Hasta La Ideas

Art and design lover Kanye West, who when last we checked was “feeling fly like a G6,” recently offered his approximately 1.5 million Twitter followers a sneak preview (at right) of the proposed cover of his new album, for which he wrapped production on Sunday. Slated for release by Def Jam on November 22, West’s fifth studio album in six years is entitled My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and he called in a master of dark twisted fantasies—artist George Condo—to help with the album art. Alas, censors didn’t approve of Condo’s covorting beasties. “Yoooo they banned my album cover!!!!!” tweeted West, before posting a photo. “Banned in the USA!!! They don’t want me chilling on the couch with my phoenix!” A more demure Condo work appears on Def Jam’s site alongside the video trailer for West’s new single, “Runaway.” The frustrated artist proceeded to offer some historical perspective on album cover design (“In the 70s album covers had actual nudity… It’s so funny that people forget that… Everything has been so commercialized now”) and censorship (“In all honesty … I really don’t be thinking about Wal-Mart when I make my music or album covers #Kanyeshrug!”). He left his followers with an intriguing precedent to ponder: “So Nirvana can have a naked human being on they cover but I can’t have a PAINTING of a monster with no arms and a polka dot tail and wings.” Kanyeshrug, indeed.

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