laughable attempts to make political statements on album covers/posters/signs/billboards/etc.

list them here (preferably pics).

don't know much about Nevermore, but this album cover of theirs made me laugh at its lack of subtlety...

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B000A69RDU.03.LZZZZZZZ.gif

http://obucubu.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/music_jilted_generation.jpg

The insert from Music for the Jilted Generation. I've grown to love it really.

Its style is like something from "Watchtower"! I wonder if it's the same painter.

http://i30.tinypic.com/f845s.jpg

i think the statement is "a small portion of eastern oregon is not technically america"

hahaha

"fuck Nyssa"

Manic Street Preachers to thread...

http://www.ecompil.fr/bk_img/0000/7314/5122/0722/00731451220722/00731451220722_S.jpg

They were so laughable in and of themselves, I knew they'd be good for something on this thread.

Not sure what Canned Heat was getting at here...

http://images.jamsbio.com/images/politicalcovers/cannedheat.jpg

http://this.is/drgunni/arular.jpg

http://www.amiright.com/album-cover-themes/images/album-Green-Day-American-Idiot.jpg

to be honest I can't think of one that isn't laughable -- are there any?

^Lots, I would imagine, starting with this:

http://earbuds.popdose.com/robert/img/riot_cover.jpg

Great album, great artwork, but the captions always cracked me up:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uB-0D-gV8mY/RwrDNHuanKI/AAAAAAAAEdc/MLMcq7Tdj8I/s400/gang+of+four

I always assumed Gang of Four were laughing too. I mean, their name alone is hilarious.

It's sort of a no-win situation isn't it? If you make it too oblique/tasteful it's likely to fly overhead/under radar of the audience you're trying to reach. If you make it earnest and direct it will always seem like an overreach of what a consumer product has any standing to say.

A perennial favorite:

http://demolishmag.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/sacred-reich-surf-nicaragua.jpg

talking about politics is laughable

to be honest I can't think of one that isn't laughable -- are there any?

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:Mett_-6VtRUGlM:http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/67189.gif

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/63/Ice_Cube-Death_Certificate_%28album_cover%29.jpg

I don't mean to sidetrack the thread, but one more I'd call brilliant (if you don't know it well, it helps if you can read the newspaper):

http://mentaldefective.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/onthebeach.jpg

that first RATM album is kind of a joke but the cover isn't

Is it the burning monk one? I don't think it's the image so much as appropriating it for a RATM album that makes it laughable.
c.f.
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/images/uploads/2008/08/franzferdinand.jpg
(though I'm not sure what the statement here is either)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/A_New_Kind_of_Army_Album_Cover.jpg

okay lol at the fine print there

Dead Kennedy's Plastic Surgery Disasters still makes it's points pretty powerfully, especially when you stick next to a poster for E.T.

http://images.jamsbio.com/images/politicalcovers/funkadelic.jpg

http://images.jamsbio.com/images/politicalcovers/bobmarley.jpg

http://images.jamsbio.com/images/politicalcovers/thesmiths.jpg

http://images.jamsbio.com/images/politicalcovers/publicenemy.jpg

http://images.jamsbio.com/images/politicalcovers/kmd.jpg

http://betterpropaganda.com/images/artwork/Fuck_World_Trade-Leftover_Crack_480.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/Megadeth_-_The_System_Has_Failed.jpg

^ was done by david dees iirc

I remember when Vic Rattlehead was kind of threatening. Now he's just handing out cash, as to say "Plz listen to our new Megadeths cd."

re: ice cube, the oversize toetag and the sarcasm of his hand across his heart is what cracks me up, though in his defense it's a lot more tasteful than a brujeria cover.

http://lossless-galaxy.ru/uploads/posts/2009-08/1250506039_sammy-hagar-voa-1984.jpg

http://www.headbanger.us/gallerie_e/bilder/exploited_live%20at_the_whitehouse_front.jpg

I love'em, but....

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0011WMHWU.jpg

https://www.nakasha-spain.com/shop/images/Madonna-American-Life-248349.jpg

http://www.johnholmstrom.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/RocketToRussia.gif

http://991.com/NewGallery/Iron-Maiden-The-First-Ten-Yea-358688.jpg

http://lh5.ggpht.com/dione775/SGWUJzbAqhI/AAAAAAAAC3I/HOYxKQvmxQI/KillingJokeLaugh.INearlyBoughtOneFro%5B2%5D.jpg%5B

c.f.
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/images/uploads/2008/08/franzferdinand.jpg
(though I'm not sure what the statement here is either)

― Philip Nunez, Thursday, July 15, 2010 11:50 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

always figured that the statement = we <3 midcentury soviet design. nothing political about it.

early 20th century, whatever...

so far, Anti-Flag's disclaimer wins for me. It's all, "Shit guys, I'm gonna have to explain this cover to my uncle up in Erie".

