The Terror State

[sylvar]

I just got Anti-Flag's new CD The Terror State, and it's really really good. It includes, for the first time I'm aware of, someone else's song: Woody Guthrie's "Post-War Breakout".

The cover shows a tween girl saluting and holding a machine gun. But when I bought it at Best Buy, the cover had no photo at all -- just the name of the album on the cardboard sleeve around the jewel box. I knew this photo was supposed to be on the cover, so I bought it figuring that the sleeve was there to hide the cover.

As it turns out, Best Buy is selling censored package art. The jewel box booklet had no photo either -- just a statement that someone other than the band or the label had made choices for me about the art. Well, fuck that. I got my money back from Best Buy after a brief conversation about their return policy and whether censorship makes the CD "defective". The returns clerk, after consulting a coworker, cleverly solved the problem by scuffing the CD on the counter until it obviously couldn't be played.

So then the three of us went to Vinyl Fever's new location and bought multiple copies at the same price, only with the original artwork. Yay indie stores!

Comments

[myranda.livejournal.com]

By the way, this sort of thing happened when the Black Crowes album Amorica came out. You might remember it: a shot of a woman's flag patterened bikini bottoms with a few stray pubic hairs poking out. Walmart blacked out everything except the shape of the bikinis. We had a lot of people come into Spec's to get the real deal, muttering about first amendment rights and uptight Sam Walton.