10 Most Disturbing Music Videos In Hard Rock
When Riffs Get a Little Twisted.
The music video has never really been the main concern for hard rock acts. As long as the riffs kicked ass whenever you put on the record, it didn't really matter what kind of weird image you had onscreen to promote everything. A funny thing happened once MTV came calling though.
In the era of long hair and neon colored spandex, other heavier acts were throwing their hats into the ring with some of the most off the wall visuals that the public had ever seen. Instead of the massive party atmosphere that you would get from something like Madonna or Michael Jackson, these songs could be dark, depressing, or mind blowing...often at the exact same time.
What's even more mind blowing is that they actually reached an audience, with a lot of these videos becoming classics in their own right, completely removed from the more candified version of pop music sweeping the airwaves.
From there, more artists began coming out of the woodwork that were willing to push the envelope of terror a little more, leading to even more terrifying music videos going forward. While music videos were originally supposed to be a commercial for your song, this is where things get a bit creepier.
No more spandex...it's time to get dark.
10. The Kill - 30 Seconds to Mars
As much as Jared Leto has been trying to divorce himself from the realm of good music in recent years, there used to be a time when 30 Seconds to Mars kicked a lot of ass. Going back to the early '00s, albums like their self-titled and a Beautiful Lie were modern triumphs for the space rock genre and sounded like they were coming from a much more genuine place than something like Walk on Water. Even when it comes to the Kill, it turns out Leto had some decent taste in horror graphics too.
Looking to capture the moody vibe of the song, the entire video takes place in an abandoned hotel, with the band struggling to hold onto their sanity as they spend the days seeing spirits around the house. Sound familiar? Yeah, for all of its strengths, most of this video is basically just a ripoff of Stanley Kubrick's amazing visuals in the Shining.
There's nothing wrong with paying homage to your influences though, and the Kill really hammers that point home, going so far as to recreate classic scenes like Leto throwing a ball in the main room to actually playing the role of the house band in the ballroom. Though it may have rubbed some cinefiles the wrong way, the attention to detail in this one at least shows that their heart was in the right place.