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Album cover banned from tube for ‘looking like graffiti’

Bristol-based 'trip hop' pioneers, Massive Attack, have revealed that they were banned from advertising their new album Heligoland on the London Underground.

They were apparently told by Transport for London that the record cover bore too close of a resemblance to graffiti and were forced to go back to the drawing board. The image is below for you to decide.

According to the Daily Star:

Robert “3D” Del Naja, 45, who had to redesign his artwork for stations, said: “They won’t allow anything on the Tube that looks like street art.

“They want us to remove all drips and fuzz. It’s the most absurd censorship I’ve ever seen.”

Well, it's not quite the most absurd we've seen at Big Brother Watch, but it definitely comes close.

Massive-Attack-Heligoland

By Dylan Sharpe

Posted on February 8, 2010 by Big Brother Watch Posted in Home
  • ERM

    Personally, I’d then take my advertisement elsewhere.

  • guy herbert

    London Underground has long been notoriously difficult for advertisers to please as Going Underground points out covering this same story:
    http://london-underground.blogspot.com/2010/02/tube-bans-massive-attacks-album.html
    While they are insanely sensitive to commercial advertisers who might cause minor embarrassment or confusion to thick or puritanical passengers, their own advertising and that accepted from all corners of officialdom is readily permitted to retail threats and paranoia.