By April Richardson

Morrissey, former lead singer of the legendary Smiths, huge influence on bands like the Killers and Fall Out Boy and one of the headliners at this year's Coachella festival, will release his latest single, "I'm Throwing My Arms Around Paris," on February 9. It's a great song, but that's not what I want to address here. What I need to deal with is MORRISSEY BEING NAKED on the inner sleeve artwork.

See the naughty artwork, after the jump!
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Dispatch from Supervising Producer Sean Lee:

Note to Madonna’s A&R/Marketing folks: if you want to get a real opinion on Madge’s new music, don’t ask the MTV News execs graciously nodding their heads in your closed-door, super-secretive listening session. Ask us young, hardcore music geeks who are all gathered outside the big exec’s two-inch thick door, eavesdropping. Then you won’t have the cool kids, tastemakers and early adopters giving your baby less than its full due in blogs like this because it sounded all muffled.

Not that label reps of A-listers like Madonna really care about MTV’s opinion, per se…it’s sort of like big liquor distributors dropping off Hennessey at your local bar (oops did I just give my race away?). They aren’t asking if it will sell, they’re telling you where to position it for optimal lighting. And not that we can really give TOO much of an opinion anyway, because of the larger corporate issues still inherent in the “MTV” part of “MTV News.” Unless of course we’re talking about the Hottest MC’s in hip-hop…and thank goodness Madonna’s not attempting to rap these days because then I would truly be licensed to spank her still-amazingly well toned behind. Which she would probably like…but I digress. Or do I?

Album thoughts after the jump...

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