I heart Banksy

[lederhosen]

Via cleolinda, this heartwarming story:

Hundreds of Paris Hilton albums have been tampered with in the latest stunt by "guerrilla artist" Banksy. Banksy has replaced Hilton's CD with his own remixes and given them titles such as Why am I Famous?, What Have I Done? and What Am I For?...

A spokeswoman for Banksy said he had doctored 500 copies of her debut album Paris in 48 record shops across the UK. She told the BBC News website: "He switched the CDs in store, so he took the old ones out and put his version in."

Possibly the best part is the ambivalent response from a HMV spokesman:

"It's not the type of behaviour you'd want to see happening very often... 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."

Edit: Scans of the modified version here.

Edit the second: And video of the substitution here.

Comments

[manna]

And the Virgin spokesman seemed to be positively enthusiastic about it. (Mind you, if he's got any sense, he's probably keeping the switched copies and planning to Ebay them.)

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

That was my first thought. Anybody who returns them for a refund is an idiot...

[manna]

Well, given that they're buying a Paris Hilton CD...

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Fuck, that's kind of fantastic.

Of course, it reminds me a bit of the old question "Why do anti-cruelty activists throw paint on fur coats and not leather jackets?" (Answer: rich old ladies are a lot less likely to kick your ass than bikers.)

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Armed soldiers, OTOH...

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Damn. I am impressed. That is fantastic without caveat.

[malloc1024.livejournal.com]

I don't know. At the end of the day even an Album of Paris Hilton remixes by Banksy is still an Album of Paris Hilton remixes. It needs 20 years to be ironically hip.

Otherwise it just reminds me of Piero Manzoni in a vague way.

[fluffy-cloud.livejournal.com]

That's beautiful.

[thette.livejournal.com]

Are there really record shops (with CDs, LPs are different) where you can, as a customer, touch the records? All I've seen are ones where the cases are out in front, but all actual records are behind the counter to prevent theft.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what the norm is in the UK, but here in Australia, it varies from shop to shop. Smaller stores will often use the 'disc behind the counter' method, but bigger ones usually have discs in the cases on display. The usual theft-protection there is either a magnetic strip (often inside the jewel case or at least shrink-wrap, so you have to take some time in removing it, making theft more obvious) or a chunky plastic case that fits around the jewel case, also with a magnet. If you walk out without paying, the detector at the door goes off.

I'm guessing the reason for the difference is that in a big store that needs to minimise the time to serve each customer, it's faster to remove/deactivate a magnetic theft-protection system than to dig out a CD from a cupboard, and also makes it harder for them to be blamed if the CD acquires a scratch.