Rock-'N'-Roll Cover-Up

By Sidney Urquhart

Last week's hubbub over the nude statues on the cover of David Bowie's latest album (see PEOPLE) is in step with rock's tradition of provocative packaging:

CHOPPING BLOCK. Angry because some songs were cut from the U.S. versions of previous albums, the Beatles posed for Yesterday and Today in butcher's smocks with pieces of meat. Capitol Records pasted a different photo over the cover.

TWO REVEALING. John Lennon and Yoko Ono posed nude for the album Two Virgins, thus earning it a plain brown wrapper.

SECULAR SOUNDS. Fearing a Fundamentalist backlash, Columbia changed the title of Nick Lowe's 1978 Jesus of Cool album to Pure Pop for Now People.

MISOGYNIST MESSAGE. The 1987 Guns N' Roses debut album portrayed a battered woman with her panties around her ankles. After protests, the artwork was changed.

^ ANATOMICALLY CORRECT. Last year the band Jane's Addiction initially released Ritual de lo Habitual with nude dolls cavorting on the cover but changed to a blank white album with a quote from the First Amendment.

With reporting by DAVID ELLIS