Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Banned Album Cover) via Twitpic

Kanye West takes the wraps off the cover for his fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, in stores November 22. “Banned in the USA!!! They tried to play me fam! They don’t want me chilling on the couch with my phoenix!” tweeted Yeezy before posting the controversial artwork illustrated by artist George Condo.

While retailers may oppose the cover, Kanye is putting his artistic integrity first. “In all honesty … I really don’t be thinking about Wal-Mart when I make my music or album covers #Kanyeshrug!” he said. “I wanna sell albums but not at the expense of my true creativity.”

Kanye is putting the finishing touches on the long-awaited project. “Last day to wrap the album… I’m feeling so blessed on this day… finishing my 5th studio album in 6 years! Lining up piano sample replays,” he wrote. “Adding the voice samples from the VMA performance to the album version of ‘Runaway’ also the whole song is 8 minutes long.” – Rap-UP

There are enough story lines behind Kanye West’s latest album, ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,’ to fill a three-pound autobiography with Kanye’s big grin on the cover. Even when we’d like a little less Kanye, everything is always about … Kanye. Now with only a month left till the album drops on Nov. 22, the cover art is making more headlines than the leaked tracks. When Kanye broke the news Sunday that Wal-Mart would allegedly ban the album from its stores, Kanye once again made it seem like a huge deal and painted himself as a romantic warrior sticking it to the man. The sad ironic truth behind the story is not that Kanye’s artwork may or may not be offensive, but rather that this story shouldn’t even matter because so few people buy CDs anymore — and that everyone saw the “banned” artwork before the album was even out – popeater

So Kanye West picked a painting of himself hooking up with an armless, tailed lady to be the cover for his new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and then announced that it was banned. It’s still unclear who banned it, or if anyone banned it at all.

You can’t blame Kanye for at least trying to get his album cover censored. As I noted in 2007, with the announcement of Nas’ N—– LP (which he later re-named Untitled), sometimes the best way to guarantee buzz is to push the envelope with your album artwork.

In this fun video I produced and co-edited back then, I broke down the five ways artists have historically made their way into news headlines with their controversial album art. Whether it’s with profanity, sacrilegious imagery, nudity, sexually suggestive pics or graphic violence, artists from the Beatles to Jane’s Addiction to Slayer to REO Speedwagon have all had their album covers singled out as being too hot for some record stores.

So while we wait for the official word as to whether Kanye’s suggestive painting is actually banned, why not take a trip down memory lane and check out this vid? Honestly, any excuse to bring it back is a good one — it’s still one of the favorite segments I’ve ever produced during my MTV News gig.

Do you think Kanye is drumming up controversy on purpose? Do you agree with West that there’s a double-standard if Nirvana was able to feature nudity on an album cover yet he can’t even show a painting? – MTV

Kanye West Shows Off Banned Album Cover On – (Where Else?) Twitter

Amid last-minute preparations for his hotly anticipated My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye West tweeted that the image he’d hoped to use as the album cover had been blocked or rejected. “Banned in the USA!!! They tried to play me fam! They don’t want me chilling on the couch with my phoenix!” he wrote. Click below to see the full-size illustration by George Condo and read the rest of West’s explanation of the controversial image. Should he fight to keep this as the cover?

West evidently felt that the image didn’t push any boundaries that hadn’t been breached before. “In the 70s album covers had actual nudity… It’s so funny that people forget that… Everything has been so commercialized now,” he tweeted, then took a short break before continuing: “In all honesty … I really don’t be thinking about Wal-Mart when I make my music or album covers… I wanna sell albums but not at the expense of my true creativity.”

We don’t imagine West will have much trouble finding new artwork (he could still run with the image that surfaced in connection with the premiere of his Runaway film, or ask Condo to come up with a new one — indeed, West tweeted a video showing that the artist was hard at work last night).

Will he really be content to greet all of this with a #Kanyeshrug? Or is it possible that he hopes that his tweets will prompt an outcry from fans? idolator

THIS IMAGE IS NO MORE THAN THE DEVIL SLEEPING WITH THE WHITE WOMEN. KANYE IS VERY DISTURBED. THIS IS THE KIND OF STUFF HE DROPPING EVERY FRIDAY. HE THINK HE SLICK GOOD FRIDAY IS IN THE BIBLE A TIME TO NOT EATT MEAT. KANYE ONCE AGAIN WHITH HIS BLASPHEMY USING RELIGION AND DROPPIMNG A CD ON WHAT HE CALl lt”G.O.O.D FRIDAY”. KANYE SOLD HIS SOUL AND HE IS PROUD OF IT. DAM DEVIL WORSHIPER . YOU BETTA HINK TWICE BEFORE BUYING THE DEVILS MUSIC. – Necole Bitchie

He doesn’t wanna be thinking about Wal-Mart … but was he?

According to the LA Times, it was not actually banned, but Kanye may have decided not to use it so that stores like Wal-Mart would carry his stuff.

A source familiar with West’s discussions with Universal Music Group’s Island Def Jam regarding the cover art above agreed to speak solely on the condition of anonymity, proclaiming that he did “not want to lose my job over this.”

The source implied that the debate was not one that was clear cut. West was strongly urged to use alternate art, the source conceded, but added that West “was told if he wanted to do it, the label would stand behind him.” – THG

One slight problem with West’s story: According to the Los Angeles Times, no one exactly “banned” the racy album cover. An anonymous Island Def Jam source tells the Times that while the label “strongly urged” West to ditch the image, he “was told if he wanted to do it, the label would stand behind him.” In other words, he’s almost certainly just trying to stir up some extra buzz for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy‘s expected Nov. 22 release. Can you blame him?

(584 days ago)

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