JIMINATOR
09-06-2006, 11:03 PM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20060906/en_music_eo/19936
By Natalie Finn
Wed Sep 6, 3:43 PM ET
Paris wasn't looking too hot the other day. Some might say she had gone to the dogs.
Not caring whether stars are blind, a British graffiti artist messed with 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut album, replacing the disc inside with Danger Mouse remixes and doctoring the sexy sleeve to show the heiress topless and with a dog's head, BBC News and Spin.com reported.
"He switched the CDs in store, so he took the old ones out and put his version in," said Jo Brooks, a spokeswoman for Banksy, the Bristol-based artist famous for sneaking his own paintings onto the walls of world-renowned museums such as London's Tate Britain and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Banksy's redesigned versions of Paris ended up in 48 HMV, Virgin Megastore and indie record stores across England. A sticker placed on the covers promises that you'll hear all of Hilton's hit songs, including "Why Am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?" Each page of the liner notes contains a cheeky phrase, as well--"Every CD you buy puts me even further out of your league" being one of them.
Spin magazine's Website reported that it was Gnarls Barkley and Gorillaz producer Danger Mouse (also the mind behind the Beatles-Jay-Z mash-up Grey Album) who was the cryptic "DM" listed as the credit responsible for each remixed song.
"It's hard to improve on perfection, but we had to try," Danger Mouse and Banksy said in a joint statement. The two met in London while shopping for disguises, according to an email from Danger Mouse's management company obtained by Spin.com.
HMV said that it started pulling Banksy's mini works of art off of shelves Sunday and plans to auction them off for charity. As of yet, a spokesman told the BBC, no one had tried to return a copy or called to complain.
"It's not the type of behavior you'd want to see happening very often," the HMV rep admitted, but "I guess you can give an individual such as Banksy a little bit of leeway for his own particular brand of artistic engagement.
"Often people might have a view on something but feel they can't always express it, but it's down to the likes of Banksy to say often what people think about things. And it might be that there will be some people who agree with his views on the Paris Hilton album."
Well, well--first stop HMV, next stop the Supreme Court.
"I have to take my hat off--it's a very good stunt," a Virgin store spokesman added.
"We wanted it to stay underground as long as possible," Brooks told the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper. "But it's gone a little bit Charlie and the Chocolate Factory now. Everyone wants one."
Paris--the regular, wannabe-pop princess version--debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 last week.
By Natalie Finn
Wed Sep 6, 3:43 PM ET
Paris wasn't looking too hot the other day. Some might say she had gone to the dogs.
Not caring whether stars are blind, a British graffiti artist messed with 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut album, replacing the disc inside with Danger Mouse remixes and doctoring the sexy sleeve to show the heiress topless and with a dog's head, BBC News and Spin.com reported.
"He switched the CDs in store, so he took the old ones out and put his version in," said Jo Brooks, a spokeswoman for Banksy, the Bristol-based artist famous for sneaking his own paintings onto the walls of world-renowned museums such as London's Tate Britain and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Banksy's redesigned versions of Paris ended up in 48 HMV, Virgin Megastore and indie record stores across England. A sticker placed on the covers promises that you'll hear all of Hilton's hit songs, including "Why Am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?" Each page of the liner notes contains a cheeky phrase, as well--"Every CD you buy puts me even further out of your league" being one of them.
Spin magazine's Website reported that it was Gnarls Barkley and Gorillaz producer Danger Mouse (also the mind behind the Beatles-Jay-Z mash-up Grey Album) who was the cryptic "DM" listed as the credit responsible for each remixed song.
"It's hard to improve on perfection, but we had to try," Danger Mouse and Banksy said in a joint statement. The two met in London while shopping for disguises, according to an email from Danger Mouse's management company obtained by Spin.com.
HMV said that it started pulling Banksy's mini works of art off of shelves Sunday and plans to auction them off for charity. As of yet, a spokesman told the BBC, no one had tried to return a copy or called to complain.
"It's not the type of behavior you'd want to see happening very often," the HMV rep admitted, but "I guess you can give an individual such as Banksy a little bit of leeway for his own particular brand of artistic engagement.
"Often people might have a view on something but feel they can't always express it, but it's down to the likes of Banksy to say often what people think about things. And it might be that there will be some people who agree with his views on the Paris Hilton album."
Well, well--first stop HMV, next stop the Supreme Court.
"I have to take my hat off--it's a very good stunt," a Virgin store spokesman added.
"We wanted it to stay underground as long as possible," Brooks told the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper. "But it's gone a little bit Charlie and the Chocolate Factory now. Everyone wants one."
Paris--the regular, wannabe-pop princess version--debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 last week.