Anti-Rock Music Hysteria

Racist religious tract, 1957

From the day rhythm & blues and country came together to form a brand new hybrid of pop music called Rock N' Roll that appealed to both young black and young white music fans, there was a problem....

Another racist anti-rock flyer, New Orleans, LA 1960

Older puritans hated ANYTHING with a backbeat. And the very thought of integrated black/white performing groups and audiences have always shocked and frightened social conservatives. Although their fear goes all the way back to the dawning of the Jazz age in the Roaring '20s, it began to really heat up especially as the Civil Rights movement was dawning and schools were required to become intergrated. Especially in the waning years of the Jim Crow era. 

Communism, Hypnotism and The Beatles by David A. Noebel, 1965

When the race card ultimately failed, they brought back other scary nemesis: Communism and the devil. Listening to The Beatles was surely a indoctrination and their records, audio Little Red Books, they alleged.

But The Beatles weren't exactly rationing their records away. And they were living pretty bourgeois lifestyles that Karl Marx probably wouldn't approve of. Besides, they were banned in The Soviet Union itself.

But religious conservatives latched onto a statement allegedly made by John Lennon. During an interview with Evening Standard reporter Maureen Cleave, Lennon remarked, "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink ... We're more popular than Jesus now—I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity".

The comment went virtually unnoticed in England. But caused a viral massive public outrage in the US when quoted by an American magazine five months later. The furor that followed—burning of Beatles records and Ku Klux Klan threats against Lennon—contributed to the band's decision to stop touring.

"Well, before they can burn our records, they first have to buy them" - George Harrison

Amused by their supposed link to Communism by the American right-wing and religious fundamentalists. It's been said it was one of the reasons The Beatles recorded "Back In The USSR". Which shocked American ultra-conservatives speechless as their shaming of The Beatles backfired horribly on them.

Rhythm, Riots and Revolution by David A. Noebel, 1966

Rock N' Roll: The Devil's Diversion by Bob Larson, 1968

Rock & The Church by Bob Larson, 1971

But by the early '70s, the anti-rock hysteria had become a major tool of Christian evangelists to recruit impressionable young people. New acts such as Alice Cooper, The New York Dolls, Kiss and David Bowie were incorporating makeup and visuals into their performances, giving rock a more theatric flair. But to the religious right, they looked like black masses. But depending on who they were following, everything in pop culture at the time was a tool of the devil.   

Is it just me or are David A. Noebel and Bob Larson just not exactly the kind of guys you'd want to go out dancing with?

Backward Masking Unmasked by Jacob Aranza, 1983

But in the 1980s, with the popularity of heavy metal and new wave, came a flood of dire new books. The argument this time wasn't about race or Communism, but that rock directly promoted devil worship. And this time, they had proof...

Michael Mills "Hidden Satanic Messages in Rock Music" (1981) MP3

I had a friend named Rich who was a Born Again Christian who tried to convert me by playing the allegedly satanic lyrics of "Stairway To Heaven" Led Zeppelin backwards on his stereo turntable. "Can you hear it?" he said as he spun the record backwards "He (Robert Plant) just said 'My sweet Satan'! What do you think now?" All I knew was I had a really bad headache and a perfectly good Led Zeppelin record was needlessly ruined.... 

Why Knock Rock by Dan Peters & Steve Peters, (1984) This was also made into a video series that was shown at countless super lame Christian teen parties....

But in 1985, things got super ugly as the PMRC or Parent's Music Resource Center (or as we called them in high school, Pre-Menstruating Record Critics) was formed by senators wives Tipper Gore and Susan Baker, bringing potential legislation dangerously into this debate and rock n' roll was in for the fight of it's life.

Gore and Baker formed the group after Gore was listening to her daughter's cassette of Purple Rain by Prince and hearing the lyrics to the track "Darling Nikki", which specifically mentioned masturbation. Going through their kids music collections, they were 'shocked' to find many more albums with lyrics referencing violence and sex in even the most indirect way.