Isn't the Ramones back cover far too comic-book goofy to be taken to be taken seriously?

I'm going to go get the papers, get the papers.

http://i25.tinypic.com/29e0tut.jpg
expression on Middle Chick does it

The Hagar cover rules. Why did he take a parachute? Out of expediency? Then why did he land so far from the steps of the capitol? Why isn't his guitar in a case? What about an amp? Is one being provided for him at the capitol? What business is so urgent that he's required to come in by parachute?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3356/3472554149_7a8b251885.jpg

It was harder to imagine Brown reading Fanon four years later, when the musician called for the reelection of Richard Nixon. But the same year Brown sang "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud," the future president had pointed out that "much of black militant talk these days is actually in terms far closer to the doctrines of free enterprise than to those of the welfarist thirties." Nixon went on to endorse "black power, in the best, the constructive sense of that often misapplied term....It's no longer enough that white-owned enterprises employ greater numbers of Negroes, whether as laborers or as middle-management personnel. This is needed, yes -- but it has to be accompanied by an expansion of black ownership, of black capitalism."

That might sound like a plan to loosen the strings that held back black businesses, for slashing at the licensing laws and other restraints that kept ghetto enterprises underground. Instead the president announced a black capitalism initiative that amounted to yet more goodies from the government: new contracts, new loans, new red tape. Nixon's black capitalism, like Nixon's white capitalism, had more to do with patronage than with free enterprise. The point wasn't black power; it was quelling unrest and buying votes.

About to leap in and point out that jim's talking bollocks but Shakey got there first. JB was still expressing his admiration for Nixon in a 1984 NME interview, so it wasn't just a temporary thing.

it's tricky because on the one hand Brown's politics were indeed almost totally self-serving and often schizophrenic/contradictory - but this is not the same as being apolitical. insofar as taking public political stances enhanced Brown's image of himself and got him taken seriously, he was very much willing to be political

FUNKY PRESIDENT (1974)

Funkytown, nasty
(Hey, listen to the man)
Yeah, I'm the Godfather (baby)

People, people
We got to get over
Before we go under
People, people
We got to get over
Before we go under

Hey, country
Didn't say what you meant
Just changed
Brand new funky President

Stock market going up
Jobs going down
And ain't no funking
Jobs to be found

Taxes keep going up
I changed from a glass
Now I drink out of a paper cup
It's getting bad

People, people
We got to get over
Before we go under

Listen to me
Let's get together and raise
Let's get together
And get some land

Raise our food like the man
Save our money like the Mob
Put up a fight down on the job

Jb's support for Nixon is as superficial and gauche as David lynch's for Reagan. Makes ratm's reading list look profound.

what's superficial about it? This is the guy they called in to stop race riots in Boston. This is someone the black community definitely looked to as an embodiment of their social aspirations - a black man who ran his own shit and said what he wanted.

also don't think it's fair to conflate Brown and Lynch. Brown PUBLICLY ENDORSED Richard Nixon, and stuck by that endorsement for decades. Lynch has this to say about Reagan (from 2007):

You were a defender of Ronald Reagan in the '80s —

No, no, no. You know, we live in a time where everything that anyone has ever said, or that someone else has said that they said, goes on some site. It's kind of cool in some ways, but then you need to explain certain things.

Well, let's get this one correct for all time.

Reagan cleared brush. That's what I liked about him. My father grew up on a ranch in Montana, and I grew up in Western American thinking, sort of like cowboys in the past on my father's side. So I liked him for that, and I liked this one speech he read early on, at some convention. But at that time, I thought of myself as a libertarian. I believed in next to zero government. And I still would lean toward no government and not so many rules, except for traffic lights and things like this. I really believe in traffic regulations . Some stop signs are really absurd. Like at night, at two a.m., I come to a stop sign, obviously, no cars are coming. And when I stop at that stop sign, I feel like a fool. It's so ridiculous. And other times, when it's heavy traffic, and the light turns yellow, I really have a strong desire to stop, and to keep the car stopped until the light turns, and then to look both ways before going forward. A lot of situations are a matter of life and death. So I believe in traffic rules.

Lynch had some offhand comments blown out of proportion. This is not the case with JB.

