Selfish Cunt release “Avocado” – artwork censored

Posted by LoveHowlMuse on June 14th, 2007

This week, Selfish Cunt released Avocado as a digital single. The band are now hitting their stride – faster, angrier and more confident – and you can hear it. Martin Tomlinson sounds like he’s shouting at his wayward children from the open balcony of a housing estate – urgent, wise and ain’t gonna take no shit. Patrick Constable’s guitars achieve the seemingly impossible by sounding speedy and louche at the same time. Their electronic drum machine has been replaced by Bambi, who drums like the hammers of Hades. Youth, a founder member of Killing Joke, holds down the fort with his bassline and deft production skills.You can listen to an excerpt on Selfish Cunt’s page.On submission to iTunes, the artwork was deemed to be “not in good taste” and the track was “hidden” from public view. Here is an excerpt from their email rejecting the artwork:

“The image of a woman laying on her back with exposed breasts, spread legs, holding an avocado (?) over her genitalia, combined with the word “cunt” is not felt to be in good taste. Due to differences in definitions there is a chance that this cover art would be okayed for a European release… A playlist under North American or world wide release is subject to different scrutiny. We are dealing with why the hide notes only said “nipples” when this was obviously not the only problem.”

So here’s the artwork in question:

While we argued the case, we submitted this Photoshopped version as a placeholder:

We got this response:

“Unfortunately the new cover art is also felt to be too strong.” 

Ever the hard workers, Selfish Cunt produced new artwork, referring to the “Average Man” mentioned in the Indencent Displays (Control) Act of 1981, where something is indecent if it “offends against the modesty of the average man”:

Note that not only has the image been redesigned in response to iTunes’ qualms, but the name Selfish Cunt also does not appear.iTunes retreated and chose the second Photoshopped artwork, which they had originally rejected as “too strong”. We are left wondering what nerve this final image touched.Two questions:

1. Why would you buy it on iTunes anyway, if you can buy it cheaper from LoveHowlMuse with the original artwork?
2. Is an avocado a fruit or a vegetable?

Avocado is available as a high-quality MP3 with artwork on this site, and also on iTunes, eMusic, Napster and a variety of other online stores around the world. For those of you who buy the single on iTunes we will be making a full-sized version of the original censored artwork available for you to download.