This included innocuous pop songs like "In My House" The Mary Jane Girls. And it could also include 85% of all pop music ever written in history. That was the disturbing thing about the PMRC. They thought the '50s and '60s were such a pure time musically and only since the 1980s did music get overtly sexual and mention gratuitous violence.

"My Girl's Pussy" Harry Roy & His Orchestra (1931)



"Butcher Pete (Parts 1&2)" Roy Brown (1950)


While many dismissed the PMRC as a group that was powerless against a by then well established music form, that wasn't entirely true. The very fact it actually made it to a senate hearing is proof of how dangerously close we were to actually legislating the end of free artistic expression in music.

And Frank Zappa knew what was at stake.

James Dobson & Susan Baker "Rock Music Lyrics" (1986) MP3

Zappa, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister and John Denver appeared before congress and blasted the senate for the hearing and the thinly veiled attempt at censorship.

Dee Snider made an excellent remark regarding the Twisted Sister song "Under the Blade", a song Snider claimed was written about an impending surgery, that "the only sadomasochism, bondage, and rape in this song is in the mind of Ms. Gore." he stated, "Ms. Gore was looking for sadomasochism and bondage, and she found it. Someone looking for surgical references would have found it as well."

John Denver, whom the PMRC wives and the more conservative senators thought would side with them were in for a big surprise. And Denver should know something about getting censored; In the early '70s, his song "Rocky Mountain High" was banned off many radio stations due to the FCC's ban on songs that promoted drug use and some record shops refused to stock the song. He knew exactly what Snider, Zappa and the acts targeted by the PMRC were up against.     
But the most passionate speaker was Frank Zappa.


Naturally, the religious right were milking this for all they could get. In 1985, an avalanche of anti-rock books and local groups of religious and socially conservative people began appearing on daytime TV talk shows to denounce contemporary rock music.
 

More Rock, Country & Backward Masking Unmasked by Jacob Aranza (1985) Not even country music was safe. But the author hit a nerve with country artists and fans with this book, as country fans tend to be more religious and conservative. But not like this. This was going too far. And country artists and fans soon began joining the rockers when they realized their music was in the crosshairs as well.

 

Rock's Hidden Persuader: The Truth About Backmasking by Dan and Steve Peters (1985) Brothers Dan and Steve Peters were the type of Christians who would blame your bad day on a Thin Lizzy song you stumbled over on some Classic Rock station while scanning the radio dial. They argued satanic messages could be subliminally understood whether a record was played backward or forward...

The Devil's Disciples: The Truth About Rock by Jeff Godwin (1985) Unquestionably the most ludicrous of all the ludicrous books ever written on this immaterial subject. Even Christian rock and pop was a tool of the devil according to Jeff Godwin.

On December 23, 1985. James Vance and Raymond Belknap, after hours of drinking beer, smoking marijuana and allegedly listening to a cassette of Judas Priest's 1978 album Stained Glass, went to a playground in Sparks, NV with a 12-gauge shotgun to end their lives. Belknap was the first to place the shotgun under his chin. He died instantly after pulling the trigger. Vance then shot himself but survived, suffering severe facial injuries. Following numerous complications, Vance too passed away in 1988, three years after the suicide pact.

Vance and Belknap's parents sued Judas Priest, claiming the lyrics to "Better By You Better Than Me" (which was a cover of a 1969 song about a someone ending a romantic relationship through a third party from Spooky Tooth) prompted Vance and Belknap to their suicide attempts. A note written by Vance after the shooting was submitted as evidence as well as an "audio expert" who could discern evil in any record provided his example, claiming a subliminal message, saying "Do it" was repeated several times during the song.

(I personally heard that song many times before this tragedy and after, in both the Judas Priest and Spooky Tooth versions and both sober and drunk and high and not even once have I ever heard the words "Do it" in "Better By You Better Than Me". Nor have I ever felt the need to end my life over a song.)

Although the case was eventually dismissed in 1990, it further put rock music under the public microscope.

