MTV, when it first aired, was desperate for videos to play. Little did they know they would have to censor a good majority of them. Due to excessive nudity, extreme violence, showing use of drugs or whatever else, some videos were banned. Today this might not seem like a big deal, showing naked bodies, groping, violence, etc., but back then it was a big deal, especially with that group of annoying busybodies known as the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Council) threatening to stick black and white "Parental Advisory" stickers on everything. Here are 19 videos banned by MTV
Queen - Body Language (1982)
-In the early years of MTV, the channel was hesitant to show near nakedness or full nudity. Queen decided that they were going to put as much of that as possible in the video for their 1982 song "Body Language". This band has always been about doing everything that was unconventional. Because it showed males and females running around nearly naked in a locker room, it became the first clip banned by MTV. Today it wouldn't even be shocking, but back then it was certainly scandal-worthy
Van Halen - Oh, Pretty Woman (1982)
-The legendary California rockers covered the Roy Orbison classic to much success. The video, however, raised more than a few eyebrows. This song is not an overly sexual, overly violent or even graphic song. It's a simple tune that sounds so refreshingly innocent. The video, however, is anything but. The band members - Alex dressed as Tarzan, Michael dressed as a Samurai, Eddie as a cowboy and David as Napoleon - are on a mission to save a damsel in distress who is being held hostage by two dwarves. Towards the end, the "woman" is actually a drag queen. This, coupled with the two dwarves fondling the woman, were seen as highly controversial. Most viewers never got a chance to see it because it got the ban early on
Motorhead - Killed by Death (1983)
-Motorhead never really has been one to follow the conventional rules of music. They walk to the beat of their own loud volume drums. The video for their 1983 song "Killed by Death" might seem cheesy, but it's also charming, at least by today's standards it's that. In 1983, it definitely raised the ire of people at MTV. The video shows Lemmy flipping the one finger salute to the camera, getting shot at by riot police, executed in the electric chair and then rising from the deathly grave while astride a motorcycle. It was way too much of an assault on the senses of the people at MTV. It was banned due to "excessive and senseless violence." Yet, Motorhead fans weren't complaining then and yet they're still not complaining now
Queen - I Want to Break Free (1984)
-This one definitely caused controversy. Two years prior, they were one of the first bands to have a video banned from MTV. It was 1982's "Body Language". Here they are, two years later, for the same thing - banned video. This time it's for "I Want to Break Free". The rockers decided to do their take on a classic English program called Coronation Street. The band members dressed in drag as characters from that program. Guitarist Brian May recalled in a later interview "We dressed up as the characters in that soap. And there were female characters, so we were dressing up as girls, as women...we had a fantastic laugh doing it. " MTV was not even remotely interested in showing a video where cross-dressing was happening. In the same interview, May recalls "And they would say 'No, we can't play this. We can't possible play this.'"
Twisted Sister - Be Chrool to Your Scuel (1985)
-This band right here is and was one of the primary bands to have banned videos. This video is certainly no different. A whirlwind of famous musicians appeared on the song, including E-Street saxophonist Clarence Clemmons, Alice Cooper, Billy Joel and Brian Setzer. The video, however, featured future Beverly Hills, 90210 star Luke Perry and comedian Bobcat Goldthwaite. None of this was ensuring the video would get played. The video's plot was Goldthwaite playing a teacher unable to connect to his students. Angered, he goes to the teacher's lounge to unwind with some Twisted Sister. The students turn into zombies, with Goldthwaite and another teacher, turning into Dee Snider and Alice Cooper, who do the best they can to evade the army of the undead. Snider later wrote in his memoir Shut up and Give Me the Mic "They told us that the zombie content was 'too gross' for MTV and absolutely no amount of editing would fix it. It was no worse than Michael Jackson's 14-minute, MTV-Award-winning zombie opus for "Thriller", but our was un-airable?" Snider firmly believes that those who made up the Parents Music Resource Council made Twisted Sister an example of the supposed "bad influence" they had on youngsters. "Like the fans, MTV discovered they could throw concerned parents a bone with Twisted Sister that would have little effect on their viewership. Scumbags."
