Between 2002 and 2003 Banksy created four different album covers for the Bad Meaning Good music compilations, which each brought together tracks chosen by a series of artists, recorded on CD or vinyl. These tracks covered a wide range of genres, from electronic and hip hop to jazz, rock, funk and reggae. The present work illustrates the cover for Volume 1 of the Bad Meaning Good album. With tracks selected by the producer Skitz, it is one of four canvases that were painted to accompany the album covers. At the centre of the background Banksy painted a large red ‘X’, and stencilled a monochromatic machine gun on top of it. The weapon is wearing oversized sneakers, imbuing the picture with a satirical tone, which contrasts the apparent image of violence. In all four album covers from this series, Banksy presents a symbol of control and authority - the X - with attributes that reveal his critical attitude towards the state. Indeed, for the cover of Volume 2, the artist substituted the weapon on the X for a military vehicle. Like much of Banksy’s work, the image remains an ambiguous one, leaving the viewer to question what is happening and its essential meaning.

Prior to the Bad Meaning Good series, Banksy had worked on six album covers for One Cut in 1998, four covers for Blak Twang in 2002, and six covers for rock legends Blur in 2003. Regarding this last collaboration, the artist justified his decision to work on commercial commissions, as he stated: “I’ve done a few things to pay the bill, and I did the Blur album. It was a good record and [the commission was] quite a lot of money. I think that’s a really important distinction to make. If it’s something you actually believe in, doing something commercial doesn’t turn it to shit just because it’s commercial. Otherwise you’ve got to be a socialist rejecting capitalism altogether, because the idea that you can marry a quality product with a quality visual and be a part of that even though it’s capitalistic is sometimes a contradiction you can’t live with. But sometimes it’s pretty symbiotic, like the Blur situation” (Banksy cited in: Will Ellsworth-Jones, ‘The Story Behind Banksy’, Smithsonian Magazine, February 2013, online).