And the fear continued. In 1986, Wal-Mart stores (even then, a powerful and expanding empire) stopped carrying albums with explicit lyrics stickers and banned all rock magazines, including Rolling Stone from it's shelves. All albums for sale at Wal-Mart to this very day MUST be censored, clean versions.

And 1985/86 were rough years for Frank Zappa. He appeared on CNN's Crossfire program and staunchly defended artistic freedom....


.....And lampooned the PMRC controversy on his 1985 album Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers of Prevention. 

 

Warning sticker from Frank Zappa Meets The Mothers of Prevention.

Eventually, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) caved in November of 1985 and allowed for labels and retailers to voluntarily sticker their albums with a uniform Parental Advisory warning sticker to parents.

Donny Osmond (of all people) was vehemently opposed to Parental Advisory stickering. He predicted that teenagers would find a way to get an uncensored copy of the album regardless and that would negatively impact artists album sales as well with unsold and unmarketable "clean" copies of albums that would have sold without the Parental Advisory stickers. Osmond also argued that artists that did not make explicit music would be forced to do so to remain marketable. His predictions were proven correct in the early '90s as "clean" versions of popular gangsta rap albums were vastly outsold by the uncensored versions and mainstream pop/rock acts of the time such as Madonna and Kiss made their most explicit records then.   

Frank Zappa also released his album Jazz From Hell in 1986. And the album immediately was given an Parental Advisory sticker by the Pacific Northwest Fred Meyer department store chain. One of the very first to receive one.

Jazz From Hell was an entirely instrumental jazz album.

 

The Parental Advisory stickers did exactly the opposite of what was intended. They designated the "cool" albums - especially in the emerging hip-hop scene and it's sub-genre, gangsta rap. NWA, Ice-T, Snoop Dogg and others proudly and prominently displayed their Parental Advisory warnings not as stickers, but as an actual part of their album covers..

As hip-hop rose to prominence in the late 1980s, a Miami rap group called 2 Live Crew released their debut album The 2 Live Crew Is What We Are in 1986. Featuring shocking and sexually explicit lyrics, including the singles "We Want Some Pussy" and "Throw The Dick". In 1987, a Florida store clerk was acquitted of felony charges for selling the album to a 14 year old girl.

The game had been upped. Now record store owners and employees were facing prosecution for selling controversial albums to minors. Particularly 2 Live Crew's albums. Realizing what they were facing without retail sales, the group offered clean versions of their later albums. The move actually helped them because they became more accessible to radio and Miami radio station WPOW "Power 96" began playing 2 Live Crew's toned down offerings. But the group always made explicit records and a record store owner in Alexander City, Alabama, was cited for selling an explicit copy of their next album Move Somethin' to an undercover police officer in 1988. 

It was the first time in the United States that a record store owner was held liable for obscenity over music. The charges were dropped after a jury found the record store not guilty. But a chill was placed on American independent retail record shops. Especially in the Bible Belt and the Deep South.

 

However when 2 Live Crew's 1989 LP As Nasty As They Wanna Be was released, the shit hit the fan. Lawyers for the religious conservative group American Family Association met with Florida's governor at the time to see if the album met the state's definition of 'obscene'.

(To this day, outside of child pornography, very few things, if anything else, ever met mutually in any definition of obscene on a federal level. One person's obscenity is another's art. Even the Supreme Court allowed plenty of ambiguity in obscenity cases and left them up to the states in which these suits were being contested.)

The Broward County sheriff warned area record store owners that selling the album could be prosecutable after a county circuit court judge ruled there may be probable cause for obscenity violations. 2 Live Crew sued the sheriff and in June of 1989, a US district court judge ruled the album was obscene and two days later, a local record store clerk was arrested two days later, after selling a copy to an undercover police officer.

A few days later, members of 2 Live Crew was arrested for performing songs from the album at a nightclub in Hollywood, FL. The arrests and obscenity trials became international news and the group also received support from several rock and heavy metal artists. The memories of their earlier hassles with the PMRC were still painfully fresh.

Eventually, their convictions on obscenity were overruled.  

