An album cover is important. It entices the listener to uncover what lies within. A bad album cover can mean the difference between your album sitting on a shelf and being brought back home, at least in decades past. The Rolling Stones have had plenty of stellar album covers. But they’ve also fallen into hot water for the visuals they’ve chosen. While the cover for their 1978 album, Some Girls, didn’t impede its commercial success, it did prompt legal threats from the famous ladies it portrayed. On the anniversary of its going No. 1 on Billboard’s 200 chart, learn more about the initial backlash to this iconic album cover below.
The Rolling Stones Album Cover That Went No. 1, But Got the Band Sued
The original album cover for The Rolling Stones’ Some Girls was a bit of a risk for the band. The visual featured the members as well as several celebrity women in a die-cut design taken from a vintage wig ad. In hindsight, that was sort of always going to give the band some trouble. But they likely didn’t think it would have to be pulled.
The album went No. 1 in 1978, with the lead single “Miss You” becoming a classic Stones standard. This album was stacked with fan favorites, also boasting “Beast Of Burden” and “Shattered”. But despite fans’ fervor, the ladies portrayed on the cover didn’t take kindly to this parody.
Lucille Ball, Farrah Fawcett, Liza Minnelli (in place of her mother, Judy Garland), Raquel Welch, and the estate of Marilyn Monroe all threatened legal action against the band for putting their likeness on the cover. The cosmetic company that initially ran the ad that this cover was modeled after also sued.
The band was forced to pull the album cover from the shelves. But instead of admitting defeat, they cleverly reworked the visual. They dressed in drag and put the cheeky sentiment “Pardon our appearance – cover under reconstruction” on the reinvented artwork.
The only famous face that stayed on the cover was former Beatle George Harrison. This added a playful layer to these two bands’ longstanding collaborative history.
The Final Version of the Album Cover
The colorful face design is one that proliferates today as the album cover for Some Girls. But there is a third alternative version that we know and love, made for the 1986 CD reissue. The final version was akin to the original, only this time with handdrawn images from the original cosmetics ad.
Depending on when you bought this album, your idea of the cover might be wildly different from those who bought it in a different era. The streaming version of this cover censors the original cover, removing any likeness of the women.
Revisit Some Girls above.
(Photo by Brill/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
The post On This Day in 1978, The Rolling Stones Hit No. 1, but Their Album Cover Sparked a Legal Firestorm appeared first on American Songwriter.
Author: Alex Hopper
How Rare Earth Finally “Celebrated” an Original Hit in 1971 »