Ritual de lo Habitual is the third album from Jane’s Addiction, and final album to feature original bassist Eric Avery. The album’s Spanish title translates to Ritual of the Habit. This album was recorded at Track Record studios, and released by Warner Brothers on August 21, 1990 and immediately became the subject of controversy by conservative political groups in the United States. In Royal Oak, MI, the very same day this album was released, owners of Off The Record, were arrested and charged with “distributing obscene material” for displaying promotional posters of the album, featuring the album cover the band intended to be released, in his record store. The charges were dropped a week later, but the incident gained national media attention.

Even before the album’s release, the band struggled to get Ritual released with the album cover they wanted. Several chain record stores refused to carry the band’s previous effort, Nothing’s Shocking, due to the depicted nudity on the album cover. Warner Brothers hoped to avoid this with the band’s follow-up, however the band wished to use a cover in the same vain. One of the main reasons Jane’s Addiction chose to sign with Warner Brothers Records was due to the artistic freedom the label said the band would have, yet the label resisted the band’s chosen album cover. In the end a compromise was reached, and two covers would be used.

The band was permitted to use the cover they wanted, a collage featuring of a sculpture created by Perry Farrell and Casey Niccoli. The sculpture can be described as a visual interpretation of the song Three Days. Xiola Blue is the center figure in the sculpture with Perry Farrell and Casey Niccoli on either side of her. Within the collage around the sculpture are various items, including a slip of paper on the right that has the word Positive stamped across it. Some believed this to be the results of an AIDS test that Perry Farrell had taken, others fans believed this to be a sign that Casey was pregnant with Perry’s child, however it was revealed that this was actually the pregnancy test of Perry’s mother, taken when she was pregnant with him. To the left of the three figures is a smaller sculpture that features a toy doll pained gold. This sculpture would be the basis of the artwork used in promo singles for Three Days and Stop!. Unfortunately, this sculpture was accidentally destroyed in the mid-to-late 1990s.

- from janesaddiction.org