There's the fake legend and the real (boring) story: Truth (part 1): For monetary reasons, Capitol "created" albums for British acts. 2 twelve-song British albums, and three singles (or a single and EP) magically became three ten-song US albums. This was common practice through 1967-8. legend: The band was tired of Capitol "butchering" their albums, so arranged the "meat and dolls" photo as a protest to this practice. Truth (part 2): The photo was part of a bizarre "art" tryptich (series of 3 photos), and sent to Capitol as an "f-you" when they insisted on yet another cover photo. Other possibilities were being considered. Truth (part 3): The cover went out, some folks went nuts, and Capitol recalled the lot. New slicks (with an innocuous group shot, that was the band's second choice) were printed and pasted over the "butcher." Copies that never were pasted over (ie: promos and copies sold on that first day) go for thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. Good quality "peeled" covers and unpeeled copies go for mid-high hundreds.
Well, the record label for the Beatles in the US used to issue their albums completely different from the ones that were issued in England. A classic example is the "Help!" album. The American version had about half the songs that were on the British version and then had the rest to be worthless instrumentals. What Capitol would do next is save those songs that were not placed on the "Help!" album and use singles and B-sides like "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "We Can Work It Out", "Day Tripper", etc to "fill out" another album. To them, it was all about the "bling bling" and they were going to try to get every dollar out of the Beatles if they could. The actual Beatles albums in order they were released were as follows: "Please Please Me" "With the Beatles" "A Hard Day's Night" "Beatles for Sale" "Help!" "Rubber Soul" "Revolver" "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" "Magical Mystery Tour" "The Beatles (White Album)" "Yellow Submarine" (soundtrack) "Abbey Road" (actual last studio album they recorded) "Let It Be" (last studio album to be released) The name of the album that features the infamous "butcher cover" was called "Yesterday....and Today" and it was the LAST album that Capitol would release differently from the British version, i.e. there was no British equivalent to this album. This "album" (loosely putting it) featured like 4 leftover songs from "Rubber Soul" - that were deliberately left off by Capitol on the American version of the album of the same name, some singles and B-Sides, AND some songs off "Revolver" - an album that was not to be released until 7 WEEKS LATER!! Legend had it that the Beatles had finally got "fed up" with the way Capitol was handling their albums in the States and that they were "butchering" them, thus they came up with the idea for presenting that morbid cover for this American only album. Incredibly the record executives at Capitol did not even put any of this together and approved the album cover and initial pressings were sent out to numerous radio stations across the country. There was such an immediate negative reaction to the cover by the radio DJ's, that Capitol immediately yanked the album and replaced the butcher photograph with a much tamer photo of the Fab 4. But in their haste, they pasted the new photo over the old one like on thousands of these albums. Here's the rub - it is an urban legend that the Beatles concocted this picture to get back at Capitol. The real truth was that it was a picture done by a photographer named Robert Whitaker, who was known for doing "unusual" photographs. It was him that came up with the idea for the Beatles dressed in butchers' smocks with dismembered cigarette-burned doll parts and pieces of meat. He did it as a way of showing that the Beatles weren't always "goody goodies" and more for shock value. The photo was never intended to be used for an album cover but it inadvertently got used. As it turned out, the Beatles could have cared less about these American only albums but it made for a good story, nonetheless. Allmusic still believes that the legend is real if you go to their site and read about this American only album. One good thing it did do - it became the worst selling Capitol album of Beatles material and essentially forced Capitol to release the British version of future Beatles stuff as the same in the States. Now, I would love to tell you that I have known that story for years but actually read about it on Snopes about 2 months ago. link: EDIT - Damn, I took so long to type out my post that edc had responded.
Through Major Malcontent's pick: The Beatles 38, Pink Floyd 15 Now this will be the last scoring update. When I get up in the morning, there will be these 40 more *magical* votes for Floyd.
Okay, no votes were done since the last update, therefore the winner of the 1st Battle of the Bands, was there ever any doubt?..... The Beatles! Once again, a big thanks to all who participated and especially to A-Train since it was his idea. Will do this again next year around this time.
