10 Banned Hard Rock Music Videos

Looking back at Soundgarden’s 1991 Jesus Christ Pose video is a lens into the psychedelic early 90s: a washed-out kaleidoscope of colours, intense flashes and some provoking imagery to boot. It’s also something that caused the band to get death threats for years

Vocalist Chris Cornell spends most of the song with his arms outstretched, as the title might suggest, but more than this is what is spliced into the proceedings. A lot of cross and crucifixion imagery takes up the majority of the six minute run-time: a woman, a cyborg and even vegetables placed into the shape of a human are seen hanging from a cross. This upset Christian viewers who saw it as an attack on their religion.

In actual fact, the lyrics of the song are more mocking celebrity culture that used religion as nothing more than part of an aesthetic. Cornell described it as disdain for “beautiful people, or famous people exploiting a symbol” rather than his own views on religion.

It’s a shame that it was never shown in its entirety on MTV considering that Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil once said it was one of only a handful of videos the band were happy with. Bummer.