And somehow, the same old prudes that got their pantaloons in a twist over 2 Live Crew's albums completely ignored this classic from 1980.

In 1988, Poison released Open Up and Say... Ahh! While there was nothing controversial about the music itself, some people who overthink too much saw the cover model's Gene Simmons-like tongue and immediately wanted it banned.  

The "clean" cover of Open Up and Say... Ahh!

The obscenity threats also extended to rock album covers. And it had been for a very long time. But I'll save that for a future post.

In the mid '90s, gangsta rap reached saturation and began to fade. In it's place was a new musical threat to conservative and religious ideals. A hard rock group from Florida named Marilyn Manson emerged and at first glance, it was hard to see what they were upset about. It was a band that put a lot of theatrics in their shows, not unlike anything Alice Cooper and Kiss did 20 years before. But the rumour that Marilyn Manson was allegedly a priest in the Church of Satan (as well as the title of his 1996 LP was Antichrist Superstar) led to even more gruesome - and totally ludicrous stories, such as onstage human sacrifices, rapes and torture.

Marilyn Manson

But what made the allegations different was they were being spread by the internet, which was new and had virtually no rules in it's beginnings. But malicious lies and slander could be spread across the nation in virtually seconds and totally anonymously back then. And spread even farther and to others that much more quickly. By word of mouth alone, it took months to years at the fastest that they could be spread. 

And the band's leader/namesake Marilyn Manson had to fight back a daily barrage of unfounded and increasingly outrageous statements against him. And he did and took legal action against the sources of these statements. And they quickly ceased. Manson's music was also criticized after the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO as the shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, were fans of Marilyn Manson. And suddenly, Manson found himself in the same ugly national spotlight as Judas Priest and 2 Live Crew had a decade earlier. While no legal action was taken against Marilyn Manson, having to go through that experience alone is pretty traumatic.  

In the 2000s, a Detroit based hip-hop duo called Insane Clown Posse made hot lyrics a part of their act since their mid 1980s beginnings and after years of music industry rejection and the obsessiveness of their fans (known as 'Juggalos') of their beloved duo had came to a cult-like hero status outside of the mainstream had recently earned them another status - federally recognized criminal gang. 

Insane Clown Posse

In 2011, the FBI put the Juggalos alongside such notorious criminal gangs such as the Bloods, Crips, Surenos, Latin Kings and MS-13. They cited certain examples of assaults and vandalism allegedly involving Juggalos, which Insane Clown Posse vehemently condemned and questioned. The band recently filed a lawsuit against the FBI and lost. But Insane Clown Posse plan to continue the legal fight against the classification. 

While most rock/pop stars realize a certain amount of urban legends are actually helpful to their careers. When the myths begin to overtake the facts, it's time to draw a line. Books like the ones illustrated above would never be allowed to be published unchallenged by the artists the books are making reference to today.

Maybe what some people forget is it's pop/rock and hip-hop music's role to challenge the status quo. If rock had never evolved beyond the '50s, it would never have survived. And each generation brings changes. Some of them marvelous, others not so much.

Maybe sometimes the most outrageous acts that come along are just a generational gimmick to attract disenfranchised youth. Sometimes, they work. And sometimes, they don't. 

Or maybe no matter what you call it, it's only rock n' roll. But we like it.

"Vaping"

After 35 years of smoking cigarettes, I've finally kicked that habit.

I started "vaping", or puffing electronic, or e-cigarettes.

My reasons were simple. Regular cigarettes are insanely expensive, I never actually liked the taste or smell of tobacco myself - even after 35 years. Plus, having had two minor heart attacks, a near fatal bout with pneumonia and breathing problems, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I have enough other health problems and if I can knock just one of my worst demons out, I'll have accomplished a LOT. I also had a lot of encouragement and support from those closest to me - some whom have begged me to quit for years.

And after nearly losing a close friend to esophageal cancer last year, that was the last straw.

But quitting was next to impossible for me. And in fact, I probably never would have even taken on the habit if my mom hadn't forced me to smoke a whole pack as punishment for catching me smoking. So parents, for God's sake, do NOT make that mistake with your own children if you catch them smoking.