That The The image above is ripped from Discharge circa '82 or so:

http://www.the-rudy.com/images/discharge_never-again_f.jpg

love how lynch manages to change the subject from politics to one of his visual tropes (traffic lights) there

more pics pls

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/images/huggybear.jpg

Both the Discharge and The The images are from a collage by the German artist John Heartfield, titled The Spirit of Geneva, dated 1934 on the website I checked this info on.

oops; 1932.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/davepalmer/cutandpaste/heartfield_big5.html

Question: if a political art statement references something and no-one notices, does a tree fall on a kitten in a forest?

another hardcore cover w/ a little bit of everything: eye in the pyramid, fetus in a jar, Big Macs and KFC buckets flying over nuclear winter, which causes an ice age around the Sphinx while Satan Skeleton laughs. if you look closely there's even a pair of tits on the Red, White & Blue.

http://i637.photobucket.com/albums/uu92/damien_stone/amerika.jpg

I didn't realise that dove image was a Heartfield - what was potent in 1932 looks like a cliche 50 years later. I think that's the point with some of these images - they're easy to laugh at from a distance when you've forgotten the context and you've seen a lot of lousy imitations. Though I remember laughing at the Prodigy inlay even at the time.

I think that Huggy Bear cover is great.

http://www.vinyltap.co.uk/gallery/pr/presslis5505594890327420.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_soXI82GSn1A/ST3zGkfKRJI/AAAAAAAAAwM/Ro5eS1a7ax4/s400/PopGroupWheretheresAWill.jpg

http://lh5.ggpht.com/ivan1087/SIvCLIBt73I/AAAAAAAAC5k/FcGwEIO06fs/samples%20boogie%20down%20productions%20sex%20violence%20large.jpg

What's laughable in the Solidarity poster? Seems like a valid statement for the time.

It's shit, is what's wrong with it

What is shit? The poster or Solidarity? I think the poster is fine, if they just wanted to show support for Solidarity, the poster does that in a simple and unpretentious way.

It's not a poster it's an album

Whatever, the same applies.

http://www.metallibrary.ru/bands/discographies/images/nuclear_assault/pictures/91_out_of_order.jpg

images are all taken from photos included in his book which is an amazing study of voodoo/Haiti. not really political

― Major Lolzer (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, July 19, 2010 12:51 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

ah okay. I guess I felt kind of edgy after they were mentioned in the n-word thread

no KMFDM covers yet?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/Kmfdmmoney.jpg
http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/1359/coverpo2.jpg

What's the political statement in the "Money" one?

he is holding money in his hand, money is a commonly used financial instrument among countries with political institutions

If that's your definition of "political statement", you could post pretty much any album cover that features people doing something in this thread.

I think he's holding drugs in his hand and he's pointing the gun at you like "distribute this drug in your inner cities to make drug-slaves out of the impoverished minorities or I will kill you."

"Also, if you do this, I will let you fuck this broad."

man don't you know you're just furthering the repression of people worldwide by posting in this thread, you are just a tool of the government, man

xxp

Surprised by the lack of Megadeth.

http://religionnaire.pagesperso-orange.fr/artistes/megadeth/art/rust_in_peace.jpg

(Amazing album)

Is that skeleton man with chain earmuffs and a metal sleeping mask, holding a glowing pyramid,
is he the one who is holding back Area 52 documents?

So secret that they're "1" more than usual????

Gun Club/Deren Haiti image also used here:
http://media.warp.net/images/WAP050CD_Packshot_1000.jpg

(not laughable)

(except for the fonts)

That Megadeth album cover is quite something! I guess the people in it are supposed to be Bush Sr., Gorbachov, John Major, and whoever was the Japanese prime minister at the time... But the dude with the German flag doesn't look like Helmu Kohl? And what is the skeleton man supposed to symbolize? Deadly secrets? Why is he holding a piece of Kryptonite?

"Helmut Kohl"

'Major' looks more like Alex Ferguson if you ask me, too

Three guys on the left could be anyone

Alan Hansen second on left.

Skeleton man is named Vic Rattlehead. He also sells peace.

http://megadeth.megawan.com.ar/albums/Tapas%20Discos/images/peace_sells_but_whos_buying.jpg

in terms of pure LOLage the video for hangar 18 completely outshines the "rust in peace" album cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tzWc3Xl4B0

You can pretty much throw every Megadeth cover on here.

the newer Megadeth covers are worse IMO

feel like we're about to get a shitload more of these in the pipeline

of course you want to hear NOFX say George W Bush isn't good
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bd/NOFX_-_The_War_on_Errorism_cover.jpg
they're implying he's a clown