Deicide AI Art Album Cover Controversy

Overview

Deicide AI Art Album Cover Controversy refers to a controversy surrounding the death metal band Deicide and the release of the art for their album Banished by Sin. The album, set to be released in April 2024, features a cover that many believe is generated by artificial intelligence. In February 2024, the rumor that the album artwork was created by AI led to backlash from fans on social media, as well as memes mocking it and Deicide.

Background

On February 9th, 2024, several accounts on X / Twitter posted an image of what they claimed was Deicide's new album cover for their upcoming album Banished by Sin. Possibly the earliest example came from the account @deadlystormzine, which posted the image (seen below) at 9 a.m. on the 9th, receiving over 330 likes and 80 reposts in a week.

The above post's top comments immediately accused the band of using AI to generate the cover art. Some fans, like X user @Lindsay_C88, were skeptical of the validity of the rumored artwork, as seen in the X^[5] post from February 11th, 2024, which received roughly 40 likes in five days:

However, despite doubts from fans, on February 14th, 2024, Deicide released their new song "Sever the Tongue" and announced details of their upcoming album Banished by Sin. First appearing on Blabbermouth.net, the album cover (seen below) was released alongside a tracklist, ultimately confirming the official art for the album was the rumored image.

Online Reactions

As the album details were picked up by other media outlets, comments spread online about the album potentially having AI artwork. By February 15th, 2024, fans were commenting on various social media platforms, particularly metal forums and X. One fan, @Crypticus on X,^[2] shared an example of an AI-generated cover they based on Deicide's album cover, criticizing them for allegedly not using a real artist for the album.

The controversy spread outside of X and to platforms like YouTube,^[6] where user Altars of Mattness posted a video criticizing the album cover and the AI art phenomenon. The video, posted on February 15th, 2024, received around 1,400 views and 145 comments in a day (seen below).

Memes mocking the artwork or criticizing it also appeared online in February 2024. For example, Redditor anarchi3 made a post to the /r/MetalMemes^[7] subreddit on February 14th, receiving over 100 upvotes and 20 comments in five days (seen below, left). On February 16th, Redditor tacoforce5_ made another post to the same subreddit,^[8] receiving nearly 850 upvotes and 200 comments in three days (seen below, right).

Developments

After numerous complaints about the album art, one fan noticed that the art used for the song "Sever the Tongue" had been updated. X^[4] user @sickinterment posted about the change on February 15th, 2024, receiving over 280 likes in a day (seen below).

It is unknown whether or not the art will still be used as the album cover when Banished by Sin releases on April 24th, 2024.

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References