Why It Matters

Released in the spring of 1984, Roger Waters’s The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking earned its place in the Controversial Album Cover Gallery due to the presence of a bare ass.  A luscious, luscious bare ass.

The story behind the album is more interesting than that flash of tittilating skin, believe it or not.  When Pink Floyd’s bass player’s megalomania was at its peak he brought the band two projects.  You get one and I get the other, he told them.  Wisely, they picked The Wall, and five years later Waters released “Hitch Hiking” as his first solo project.

It’s not a bad album, and in fact is an interesting complement to The Wall thanks to a few shared musical themes.  But honestly it’s really no more than a footnote, a failed evolutionary experiment.  It’s the ugly Olsen twin.

Except for that cover.  America can’t stand a bare ass unless it’s selling beer, so shortly after “Pros and Cons” hit the stores the big black bar had to go over that beautiful booty.

At one time I owned all of the promotional material (posters, etc.) for this album, and maybe I still do, I don’t know.  I have way too much old record store junk to sort through.  I’ll get to it one of these days.

As censored album covers go, you can pick this one up pretty cheap.  Five to twenty bucks will get you your very own copy of this Pink Floyd-related novelty with its original cover.  Happy hunting.