Madonna's NSFW album cover criticised: 'You don't need to use sex to sell music'
Madonna has revealed the cover of her Madame X album cover to mixed reviews.
The NSFW album cover shows an image of a nipple pierced by a single red rose.
She announced the cover on Instagram with the caption: “Portrait of A Lady...............Madame X. Album drops June 14th.”
Madonna’s risqué album covers have been a staple part of her music for many years, but some fans aren’t happy.
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The singer’s Like A Prayer album cover was described as “provocative and controversial” at the time.
It showed a woman with her thumbs looped into her jeans with her top pulled up to show her stomach.
In more recent times, Madonna’s 2007 album, Hard Candy, shows her in silk handcuffs and thigh-high leather boots.
Her True Blue album cover, which iconically shows Madonna with her head tilted back, was heralded as being a mixture of “sexy and charming”.
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For some, though, her Madame X album cover took it a step too far.
Some simply wondered why Instagram weren’t censoring it. One user wrote: “This is beautiful but can anyone tell me why this photo isn’t being censored by Insta when photos of women breastfeeding their babies are?”
Others were straight to the point: “You don’t need to use skin/sex to sell your music.”
Another wrote: ‘Would you want your daughter to publish this [sic] of herself publicly?”
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One commented underneath saying: “Stop being so judgemental, there’s nothing wrong with this.”
“They’re just nipples. Get a life.” Another commented.
Madame X is Madonna’s 14th album. It comes 36 years after her first album, Madonna and four years after her last album, Rebel Heart.
Rebel Heart was slammed by fans after she released a series of photos of human right’s activists bound up in black rope by way of promoting the album.