I've tried the cold turkey approach, patches, gum, lollipops, everything. I heard about e-cigarettes, but I always thought they were too expensive and didn't do anything. And I knew nothing about them. But one of my friends said he was going e-cigarettes and I pretty much decided to join him. Another friend recommended Caterpillar Vapes, where she ordered her e-cigarette kit and she told me it was so good, she hasn't craved a regular cigarette since.

So I ordered. I hoped for the best, but expected the worst. At the rate I was going, I resigned to the idea I was going to die next to a pack of cigarettes.

And it not only lived up to my lowest expectations, it exceeded my highest. For the first time in 35 years, I do not have a pack of cigarettes and a lighter on or near me.

In other words, a fucking miracle has happened.  

E-cigarettes have a LOT of advantages. First, you're not smoking, but inhaling a water based vapour.

Regular cigarettes create smoke and odours and eventual discolouration of the walls, ceilings and furniture over a long time. This was brought home to me shortly after my mom died and I had to clean off the light fixture above her kitchen table where she smoked for 13 years. The smoke residue had discoloured once white elements of the fixture into a dull golden brown. And cleaning it was one of the grossest jobs I ever had to do. And it really makes me sad that my mom didn't live to see these. If she knew the difference e-cigarettes can make, she would have switched in a heartbeat.

E-cigarettes create vapour that looks like cigarette smoke, but it's actually a vapour that disappears quickly and does not linger because unlike tobacco, it contains no tar and discolouring oils. It's no different than a water based air diffuser. Or even ordinary cooking odours. The vapour and odour of an e-cigarette disappears in seconds.

If you're still smoking regular cigarettes, you REALLY owe it to yourself to make the switch to e-cigarettes. Not only is it VASTLY cheaper than smoking regular cigarettes (which now cost nearly $10 a pack in Washington State - you don't need to buy a pack a day, you don't even need lighters or matches. You just press a button on the battery of the e-cigarette and inhale. And there's a HUGE yearly savings in that.)

E-cigarette smokers don't leave butts, empty packs and ashes everywhere. They don't smell bad. And in rental housing where smoking bans are becoming more and more common, they are completely unnoticeable.

And my starter kit has already paid for itself in the first week of use.

Total $69.03....Same price as a week of cigarettes. With no mess, odour and hassles.

Best of all, you don't have to put up with the usual tobacco flavour. E-liquid flavours come in an INCREDIBLE variety. From Roasted Marshmallows to fresh fruit and drink flavours - I even found one that tasted like roasted hot dogs, although I don't think I'm that adventurous. But if you prefer a tobacco flavour, they have those too.

Nicotine levels of the e-liquids also vary, depending on the kind of cigarettes you smoked - there are also nicotine-free varieties.

I smoked full flavours, so the nicotine level in my e-liquid is 2.4. Medium is 1.8. Lights is 1.2 and Ultra-Lights is 0.6. My goal is to gradually lower my nicotine levels over five years to zero. And eventually put the e-cigarette kit away for good.

The benefit to me is it simulates the feel of smoking, without the tar, stink, ash and chemicals of regular cigarettes. As a writer, taking a drag is a necessary activity for me every paragraph or so. And there's no worrying about burning down the cigarette in the ashtray. Or having to smoke the whole cigarette outside and then come back and write. Which only increased my smoking of regular cigarettes.

How it works:

There are two main components to an eGo e-cigarette (my brand). I ordered this kit. Which contains two 900mAh batteries, which holds more than enough charge per day for my needs. There are also higher 1,100mAh batteries for heavier smokers and 650mAh batteries for lighter smokers. The gist with this kit is you can charge one while using the other.

