Just like (some) publishers use the allure of nymphets to sell books, (some) record companies use nude pre-teens to sell albums.
For example, Blind Faith (1969) is a certified platinum album by the English band Blind Faith. Unsurprisingly, the album cover sparked controversy due to the topless nymphet who is holding a very phallic toy (airplane). The cover was designed by photographer Bob Seidemann - Eric Clapton's friend and former roommate.
Per Feelnumb, here's Seidemann's rationale for the concept:
“I could not get my hands on the image until out of the mist a concept began to emerge. To symbolize the achievement of human creativity and its expression through technology a space ship was the material object. To carry this new spore into the universe, innocence would be the ideal bearer, a young girl, a girl as young as Shakespeare’s Juliet. The space ship would be the fruit of the tree of knowledge and the girl, the fruit of the tree of life.”“The space ship could be made by Mick Milligan, a jeweler at the Royal College of Art. The girl was another matter. If she were too old it would be cheesecake, too young and it would be nothing. The beginning of the transition from girl to woman, that is what I was after. That temporal point, that singular flare of radiant innocence. Where is that girl?”
Initially, Seidermann planned to use a 14-year-old Brit but was smitten by Mariora Goschen, her 11-year-old sister.
Unsurprisingly, the album was released with a different cover in the US.
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An 11-year-old nude nymphet posed seductively on the album cover of the Scorpion's Virgin Killer (1976), which was designed by Steffan Böhle - the product manager for the West German branch of RCA Records. Wait. Virgin killer?
Here's an excerpt from an interview on Blabbermouth with Scorpions' guitarist Rudolf Schenker:
Blasting-Zone.com: In hindsight, do you regret releasing the album Virgin Killer with the original uncensored cover?
Rudolf: "No. .We didn't actually have the idea. It was the record company. The record company guys were like, 'Even if we have to go to jail, there's no question that we'll release that.'
Once again, unsurprisingly, the album was released with a different cover in the US and per AllMusic, Virgin Killer was "[...] quite popular in Japan."