Motley Crue - Girls, Girls, Girls (1987)
-The #1 song most requested for strippers was filmed at the #1 favorite strip club haunted by members of Motley Crue, The Seventh Veil Strip Club in Los Angeles. The original version of the video showed dancers in the nude. It was, surprise surprise, banned by MTV. The band redid the video with the dancers wearing bikinis and bras, making it less risque. The changed version quickly became one of the most heavily played videos on MTV
Motley Crue - You're All I Need (1987)
-Once again, the LA metallers are back with another video to be banned. This video had nothing to do with sexual content. It was, instead, banned for overly violent content. The video's plot was about an abusive relationship that eventually ends in murder. This is the unfortunate side effect of a lot of actual abusive relationships. MTV found it too sensitive to air. At the time, Crue bassist Nikki Sixx explained "You're All I Need" doesn't condone or exploit this tragedy. It clearly shows how one life is destroyed and another ruined forever. And it's probably a lot less graphic than much of what we see on the 6 o'clock news every night."
Megadeth - In My Darkest Hour (1987)
-MTV thought this song promoted suicide with lyrics like "Things will be better when I'm dead and gone / But I got to die first / Please, God, send me on my way". This is an example of when lyrical content gets a video banned. It doesn't happen all the time, which is why viewers scratched their heads at why this video didn't get airplay. Megadeth bassist/founding member Dave Mustaine argues that the song is not about suicide, but instead about the death of Metallica bassist Cliff Burton
Neil Young - This Note's For You
-This list clearly shows just how much they wanted to avoid trouble. Neil Young is certainly known for being political, but how one of his songs got banned by MTV is anyone's guess. Of course, with this song, MTV's primary asset and source of income were advertisers. When you have a song putting down said advertisers, then things get a little tense. The logic is simple; anger a fan and off goes the TV. Anger a company putting ads on your station and they pull the money train out of your station. In 1988, when Neil Young decided to berate advertisers in "This Note's For You", MTV played the part of Switzerland and wanted nothing to do with it; they stayed out. In an open letter to the network, Young had this to say. "What does the M in MTV stand for - music or money?". He called MTV "spineless jerks". However at the 1989 VMAs, "This Note's For You" won Video of the Year, despite being banned by the exact same network that banned it initially
Billy Idol - Cradle of Love (1990)
-The video released in May 1990, less than a year after controversial comedian Andrew Dice Clay made headlines for performing a hugely misogynistic stand up act at the 1989 VMAs. The original video for this featured clips from Clay's film The Adventures of Ford Fairlaine. When Clay was COMPLETELY edited out of the original video, then this new version could air. The song and video would go to the #1 spot on the mainstream charts
Sepultura - Arise (1991)
-The video for "Arise", taken from the band's fourth album, didn't get airplay. Otherwise, it wouldn't be listed here. This helped establish the Brazilian band as one of metal's newest legends. Certainly the video didn't do them or MTV any favors. It showed bloodied gas-masked bodies, nailed to crosses like Jesus, showing marks through the hands and feet in what is called in the world of Christianity as stigmata, was more than enough reason for MTV to say NO to the video
Soundgarden - Jesus Christ Pose (1991)
-The name alone probably got it banned. One thing to definitely not do is mock religion. That raises the temper of a lot of people. Surprise surprise - this video got banned for graphic religious imagery. The band knew what kind of havoc was going to come, so prior to the video's release, they issued a press statement. "'Jesus Christ Pose', despite the song's title, has no religious meaning. It doesn't have anything to do with religion or my view on it. It just has to do with people exploiting a symbol. I think it's silly for other people to exploit it on the basis that it is sacred. Sometimes groups just beg for ideas like that or certain titles, and they just end up with them - which will probably never be understood because people will just see the title of the song and make a monster out of it."
