Remember music videos? Yes, there was a time when networks like MTV and VH1 aired awesome artsy cinematic shorts to accompany your favorite bands' songs. Today, all we get is an endless loop of mindless, soul-crushing reality TV.
But even back in the day, there were music videos and there were music videos. Throughout the '90s and 2000s, transgressive international filmmakers like Chris Cunningham, Jonas Åkerlund, and Asia Argento turned out some of the most scandalous and disturbing vids in history, full of graphic violence, deviant sexuality, explicit drug use, and mind-fucking surrealism.
More than a few of those videos got banned in their day. But they remain fan favorites. Thus, Crossfade's five sleaziest music videos of all time.
5. Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker"
Aphex Twin's infamous "Windowlicker" music video isn't so much sleazy. It's straight-up disturbing. A parody of American gangsta hip-hop music videos, it features a pimped-out Richard D. James riding around Los Angeles in a ridiculously long limousine, accompanied by prostitutes whose faces morph into his own. And it just gets weirder from there.
4. Vitalic's "Second Lives"
As its name indicates, Vitalic's "Second Lives" music video is all about the other lives people lead in private, behind closed doors. A cam view shows us a rapid succession of scenes inside a toilet stall, including drugs, sex, aborted suicides, and random deviant behavior. We just feel sorry for the janitor who has to keep cleaning up the mess these pervs leave behind.
3. Nine Inch Nails' "Sin"
This music video never actually aired on TV. The rarity and cult classic first became available on 1997's double-VHS set Closure and later on the TVT Records website. Amid its sexually explicit haphazard footage, you can see NIN frontman Trent Reznor getting swung around in an Aerotrim by a leather-clad dominatrix, gay lovers shoving strap-ons in each others' faces, and images of pierced genitalia.
2. The Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up"
This frenetic, kaleidoscopic piece by celebrated Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund depicts a wild night of drinking, drugs, violence, and sex from a first-person POV. Despite being universally banned on TV and kicking up tons of controversy, it would get nominated for four MTV Video Music Awards in 1997, eventually winning Best Dance Video and Breakthrough Video. Be sure to catch the mind-blowing twist ending!
1. Marylin Manson's "(s)AINT"
This 2003 video was shot by and guest stars Asia Argento, the daughter of legendary Italian horror film director Dario Argento. And in typical Marylin Mansion style, it's packed with dark shock value, including scenes of bondage, self-mutilation, religious desecration, sex, and drug use.
Follow Crossfade on Facebook and Twitter @Crossfade_SFL.
