Music videos as we know them today are a relatively new thing. Throwing a brief history check in here, with the arrival of sound-on-film in the 1920s, clips were played before a feature film in the form of musical shorts of vaudeville stars and other musicians (much better than our current cinema experience: 20 minutes of ads followed by another 20 minutes of trailers). In the 1940s soundies were created, three-minute films featuring music and dance, and were displayed in jukeboxes.
But it was the 60s which saw the proliferation of something more familiar for us these days, promotional clips and full-length films following The Beatles’ lead. TV networks created music programs in Australia -Countdown (1974-1987), Sounds (1974-80s)-; Britain – Top of the Pops (1964-2006); and America – Video Concert Hall (1979-80s) -. This eventually led to the launching of MTV on August 1, 1981, main responsible of the booming of the current music video industry.
MTV has gained fame over the years for its politically correct, prophylactic and sensitive censorship policy. I guess it’s really not worth the hassle when you have so many organised religious fanatics in the country but most of the uncut versions of such controversial have been shown at unsociable hours in MTV2, channel created in 1996.
MTV’s first video: The Buggles – Video Killed the Radio Star (1979)
Controversy in music videos comes in various forms. It ranges from traditionally forbidden subjects (sex, nudity) to offensive views (racism, homophobia), without forgetting sensible subjects such as drug abuse, religion or violence. Sex and nudity are undoubtedly the most “popular” ones and the easier boundaries to break in the early years. For some of these videos the fuss created is business as usual these days, and a great way to illustrate how our society has incorporated these elements to our culture is by chronological order. I also tried to expand the boundary breaking adding related videos and incorporate different themes although a certain degree of overlapping is unavoidable. Please bear in mind that black metal and the like has been excluded from the list because they play in another league altogether.
I welcome comments telling me what video shattered your world and I will tell you mine in exchange. Just in case Stinkfist was not brilliant enough, guitarist Adam Jones comes up a kick-ass video surrounded by a H.R. Giger´s inspired atmosphere. Little secret though… I would have loved to see a video for H.
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5 Comments
Good choices. I’d have said Nirvana’s Heart Shaped Box as well.
Megadeth’s “A Tout Le Monde” video was also banned by MTV in 1994. Their reasoning was that it promoted suicide, but of course it didn’t.
Hey Hayley, Heart Shaped Box was my choice for a related video but I had trouble deciding where to put it. It´s a good choice as well, pretty weird looking surroundings. Funny thing about it the director Anton Corbijn was reticent to do it because he liked to do his own thing and also did Cobain. The video ended up being a collaboration (which is not the end of the world neither, right?). But as I said, plenty videos to choose from!
Hey KC… MTV is a funny one, I really wonder sometimes what their grounds are to ban a video and specially who they listen to. I´ve just seen the video and didn´t try to kill myself so… it´s not working anymore!
Queen – I want to break free…MTV didnt think it was proper for four guys to dress up in drag. But Queen were paying a tribute to Coronation Street. (Video Links-Foo Fighters-Learn To Fly, Freddie Mercury-The Great Pretender)
All I got to say is that nothing in the past holds a candle to Aphex Twin’s Come to Daddy video.
Controversy: Creepy