" when in fact it was only banned because of copyright infringement. (A point of clarification: I recognize that the post contains no statement to the contrary and I don't mean to imply that the writer intended to mislead his readers regarding the cause of the ban.)

I doubt anyone would argue with the assertion that the cover art is dismally unoriginal (One of who-knows-how-many AR parody covers. Warning: graphics intensive) or that it's a sensationalistic ploy to garner attention and sell more albums (Like #1 and #3 on someone's 'Top 10 Most Controversial Album Covers of All Time' list. Warning: NSFW)--but does it really "mock what the Beatles stood for most"? Supposing it does, where's the harm in that? The album cover isn't likely to inspire shoppers to attend anti-World Peace/All You Need is Love rallies or to become pyromaniacs who hang out at the Abbey Road crosswalk to shoot pedestrians with flame-throwers whenever they attempt to cut across in single file. The worst that it can do is rouse the impotent indignation of a few umbrageous Beatle fans who might later post about the album cover on blogs or message boards, thereby generating some free online publicity for the band.

Oh, and if, for some strange reason, you were not offended by the sight of the fab four taking a casual post-spontaneous combustion stroll across Abbey Road (you heartless monsters! :P), don't worry, the author of the MTV article thoughtfully gives us another chance: "One track on United Nations is about the Beatles and their plot to blow up the world so they can all live in the yellow submarine."

The author of that quasi-article has too much time on their hands.

Talk about yellow (not submarine) journalism!