Monday, September 18, 2006

My Little Airport's Naughty Album Covers

My Little Airport is a great Hong Kong indie band I've discovered recently. But rather than talk about their music (which is minimalistic and 80's New Wave-sounding), I'd like to bring your attention to the covers of their two albums. They are pretty naughty.

The cover of their first album, the ok thing to do on sunday afternoon is to toddle in the zoo, features two girls in school uniforms of pure white blouses and aqua skirts. The girl on the right is rubbing her cheek against her friend's with eyes closed dreamily. Her friend's expression is somewhere between blissful and about-to-burst-out-laughing.



The back-cover shows the two in a near-embrace, with faces close enough to be in a kiss.

This is a sort of scene I seldom saw in my school-days, and if it's a common thing in Hong Kong, well, I wish I grew up there rather than where I did...

Meanwhile, on the cover of My Little Airport's second album because i was too nervous at that time are a couple lying on a bed, looking smilingly into each other's eyes. The girl is lightly-dressed, which isn't surprising considering Hong Kong's heat and humidity. The guy, however, isn't wearing a shirt. What are these two kids up to??



When you flip the CD over to the backside, you see the room where the bed is, with a desk and on top of it a computer, whose monitor shows a picture of...


What IS that a picture of?! A guy looks to be helping a girl remove a piece of her clothing...

The funny thing is My Little Airport's songs themselves aren't scandalous or naughty, though there is one song on the second album called "i don't know how to download good av like iris does" (AV standing for adult video).

I like these album covers but I have to confess I don't know how to read them. Are they a joke? Or are they meant to provoke? Or does the band see something romatic or aesthetically pleasing in these photos, enough that they wanted to make them their covers?

My confusion is compounded by my perception that the Chinese are relatively conservative when it comes to public discussion of sexual matters. But maybe my perception is out-dated, and/or it doesn't apply to independent artists working in a big, modern city like Hong Kong. (Though I'm guessing the 'good adult videos' that Iris downloads in the song mentioned above are Japanese rather than Greater Chinese in origin...)

No comments: