In today's music landscape, where the album cover ranks somewhere between beer advertisements and the latest Buzzfeed list in terms of overall cultural significance, it's easy to forget just how influential a good piece of cover art could once be. Whether it was the naked, floating baby reaching for a dollar on Nirvana's Nevermind or the tongue-in-cheek gathering of faux celebrities on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a creative and edgy image could become so iconic that they overshadowed the albums they were attached to. But the combination of anxious retailers and eager-to-please record executives can make it difficult for a cutting-edge photograph or some offbeat artwork to make it onto the shelves of record stores (or the front page of iTunes) in the first place. Gory mutilations, graphic nudity, Kanye West engaging in coitus with a phoenix...these types of things are frowned upon when trying to market an album to the public. So sometimes these images must be edited to make them more palatable for general consumption. On the other hand, some album covers receive censorship for reasons that could generously be considered ridiculous. Besides being unfortunate enough to be released at a time when prudence was running amok in the general populace, most of these cover images had nothing all that offensive to offer. Some of the most famous musicians and albums of all time have fallen victim to seemingly unnecessary retouching. Most often, it's just a case of precaution overruling creativity. And the reasoning for it usually sounds pretty dumb. These are those instances.
