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Halfsheet promo poster poster of
The Beatles' controversial "butcher" cover for their 1966 U.S. album Yesterday and Today. This original cover was quickly withdrawn by Capitol Records due to public outrage over the depiction of the band in white smocks draped with raw meat and dismembered baby dolls.
Album Information
Album: Yesterday and Today
Band: The Beatles
Photographer: Robert Whitaker, who intended the photo as conceptual art critiquing celebrity adulation, though the band members also linked it to protesting the Vietnam War or Capitol's "butchering" of their albums' track lists for the American market.
Recall: After sending out approximately 60,000 advance copies to retailers and media, the negative reaction prompted an immediate recall.
Replacement Cover: Capitol replaced the image with a new, innocuous photo of the band posed around a steamer trunk.
Collectibility: The original "butcher" cover LPs are highly prized collector's items.
First State: Original covers that never had the trunk cover pasted over them are the rarest and most valuable, with sealed copies selling for over $100,000.
Second State: Copies where the trunk cover was pasted over the butcher cover are also valuable, and some owners attempted to steam off the top layer to reveal the original image.
Third State: These are second-state covers where the top layer has been peeled off, and their value depends on the condition of the underlying butcher image. |
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