There are four cartomizers. A cartomizer is what holds the e-liquid. You unscrew the mouthpiece and pour the e-liquid at a 45 degree angle at the sides, not at the hole in the center, which is the air hole which you inhale from with the mouthpiece on. The silica fibers of the coil head inside the cartomizer is what absorbs the e-liquid and when you press the battery button, it heats the cartomizer, creating the vapour. The coil heads have to be replaced every so often, so I bought 4 extra coil heads. The extra cartomizers also have coil heads and I have used the same cartomizer and coil head (and the same e-liquid type) for a week and a half and so far so good. You can also use the different cartomizers to hold different flavours of e-liquids for variety.  

This is a 30ml bottle of Tropical Joy flavoured e-liquid. And in a week and a half of use, this is how much I used. Did I mention this bottle cost $7.69? A pack of the cheapest cigarettes at my closest grocery cost $8.10 and is gone in a day. And I have a second 30ml bottle of tobacco flavoured e-liquid. (Your own use may vary.)

And now the flipside.....

E-cigarettes are a gray area in the health and public regulations. It's not smoking, but it's still not kosher to be vaping in mixed company. There's lots of concern whether it will lead kids to smoking actual cigarettes, but after 35 years of pack a day smoking, I absolutely do not see why. Cigarettes do not come in all these flavours. And there are nicotine free varieties you don't have to inhale, some non-smoking dieters use these to curb cravings for sweets.

But there are also social nannies and misinformed politicians who will try to make access to e-cigarettes and e-liquids difficult. If someone is under 18, I can see it. But for older smokers trying to quit or looking for a tar free alternative, it's crazy.

I think e-cigarettes are probably the best thing yet to help smokers kick the habit. And I'm already feeling the benefit. I breathe easier (although for the first few days, it took a while for my lungs to adjust), my mood was stable, I wasn't going crazy like I did without regular cigarettes. And now regular tobacco smoke is becoming irritating to me. But to create laws against e-cigarettes would increase tobacco usage again. And I want to stay on the course I'm on now.

And my friend was right. I haven't craved a regular cigarette since.

When Cough Medicine Was Cough Medicine

For Your Candy Cigarettes

 

Wow, perfect for these.

RIP The Incandescent Light Bulb

As of today, January 1, 2014, incandescent light bulbs can no longer be manufactured for the USA. (Contrary to popular belief, you can still sell them - there's lots of old stock still floating around out there. They just can no longer be manufactured anymore outside of industrial use. And once the old general consumer stock is gone, they're gone.)

I have two boxes of 40 watt Sylvanias. And they are my nest egg. There will not be just a mere eBay bidding war, but riots in the streets before I sell out.

It's the end of an era that saw us from the 1870s to 2013. Now the only light bulbs made are those weird curly CFL things and LED lights.

THESE fucking things. When they first came out, I thought they were pretty cool because you didn't have to change them as often. Until I had to see them everywhere.

Now I understand the reasons why we're going this way. Incandescent lights put out more heat than light and you do pay more in your electric bill for it. But my kitchen always seemed a little warmer with incandescents. More home-like. I get in the mood for actual cooking easier with incandescents.

And incandescents can last a VERY LONG time. Here's proof:

 I switched to all CFL in my place a year ago and my monthly electric bill went down by $10. But I'm light sensitive and these things are starting to seriously irk me. They glow too white.

It's like an analog to digital conversion. It's good, but too sterile. You can't work your Easy Bake oven with a CFL. And there was such a variety of incandescent lights. All colours and styles. It's going to take CFLs a LONG time to catch up with it all.

The CFL also lacks something else. A warm glow. That's what I miss. And LEDs are almost freakish in their brightness.

And then there's that little mercury problem. Granted it has as much mercury as an average transistor radio. Problem is, some of those radios lasted us for YEARS before they croaked.

My beloved Sears AM/FM transistor radio (1980-1983)....Sigh!

The CFL light bulb is also unpredictable. I put one bulb in a continuously running outdoor light. And it only lasted 5 months The next one burned for over a year. I seem to find that problem a lot with CFLs. 

But change happens.

I accept it. But something deep and subtle is always missing....

The Strange and Mysterious History of the Ouija Board

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Strange-and-Mysterious-History-of-the-Ouija-Board-229532101.html

It's An Outrage!: Pepsi Products Available In Japan, But Not In America

Pepsi Flavoured Cheetos

Shame on Pepsi! Don't they think American foodies wouldn't love to try these here?

