10 Banned Hard Rock Music Videos

If it were released about ten years later, Motörhead’s Killed By Death video probably would’ve been fine but the MTV of the 1980s was none too happy with after complaints of “excessive and senseless violence”.

Killed By Death is directed by Rod Swenson, the manager of punk group The Plasmatics and stars that band’s frontwoman as Lemmy’s girlfriend who is scooped up by the frontman and placed on the back of his bike after he drives through her parents’ wall. Gnarly.

From there, Lemmy and his posse go for a drive until they’re stopped by a firing squad, who somehow fire into an entire group and only hit Mr Kilmister. Surviving this, Lemmy is then electrocuted. Finally we arrive at his funeral, which ends in the most insane fashion with zombie Lemmy driving his bike out of the ground.

In the light of 2022, it's a hilarious and cheesy video that is difficult to think really caused that much of a stir but times were certainly different. Even with Lemmy flipping the bird at the camera being censored, it still proved too much for those faint of heart and was pulled from the airwaves permanently.

In later years Lemmy made jokes about Killed By Death’s sales. If more people with a sense of humour that seen the video, maybe that wouldn’t be the case.