Smell the Glove
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| Smell the Glove | ||
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| Studio album (fictional) by Spinal Tap | ||
| Released | 1982 | |
| Genre | Rock Heavy Metal |
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| Label | Polymer Records | |
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 original cover featured "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."
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[edit] Cover sleeve art
In the mockumentary, the production company, Polymer Records, ultimately refused to release the cover because of pressure from retailers such as Sears and 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 "You should have seen what they wanted to put. It wasn't a glove, I can tell you!" before he changed it. The black sleeve 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 with a mortarboard. [1]
[edit] Trivia
The cover art was inspired by Whitesnake's 1979 album Lovehunter.[2]
The lyrics to the Frank Zappa song "Be in My Video" (release in 1984) contain the line "I will make you smell the glove." This does not appear to be a direct reference to Spinal Tap, but probably to the same cultural meme referenced by Spinal Tap.
The original artwork is said to also be the inspiration for the UK cover of the first album by The Strokes.
[edit] Other Black sleeves
Real-life albums which feature a completely black cover include Prince's The Black Album. Metallica's self titled album is often referred to as "The Black Album" as the cover is almost entirely black. The members of Spinal Tap made pointed references to this when they appeared in Metallica's long form video A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica. In the scene, they tell the members of Metallica, "We need to talk about the black album." In another scene in the Metallica video, the band members are shown working in the studio when the test graphics for their album art arrive for their approval. James Hetfield can be heard muttering the words, "None more black."
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Ultimate Spinal Tap Discography - an illustrated guide to Tap's albums (both real and imagined)
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![[1]](http://www.spinaltapfan.com/images/albums/bitch.jpg){kind=link}