The Rolling Stones logo that went too low
THEY may all be pensioners but the Rolling Stones have lost none of their ability to get the authorities hot under the collar.
The veteran rockers, famous for their suggestive lyrics and offstage antics, have had a poster banned for being lewd.
The advert, for a Stones exhibition in London, has their trademark logo of a cartoon mouth and protruding tongue superimposed on a woman’s underwear.
It has already been widely used online to promote Exhibitionism, which opens at the Saatchi Gallery in the King’s Road next year.
But regulators who approve posters that appear on the London Underground and at bus stops insisted the logo be moved up to the woman’s belly button before passing it.
A spokesman for the band said: ‘We are dumbfounded and perplexed at this rather silly decision. Perhaps the fact that it’s the Rolling Stones and controversy seems to follow them everywhere.’
The advertising campaign for the exhibition, which features hundreds of pieces of memorabilia from the band’s five-decade career, is now running with the amended version of the poster publicising the show.
The original was submitted to Exterion Media, which regulates adverts on the Underground, and Clear Channel, which does the same for bus shelters. However, the band was told it was not suitable in its current form.
It is hardly the first time the Stones have fallen foul of censors. The original cover of their 1971 album Sticky Fingers was banned in General Franco’s Spain and a poster for 1976’s Black & Blue, showing a bound and battered model, was removed from a Hollywood billboard after protests. The tongue logo has been used by the band since it was designed by John Pasche in 1970.
It was meant to encapsulate the Stones’ rebellious nature and was inspired by Mick Jagger’s famously plump lips.
A spokesman for Clear Channel said: ‘When we saw the artwork we suggested to the client that it may not be approved in its current form and they revised the artwork, shifting the mouth slightly further up the body. This decision was reached quickly and amicably.’
Exterion Media declined to comment.
Exhibitionism runs from next April. Tickets go on sale from 9am on Friday and can be bought from www.stonesexhibitionism.com.
‘A rather silly decision’