Controversial Music Videos

Here's an article from Q magazine from September 2015, it talks about controversy in music videos. It mainly focuses on Rihanna's event video for Bitch Better Have My Money. It raises some interesting points on how far is too far for music videos, and when does artistic creation blurs to simply just for sales. It implies that since the Billboard Top 100 and The Top 40 have made music videos count as part of the chart position, artists/record labels have been creating intentional music videos to shock people and cause a stir online. I agree with this to some extent. It is completely possible for music videos to be made just for sales and money, but on the contrary many are also made to raise awareness to a certain zeitgeist in society at the time. On the other hand, Rihanna's audience isn't fixed to one demographic, and many children may listen to her music. Since the internet is almost accessible to all, there is also the possibility that young children might see this video. Yet this kind of approach to music sales is also quite admirable in some sense. The record label knew that the single wasn't destined for glory (or a very high top 40 placement), and so therefore tried to draw people's attention to it by it being an explicit music video. Once something starts to get attention, it soon snowballs and everyone seems to know about it. Perhaps another reason music videos are purposely so controversial is to get into the wider public domain. David Gauntlett's theory about media 2.0 stated that there's an abundance of content on the web now, especially due to user generated content. Now that we are entering media 3.0 there is so much that it has to be filtered through cookies. Therefore artist's may turn to creating videos like this to get the attention they once did, say 10 years ago. On the other hand, controversial videos have always been around, and they aren't anything new. 

I've found some other examples of controversial music video, thanks to this handy NME online article: http://www.nme.com/list/20-of-the-most-controversial-music-videos-ever/373505

Justice - Stress

This music video features strong violence as a gang, wearing the group's logo go round terrorising anything and anyone.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs -Y Control

Kids with weapons destroying things, a kid's hand gets cut off, kid's swearing at the camera, and the singer gets bitten by a vampire kid. Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Y Control is nothing short of a wild ride. Also I'm sorry to report that there is a dog mixed up in this.

Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy 

Kids with the same adult face are running around the streets looking to cause chaos. The creature in the TV then breaks free, and screams at an old lady.