“The music industry has current employment opportunities for photo retouchers”, Joe S Tallin, a music industry representive, stated in Moscow today. “We’re looking for experienced people, and we’ve found most of our best people over here. They’ve got many years of experience in history modification and were thoughtlessly thrown on the scrap heap to fend for themselves. Those of us doing this in the West are just beginning to learn the art”.
Joe added, unofficially, future projects will include replacing John Lennon with Robbie Williams on a number of old album covers. “It’s just like the Lenin Mausoleum, or dead Russian Cosmonauts” he added. “You have to continuously update the past to reflect the market of today”.
For those who have not run across the story, new copies of the Beatles famous Abbey Roads album cover have had a cigarette digitally removed.
Johnny Cash had a cigarette removed on the promotion posters for the remastered Folsom Prison album, as did Robert Johnson on his postage stamp. Why do they only fuck around with artists I like? Bastards.
Is there a link? This sounds more like something The Onion or perhaps some anti-corporate cyberpunk would do than real life. You’ll have to forgive my skepticism, but this really doesn’t sound real (the qotes, not the Beatles story).
Actuially, there’s speculation that copies of the album might have the cigarette removed from the next printing.
The actual removal was for posters of the art, not the album cover itself (CD cover these days, I suppose).
Didn’t Isambard Kingdom Brunel have a cigar removed (from his most famous photograph!) a few years back in Bristol?
Hey, maybe I should apply. I’ve got some experience in that field…
Here’s the story on the Beatles art from The Sun..
(Link courtesy of Geisha osobi.