Let he who is without sin stone the first cast.
Yeah, I think this one pretty much wins. Went to #2 on the British singles chart as a blank slot, got the band arrested for performing it on the Thames behind the Queen’s flotilla.
No mention of Eminem?
At the height of his popularity, there must have been a billion people condemning his lyrics at any one time.
The Rolling Stones Let’s Spend The Night Together is another one.
The Boomtown Rats “I Don’t Like Mondays” brought back some bad memories for some. I wasn’t in San Diego when the killings happened at the McDonalds but I was when the song hit the airways.
When did this happen?
Wasn’t XTC’s “Dear God” controversial in the more devout parts of the country?
Chuck Berry’s My ding-a-ling stirred up controversy in the early 70’s. I remember the future Mrs. Mercotan and I giggling to it while my grandmother clucked her tongue in suppressed fury.
Ahh, the 60’s. It was so easy to be controversial back then. Let’s count the ways.
Sex – Lou Christie’s Rhapsody in the Rain, the Stones’ and Let’s Spend the Night Together, Birkin & Gainsberg’s Je T’aime.
Drugs – The Stones with Mother’s Little Helper, The Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
Sexism – The Stones (they scored high in all categories) Under My Thumb, and pretty much the entire collected works of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.
Cannibalism – Timothy by the Buoys. (Technically that was the early 70’s, but close enough.)
Dirty Words – Country Joe and the Fish with the Fish Cheer, Mitch Ryder’s version of Good Golly Miss Molly.
I won’t even get into politics.
And, although not from the 60’s, doesn’t anyone remember the shitstorm that erupted around John Lennon’s Imagine?
Not to mention Steppenwolf’s cover of Hoyt Axton’s The Pusher, despite the fact it had a strong anti-drug dealing ( but easy on Marijuana ) message.
- Tamerlane
Ozzy caught a fair bit of shit over the song Suicide Solution as a solo artist even though it was an anti-suicide song, as he did with Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” when the line “I tell you to enjoy life…” got misheard as “I tell you to end your life…”
The video for “Like a Prayer” showed a burning cross. That’s what got people riled up. I don’t remember anyone being offended by the song itself. I don’t remember what the “Justify My Love” video was like. Was that the one with the guy in bondage?
What about Brick by Ben Folds Five? I realize it’s not as controversial as some already listed, but it’s probably the one from my high school days that got talked about the most.
Not a single person I knew in middle school, when this song became popular, was perceptive enough to figure out that it was about abortion.
One In A Million , by Guns N’ Roses. With lines like “niggers get out of my way” and “Immigrants and faggots think they can do what they please/like set up some mini-Iran or start some fucking disease”, it’s mind-blowing from a contemporary mindset that it even got released.
Going a ways back, Lloyd Price’s “Stagger Lee” (1959) generated enough complaints about its violence that Price recorded a second version with sanitized lyrics.
I hear you. I get the occasional “shut the fuck up” when I tell people that, even today.
Yeah, I was big time into the “Ben Folds Five Super Fans” let’s-talk-about-BFF-all-day club back when that album came out and I, too, never heard any mention of controversy.
I thought Metallica’s “Fade to Black” was controversial because it was thought to be about suicide…but reading the Wikipedia article about it, there’s no mention of it being controversial - just misunderstood.
Theres a smooth jazz group called fourplay, who are as good as it gets when listening to smooth jazz…(feels wrong even writing that). They have a cd out which features a cover of sexual healing. My mom loves this album but I don’t think she has ever really heard the words to that tune. It always makes for awkward moments when we have extended family over for a dinner and that comes on while your sawin’ away at a pork chop…
What about “Rape Me” by Nirvana?