Poor Paris Hilton. You know, I’ve wanted to write something about Paris, for a while now. It's a vicious pop culture site - surely there has to be Paris, somewhere. Yet, it’s remained an ideal that never came to fruition. Why the hell would I actually want to allocate time to writing about Paris Hilton?

Well, all that changed, this evening. In came the news that British artist, Bansky – who once managed to swap famous art in museums (including The Louvre) for his own, without anyone noticing – has pulled his latest prankster-come-postmodern artwork off, without a hitch.

Bansky managed to swap 500 copies of the new Paris Hilton debut CD, in 49 HMV and Virgin stores across England, for his own doctored version. The front looked not too disimilar to the original CD, except for Paris' breasts being photoshopped out of their skimpy bikini, and a sticker advertising that the CD contained hits such as, “Why Am I Famous?”, “What Have I Done?” and “What Am I For?”

Inside, the booklet is pop art with a sharp tongue, indeed. It features an image of Paris’ head photoshopped onto a mannequin, with the banner, “Thou shalt not worship false idols"; Paris’ sound advice on fame, such as “90% of success is just showing up”; and a personal promise from Paris herself that “Every CD you buy puts me further out of your league.”

Instead of featuring the ten monotonous tracks from the real Paris album (they're almost as bad as the new Robbie Williams single), Bansky enlisted the help of Dangermouse, a member of both Gorillaz and Gnarls Barkely (responsible for the world-wide smash, Crazy). The 40 minute techno remix of the Paris album incorporates sound bites of Paris at her best, including, “Now, we’ll go shopping”, “Do you want to be blonde?” and her catchcry, “That’s hot!”

“It was hard to improve on perfection,” admitted a press release from the Danger Mouse camp, “But we had to try.”

You know, I think they may have succeeded.

Banksy first sprung to fame as a left-wing graf artist who became known for his anti-war stencils, in the 90s. By the time Bansky was swapping great works of art at The Louvre, he had several warrants for his arrest (all adding to his cult appeal, of course). This includes Australia, where three years ago, Bansky broke into Toronga Zoo and spray-painted, "I want out", inside the monkey enclosure.  He has never released a photo of himself, and nobody to this day knows what he even looks like. Dangermouse, as expected, is giving police no clues, and insists he simply ran into him, while shopping.

But the piece de resistanc came when HMV held a press interview on the matter, announcing that not all the CDs had been brought in for return. HMV actually acknowledged the criminal’s genius, and released the symapthetic statement, as to why the fake CDs had been kept by unsuspecting consumers; “It might be that some people agree with Banksy’s views on the Paris Hilton album.”
 
Some have now surfaced on Ebay, and bidding is rising fast into the hudreds of dollars range.

A short video celebrating this event has been distributed across the internet (featuring an excerpt of the CD), and can be viewed below. Now, that’s hot!