posted by Ezra Winton on February 19, 2007
Profit Pop took a hit recently as political artist Banksy removed hundreds of the new Paris Hilton CDs from music stores throughout the UK, replacing them with Banksy's own "altered" version of the album. It's not surprising that a human being who so utterly personifies the disastrous collusion of corporate malfeasance and greed with the vaccuous and violent ignorance of Western pop culture is also the target of a political art campaign by one of the west's greatest creative agitators.
Shopdropper Banksy crept into nearly 50 record shops across Britain and replaced Hilton's debut album with 500 copies of his own rendition, taking time to replace the bar code on the altered versions so customers would - and did - complete their purchases.
Banksy's remixes on the CD include titles such as "Why am I Famous," and "What Am I For?" Images on the album cover and inside jacket show Hilton with a dog's head and in various model poses with bubble captions such as: "Life wasn't meant to be fair" and "Every CD you buy puts me even further out of your league."
One manager of an HMV admitted that it was difficult to find all the imposter CDs and even complimented the guerrilla artist on "a good stunt."
Paris Hilton herself admitted that the new tracks sounded "different" and "weird." Looks like corporate music has a new corporate spokesperson, and Banksy has yet another muse.
Interested in shopdropping? Want to print up your own labels, replace merchandise, mess with the system? Well now there's a how-to video. Enjoy!
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This is a great stunt. One of the brilliance of Banksy is that he does stunts that are new. The how-to-video is unfortunate. I applaud the fact that many people doing such a thing might become a real problem to the record companies. On the other hand, copycatting might just be annoying and make it harder to shoplift CD's.
Banksy doing this stunt puts a spotlight on himself and also his message while also giving more publicity to Paris Hilton. You may remember the fashion shots she took with eat the rich shirts. That is what makes her popular. She shoves our poorness in our face.
Just a couple thoughts. Good job, Banksy.
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