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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.
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:
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 YouTube links:
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