Lil Nas X made quite a statement last week with his latest music video for his new single “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”, in which he saw pole dancing head to hell and give the devil a lap dance. The entertainer has been busy trolling conservatives across the twittersphere, sharing fan memes and pushing a load of Satan Shoes in the world.

The outrage over Lil Nas X’s new offer sparks memories of other controversial music videos that pissed off conservatives in their day. Here are the top 10 most controversial music videos.

1. Madonna, “Like a Prayer”
March 1989 Prior to the release of the album of the same name, the video for “Like A Prayer” was pivotal to Madonna’s music career, but sparked controversy within the Christian community for its sacrilegious imagery. With intimate visuals of Madonna embracing a black saint figure as he comes to life, her wild dancing in a field of burning crosses, and her savior being arrested after being blown up by a group of white men, the clip tackles the issues of racism, physical violence and the artist’s experience with Catholicism. It’s no wonder the ambitious music video garnered a special following in the late 1980s.

In his book Madonna: an intimate biography, she says, “like a prayer talks about the influence of Catholicism in my life and the passion it arouses in me. In these songs, I deal with specific issues that mean a lot to me. It is an assimilation of experiences that I have had in my life and my relationships.

2. Nine Inch Nails, “Happiness in Bondage”
November 1992

Nine Inch Nails: Happiness In Slavery (uncensored) (1992) from Nine inch nails to Vimeo.

Without a doubt, “Happiness in Slavery” is the most uncensored music video on this list. Nine Inch Nails collaborated with director Jon Reiss, who completely stripped the band’s concept video of any limitations.

According to Tom Bryant from Stronger magazine, “Reiss proposed a concept based on Octave Mirabeux’s book The Garden of Torturea French novel in which a sadist visits a Chinese prison and cums while the inmates are flayed and whose blood then feeds the beautiful gardens in which they are tortured.

The full uncensored version of the music video has been removed from YouTube and is only available on the band’s website. Vimeo account. Reiss ended up changing the direction of the video so that Bob Flanagan, an American performance artist, and his torture machine have a mutual relationship that quickly turns into an industrious garden of blood and splattered guts. The video features Flanagan’s frontal nudity along with graphic close-ups of body torture.

3. Eminem, “Stan”
October 2000
Eminem has never been shy about addressing controversial topics such as domestic violence, drug addiction or suicide. His signature track “Stan” from his second album, The Marshall Mathers LP, explores the audio story of an obsessive Eminem fan who commits acts of self-harm and aggression to show his love and commitment to the rapper. The clip depicts Stan’s world showing his basement riddled with Eminem memorabilia, highlighting an unhealthy obsession that ultimately leads him to drive drunk off a bridge with his kidnapped pregnant girlfriend after months of not receiving the recognition of Eminem.

The word “Stan” made its mark and became a official word in the Oxford Dictionary in 2013 as “an overzealous or obsessive fan of a particular celebrity”.

4. Erykah Badu, “Window Seat”
April 2010 The socio-political performance in Erykah Badu’s music video for “Window Seat” was sudden and unexpected for locals who might have spotted her filming in the middle of the day at Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas. In the video, Badu gets out of his car and begins to drive down Elm Street in slow motion before slowly undressing. This leads to the final moment where she is completely naked and falls to the sidewalk at the sound of a single gunshot next to where JFK was shot.

After the video (which, badu tweeted, was shot in a single take without a crew) was released, the Dallas Police Department cited Badu for disorderly conduct with a $500 fine. Although the music video’s explicit nudity was censored, the filming of the video itself and the lack of filming permits soon tied her hands. Badu, however, understands that his art is priceless.