Candy Cigarettes

Candy cigarettes were a kids version of the things Mom and Dad had hanging out of their mouths from the '30s to the '80s......

And their boxes looked exactly like their grown up counterparts

 Cigarette companies back then (like modern corporations) liked synergy. Synergy is basically a simple modern word to describe using as many elements as possible to work towards one mutual goal - $$$ (i.e. "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours"). And in both cases, it worked. Cigarette brands had the extra promotion and the future smoker potential and the candy companies had a ready made pre-pubescent consumer who wanted to look like Mom and Dad.        

And all was well....Until the first warning studies against tobacco use began appearing in the '50s and '60s.

But at this time, the health dangers of cigarette smoking were still largely ignored. After all, up to this time, DOCTORS recommended it for decades. How could they go wrong?

1910s

1950s

But the writing was on the wall. And on the sides of cigarette packs beginning in 1966.  And cigarette ads were banned from TV and radio in 1970. Courtesy ash trays, once ubiquitous everywhere from grocery stores to beauty salons began disappearing. 

By the '80s the scale between smokers and non-smokers began to tip. And candy manufacturers began discontinuing or rebranding candy cigarettes.

However, some candy cigarettes are still being manufactured as novelty/gag items. And others are rebranded as simply "candy sticks".

Controversial Magazine Covers

With the controversy this week over the latest Rolling Stone cover featuring Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, I thought I'd take a look at shocking magazine covers. While this photo, a self pic taken by Tsarnaev on his cell phone had long been circulating on the internet and even made the front page of the New York Times in May....

....the same, untouched photo on the Rolling Stone cover caused outrage in the media. Prompting many in the media to accuse Rolling Stone of making Tsarnaev appear like a rock star, in spite of the New York Times and other outlets use of this same photo.

Let's take a look at a few other controversial magazine covers.

 

2012's Time cover of a mom breast feeding her 5 year old son disgusted everyone.

A famous TV star coming out on the cover of Time magazine wouldn't raise an eyebrow today, but 16 years ago in 1997, Ellen DeGeneres was dealt a backlash by several media outlets, many of them dropping her program. But to the horror of social conservatives, there was actually far more public praise for DeGeneres than criticism. Society's attitudes towards the LGBT community were already changing not towards mere tolerance. but full blown acceptance. Rapidly. And there was no turning back.  

 National Lampoon has always been known for it's edgy, often politically incorrect humour. But this 1973 cover crossed the line from edgy to cruel with many people. But since any publicity is good publicity for a humour magazine, they reprised this cover photo on the picture disc version of their 1977 LP That's Not Funny, That's Sick

 In the '60s, there was a book written titled The Death of God by Gabriel Vahanian that explored the objectification of God as a symbolic or cultural artifact. The book was never intended to be a direct death certificate to God, but that's how many people took it. Time explored this and the movement surrounding it and the cover alone caused such a massive uproar amongst religious conservatives, Time's mail room was inundated with angry letters to the editor and the magazine lost thousands of subscribers.

As late as the early '70s, it was still very rare to see African-Americans on the covers of major national magazines (and virtually never in a flattering light.) But Playboy declared black is beautiful with it's October 1971 issue featuring Darine Stern by herself on the cover. Angry white readers in the South were outraged, but Playboy made no apologies.

Stern's cover pose was reprised in 2009, but featuring Marge Simpson.

 
The murder of former Beatle John Lennon stunned the world in December of 1980. Not since the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 had the world lost such a universally beloved icon and into January 1981, people were still recovering from the shock. Rolling Stone published this as the cover photo for their first issue of 1981. It was shot merely hours before Lennon's assassination. It wasn't intended to be offensive and would have made the cover regardless as Lennon had just released his Double Fantasy album. But a nude photo of any sort for a magazine sold on publicly accessible magazine racks at that time was too much - especially for a man that just died. And many stores banned this issue.