Aerosmith’s “Nine Lives.” These cats live forever.

Nine Lives is the twelfth studio album by America’s hardest rock band Aerosmith, released in 1997. The album was produced by Aerosmith and Kevin Shirley, and was the band’s first studio album released by Columbia Records since 1982’s Rock in a Hard Place.
It peaked at #1 at the Billboard Charts.
One of the album’s singles, “Pink”, won a Grammy for Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal.

The booklet for Nine Lives contains 12 pieces of album art (including the cover). Each picture contains a smaller version of the previous picture within itself. The final picture is included in the first, creating an infinite loop. It was designed by Stefan Sagmeister, who allegedly has never received his fee for this work due to the controversy described below.

The original cover art angered some Hindus, who felt the artwork (taken from Hindu imagery and altered by giving the dancing figure a cat’s head) was offensive. The image depicts Lord Krishna (with a cat’s head) dancing on the head of the snake demon, Aghasura, a popular episode from Sagmeister’s childhood. The band had been unaware of the source of the artwork, and the record company apologized, and changed the artwork to a revised version.

Strangely enough, some copies with original covers have found their way to music store shelves in India, where Hinduism is the majority religion, and have not raised any further controversy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Lives_(Aerosmith_album)

The above photo is of an electronic moving CD bin display for the album. Incredible graphics and artwork.

The boys from Boston also produced some pretty creative promo items for this album in addtion to killer artwork and design.

Check out the cat food sent out to I imagine music folks.

Steven’s set list pulled from the stage at the Cincinnati, OH show.

Above is a foam cat head stage prop from the Nine Lives tour. Purchased directly from Vinderloo.

Here’s a pair of Joey signed Nine Lives sticks I own.

An amazing signed drum head from one of Joey’s Nine Lives kits.

Courtesy of Donn Bennett Drum Studio in Bellevue, WA.