12 Classic Album Covers That Sparked Major Controversy

Rockstars are no strangers to controversy. As artists working in a prominent medium, many musicians like to offend and bewilder as a rule. This philosophy extends to their visual choices, with many rockstars and musicians designing album covers that grab the eye in all the wrong ways. Many of history's classic albums feature covers that sparked public uproar.

Many of those covers are so offensive that they are quickly replaced by record labels and reduced to musical myths. Other covers, like the one for Nirvana's "Nevermind," however, end up as classics. Ultimately, it's hard to say which offensive album cover will win the hearts of the public or offend them entirely, but musicians keep trying. Let's take a look at 12 classic examples.

It seems The Rolling Stones were looking for controversy when they chose the cover of their 1971 album "Sticky Fingers." Inspired in part by artist Andy Warhol, the cover featured a man's nether regions. The biggest complaint about the album, however, was the functional zipper on the man's jeans damaging albums during shipping.

Though the controversy surrounding "Appetite for Destruction's" album cover is a would-be, it still deserves mention. The band intended to feature a violent, robotic-like image, but retailers refused to stock the album. In response, Geffen Records persuaded Guns N' Roses to replace it with a more appropriate picture of skulls and a cross. The band moved the offending image to the album's sleeve.

One of the most controversial album covers of all time, Nirvana's "Nevermind" sparked uproar by featuring the image of a naked baby swimming in a pool. This concerned the record company, but lead singer Kurt Cobain insisted on the baby picture. He got his way, and it became one of the most recognizable covers in music history.

Ice Cube has courted controversy his whole career, but the cover of his 1991 album "Death Certificate" took the cake. It featured a dead body, complete with a toe tag. That plus, the album's lyrics which spoke frankly about guns, racism, and drug dealing helped "Death Certificate" get banned in Oregon.

When designing a cover for "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," Kanye West wanted to make it as controversial as possible. To accomplish this, he commissioned artist George Condo to make an image of West mounted by a winged woman. While it sparked some public uproar, the cover also helped the album win the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.

The UK version of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's 1968 album "Electric Ladyland" featured 19 naked ladies on its sleeve. Surprisingly, this was changed to something more agreeable for a general audience at Jimi Hendrix's request.

When it came to David Bowie's eighth album, "Diamond Dogs," it wasn't so much the cover that sparked uproar but the image on the sleeve behind it. Influenced by Orwellian post-apocalyptic worlds, the sleeve featured an image of Bowie with "animal parts." When the album was reissued in 1990, record EMI made sure to airbrush the offending image.

Even at the height of their fame, The Beatles loved to spark public uproar. Take the band's 1966 album "Yesterday and Today." The cover featured the fab four wearing butcher's smocks, holding dismembered dolls and slabs of meat. Though it was meant to be a satire of pop art, Capitol Records quickly replaced it. The label even bought back 50,000 copies of the original album featuring that ghastly cover.

No stranger to public uproar, The Rolling Stones tried to make the cover of "Beggars Banquet" an image of a bathroom wall covered in unseemly graffiti. Their record label, however, disagreed and released the album with the least offensive image possible: a plain white image with cursive lettering.

There's foreshadowing and then there's the eerie coincidence of Lynyrd Skynyrd's album "Street Survivors." It featured a cover with the band in flames and was released only days after most of the band tragically died in an airplane crash. The cover was quickly replaced but has since been reinstated for reissues.

The cover of Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet" is simple enough; the title is written on a wet plastic bag. It only looks like that, however, because it's a last-minute replacement. The original cover featured a model in a wet t-shirt. Suffice it to say that this iteration did not make it past the record label.