June 20, 2024

Music Note: The Beatles ~ Yesterday & Today

 

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Yesterday & Today by the Beatles, probably one of the most controversial album covers in music history, was released by Capitol Records on June 20, 1966, 58 years ago.      
      
Known as the "butcher cover", it was taken by photographer Robert Whitaker and shows the band dressed in white coats and covered with decapitated baby dolls and pieces of raw meat. Although the photo was intended to be part of a larger work critiquing the adulation afforded the Beatles, the band members insisted it was a statement against the Vietnam War. Others interpreted it as the Beatles protesting the record company's policy of "butchering" their albums for the North American market. In response to retailers' concern over the gory subject matter, Capitol immediately withdrew the LP and replaced the cover image with a shot of the band posed around a "steamer" trunk.     
   
 
the Beatles ~ Yesterday & Today
 steamer trunk cover
photo by Robert Whitaker
 
 
The original LP became a highly prized item among collectors. Since some of Capitol's pressing plants merely pasted the trunk image onto the existing LP covers, the album also encouraged a phenomenon of stripping back the top layer of artwork in the search for a banned butcher cover.     
 
Having been deleted from Capitol's catalogue in the early-mid 1990s, Yesterday and Today was reissued on CD in 2014.     
      
     
     
     
Viewfinder links:       
        
all things Beatles                
Robert Whitaker       
     
Net links:       
        
The Beatles Bible ~ Yesterday… And Today        
Beatles Music History ~ Yesterday And Today the in-depth story      
Rare Records ~ The Beatles Butcher Cover – Yesterday and Today        
Ultimate Classic Rock ~ When the Beatles Courted Controversy        
     
YouTube links:       
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
Styrous® ~ Sunday, May 16, 2021        
        















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