5. Tyler, the creator, “Yonkers”
February 2011 One of Tyler, The Creator’s most infamous tracks from his 2011 debut album Leprechaun garnered massive attention for its violent and aggressive lyrics which fired at artists such as BoB, Bruno Mars, Stevie Wonder and others. Although people are now more familiar with his work and learned that he mimicked an internal back-and-forth struggle with his alter-ego Wolf Haley, the video’s initial release sparked controversy due to its visuals. dark and unsettling, which included scenes with the performer eating a cockroach, his figure vomiting, creepy animated movements, and a staged depiction of him committing suicide.

6. Lady Gaga, “Judas”
May 2011 Lady Gaga’s music video for “Judas” is a modern reimagining of the biblical story, and it wasn’t long before religious people took offense when the music video was released on Easter 2011. The music video depicts Gaga as Mary -Magdalene following Jesus as he leads his 12 disciples into a biker gang. Norman Reedus stars as Judas.

“She’s a girl who dresses up as a nun to get raped, who swallows the Rosary, who diss Catholics once in a while,” Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a 2011 Fox News. maintenance. “She’s one of those ex-Catholics who has a problem with the old religion, and for some reason they have to use Holy Week, don’t they?”

The song explores Gaga’s struggle between light and dark before she finally falls in love with Judas, because apparently deep down he still has a supposedly pure heart.

7. Kanye West, “Famous”
July 2016 Kanye West and Taylor Swift’s drama was heightened with the release of the track “Famous”, from his seventh studio album, Pablo’s life, which included the infamous line “I feel like Taylor and I might still have sex / Why? I made that female dog famous. The track hinges on the idea that Swift’s career only took off after Kanye cut short his 2009 MTV Video Music Awards win, and the video adds insult to injury. The music video shows realistic, full-body sized wax figures of celebrities including former President Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, Amber Rose, Kim Kardashian and others, as well as Swift and West, all lying down together in bed – graphic nudity and all.

Although Kanye says he was inspired by the works of American realist painter Vincent Desiderio”Sleep“, the image of all these people in bed together is truly disturbing. No one, not even Ted Cruz, deserves the misfortune of seeing Trump naked.

8. Childish Gambino, “This is America”
May 2018 The standalone track and music video for “This Is America” ​​is Donald Glover’s dark vision of a journey through a corrupt, violent and destructive country. In the video, Glover (aka Childish Gambino) shoots a black guitarist who is handcuffed with a bag over his head and aimlessly guns down a church choir with an assault rifle. The visuals reflect acts of violence that have occurred across the country for years and offer commentary on American identity, consumerism, entertainment, gun violence, racism, and other all-American themes. Glover himself portrays a caricature that draws viewers away from savage corruption and breathtaking, disturbing reality.

9. Billie Eilish, “All the Good Girls Go to Hell”
September 2019
The video for the song “all the good girls go to hell”, from Billie Eilish’s debut album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?, was born from the creative and very dark imagination of the young artist. Eilish crafted a visual narrative of a fallen angel on Earth – one who arose in hellfire – where she rises from a dark, tar-covered pit.

While these visuals may have seemed satanic to the Christian community, the larger meaning for Eilish was to allow audiences to see the destruction we create through pollution. Ellish must have anticipated the California fire and those great oil-filled sinkholes.

10. Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion, “WAP”
August 2020 “WAP” was undoubtedly one of the most talked about songs of the past year, and since no one had much fun due to the pandemic, the world listened a lot to Cardi B’s collaboration and Meghan The Stallion.

To set the tone, the clip takes us into a mansion through a water fountain spewing water from its statue’s breasts. Cardi and Meghan weren’t shy about enhancing the sexual imagery they painted in the song (the title stands for “Wet-Ass Pussy). Every parent and politician made it their mission to cancel this song due to its “toxic influence” on young women, but it remained one of the best songs of the last year.

Same Saturday Night Live relished the opportunity to mention “WAP” during a presidential debate skit. Jim Carrey and Alec Baldwin played candidates Joe Biden and Trump respectively, and SNL Actress Maya Rudolph, playing Vice President Kamala Harris, said: “I think if there’s one thing we learned tonight, it’s that America needs a WAP: Woman as President.”