Nine Inch Nails - Happiness in Slavery (1992)
-In the years before this band went mainstream, this band fought MTV, no pun intended, tooth and nail over the video for "Happiness in Slavery". The video shows an individual, played by performance artist Bob Flanagan, strapped to a machine that drills, tears and grinds his body to nothing until he dies. The man seems to respond with a mixture of pain and pleasure, showing the most extreme form of sadomasochism. The video would be included with their 1997 video album Closure
Tool - Prison Sex (1993)
-Unlike all the videos here, this video got some airplay before eventually being banned. Adam Jones, one of the guitarists, directed the stop-motion animation video. The plot of the video shows a small, human-like doll tormented by a larger, demon-like entity. The symbolism, in some people's minds, links to child abuse. It was deemed too sensitive and controversial for MTV. In an article for the San Francisco Chronicle, front man Maynard James Keenan had this to say. "What got me about the whole situation was, here you have these other videos where Steven Tyler's daughter is stripping in front of old men, or where Janet Jackson is practically having oral sex. I find that kind of disturbing, yet it's something that's just thrown in people's laps and they don't think twice about it. So I guess anything that deals with that sort of subject matter is going to end up hitting road blocks."
Nine Inch Nails - Closer (1994)
-Once again, Nine Inch Nails had to edit a video to get airplay. This video is practically a list of the Do's and Do Not's of videos. The video shows nudity, bondage, religious imagery (a monkey strapped to a crucifix), profanity, which made it public enemy #1 with MTV. In the places where the offensive content was, a title card reading "scene missing" was inserted. Years later, in an Entertainment Weekly interview, video director Mark Romanek had this to say. "It was a pretty ballsy and extravagant thing for Trent [Reznor] to do. But MTV liked it, so it started a long negotiation of how we can get it on the air. I want to go on record about the monkey: that monkey was not in any danger, even though he appears in distress. The monkey was just munching on bits of banana and enjoying himself. We had an ASPCA person on the set. It wasn't harmed and actually got paid more some of the crew."
Megadeth - A Tout Le Monde (1994)
-Same issue as with "In My Darkest Hour". This song was said to, by MTV's opinion, glamorize suicide. Some of the lyrics include "These are the last words I'll ever speak / And they'll set me free" while the video shows Dave Mustaine digging a grave. What makes this even more controversial is that the album this track is from is called Youthanasia, a slight mocking of the word euthanasia
Megadeth - Reckoning Day (1994)
-Megadeth just can't seem to get away from video bans. This video was banned for no apparent reason. There were no questionable lyrics, but it was discovered that MTV and the band's label, along with two previous video bans, which led to this video getting banned
Smashing Pumpkins - Try, Try, Try (2000)
-When The Smashing Pumpkins wrote this single in 2000, they hired a Swedish video director named Jonas Akerlund. He created a visually moving video, but one that was also hard to watch. The extended version of the video ran for 15 minutes and followed the lives of a couple of heroin addicts. They live on the streets, begging, committing crimes and even prostituting themselves to pay for their addiction. Things reach a head when the woman gets pregnant, overdoses and miscarries. The video shows realistic drug use and was too intense for MTV viewers
Foo Fighters - Low (2003)
-This is one band you would never expect to have a video ban on. Their songs have never seemed inappropriate. Unfortunately, this video was banned for explicit and graphic content. The video shows Dave Grohl and Jack Black appearing as hillbilly versions of themselves meeting up a little dive motel for fun. They start out chugging whiskey and arm wrestling, but then later shift to putting on women's lingerie and running around. Foo Fighters guitarist Chris Shiflett explains to NME "It's Dave and Jack being incredibly sketchy. It's white-trash porn. Dave's a big man to let the world see him in that way. It's a side of Dave Grohl you've never seen before!"
