Smell the Glove

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The revised artwork for Smell the Glove.

Smell the Glove is the name of a fictional album produced by the mock heavy-metal band Spinal Tap in the movie This is Spinal Tap. The cover features "a greased, naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck and a leash ... and a man's arm holding on to the leash extended out to her shoving a black glove in her face to sniff it."

In the movie, the production company, Polymer Records, ultimately refused to release the cover because of pressure from retailers such as Kmart and gave the album a solid black cover instead. Upon learning of the concerns of Polymer, David St. Hubbins said, "You know, if we were serious and we said, ‘Yes, she should be forced to smell the glove,’ then you’d have a point, but it’s all a joke." Bandmate Nigel Tufnel replied, "It is and it isn’t. She should be made to smell it, but..." which David clarified with the statement, "But not, you know, over and over."

Spinal Tap manager Ian Faith claimed to have censored the album himself, saying "it wasn't a glove I can tell you" before he changed it. The black cover prompted guitarist Nigel Tufnel to utter the now-famous quote, "It's like, 'how much more black could this be?' and the answer is none. None more black." In an early piece of publicity for the film, a 1982 ad in Billboard magazine plugged the album and displayed the original "naked woman" cover. Tap returned to this idea in 1992 with the picture sleeve from the promo CD of Bitch School, which pictured a woman dressed in black vinyl. [1]

The term "smell the glove" has become a popular byword in a wide variety of media.^{[citation needed]} The cover art was inspired by Whitesnake's 1979 album Lovehunter.[2]

The original artwork may also be the inspiration for the UK cover of the first album by The Strokes.