10 Perfect Rock Songs That Were INSANELY Controversial

Anything that happened after the 2000 election was bound to be dealt with accordingly by Rage Against the Machine. Always trying to have their voices heard beyond rock and roll, Rage really wanted to enact some sort of change in the world through their music, whether that meant promotion of banned books in the liner notes of Evil Empire or writing about the oppression of black people on Killing in the Name. When it came time to finally shoot a video for Sleep Now in the Fire, that's when they might have bitten off a little more than they could chew.

After already hiring notorious documentarian Michael Moore to direct the video, the band decided to play the song directly in front of the New York Stock Exchange. It may have been a nice piece of protest music, but they did not get permission to play on the street, leading to the police getting involved and getting into arguments with Moore during the shoot.

You can only go so far with music, and the video ends with Rage eventually marching themselves into the New York Stock Exchange for a peaceful protest before they eventually shut their doors early for the day. They may have only shut down capitalism for a couple of hours, but their statement had certainly been made regardless.