Name: 10 Rock Songs That Offended the Most People
Uploaded: 2025-05-23T04:43:06.000Z
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Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for those rock tunes that caused a controversy at the time of their release, and often still ruffle feathers today.

Closer – Nine Inch Nails Maybe the world wasn't ready back in 1994 for a music video experience celebrating dominance, submission, and deviancy.

This hypothesis could go a little ways in explaining why Closer by Nine Inch Nails received so much media coverage back in the day.

The song is actually more of an internal narrative rather than an outward projection of sexual desire.

Never underestimate the power of a memorable chorus, however, because most criticisms of

Closer focused solely on the song's visual aesthetic and profanity.

The clip was initially relegated to late-night slots on MTV, but the power of Closer soon became strong enough that it helped Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails become household names for industrial rock.

Angel of Death – Slayer The realms of fantasy were always a fertile playing ground for early heavy metal bands, but the thrash scene that rose to prominence during the 1980s had some other ideas about lyrical content.

Politics and real-life historical events began to creep their way into thrash anthems like

This latter tune from the group's landmark Reign in Blood LP was even more extreme, however, thanks to its subject matter of Nazi Germany.

Angel of Death specifically references the horrific medical procedures and war crimes of Josef Mengele, whose work at the Auschwitz concentration camp would draft him into the most infamous annals of history.

It was a grim choice of subject matter that raised the eyebrows of just about everyone.

Illegal Alien – Genesis It's honestly kind of baffling that the progressive rock pioneers in Genesis even recorded this one, never mind releasing it as a single.

Illegal Alien possesses good intentions at least with regards to its lyrical content.

After all, the song is actually written about the real-life struggles many face when attempting to source out visas and immigration paperwork for countries like the United States.

The controversy then unfolds with Phil Collins' decision to place an affectation on his voice that almost sounds parodic.

Additionally, the music video for Illegal Alien indulges in stereotypical imagery that honestly hurts the message at play.

It may not have been intentional, but this otherwise innocuous song is aged like milk in the modern day.

We could honestly populate this entire list with all of the various Marilyn Manson moments that got the singer-songwriter in hot water over the years.

We prefer, however, to focus on the world that, at the time anyway, was still awaiting

It's difficult for those that weren't there to appreciate just how much songs like

Get Your Gun freaked out parents during the early 90s.

The song was also blamed for influencing the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in

This was despite Get Your Gun actually being about the murder of an abortion provider,

He Hit Me And It Felt Like A Kiss – The Crystals

We often fall back on the phrase, it was a different time, when attempting to defend cultural divides.

Make no mistake, however, folks were PO'd and offended about He Hit Me And It Felt Like

A Kiss by The Crystals even back in 1962.

Everyone involved with the song has an opinion about why it does or doesn't work.

From the shame of the songwriter Carole King to the spacious and malevolent production job of Phil Spector.

This latter point is important because the atmosphere of He Hit Me feels dark and in line with the song's subject matters of gaslighting, abuse, and even Stockholm Syndrome.

As a pop song, it remains one of the music industry's darkest curiosities.

Sex Type Thing – Stone Temple Pilots Composing a song from the perspective of a dark or deviant character can sometimes come back to bite the performer in the butt.

Scott Weiland found this out first hand when backlash to Sex Type Thing by Stone Temple

Pilots began making the rounds back in 1993.

It's perhaps easier to understand today how this song is clearly written outside of

Weiland's personal views on sex, dating, and assault.

Yet that didn't stop many journalists and fans from taking umbrage against the song that they felt glorified and glamorized in Decent Assaults.

Weiland even told Rolling Stone during a 1993 interview that he never thought that people would connect him to the protagonist of Sex Type Thing.

Money For Nothing – Uncensored – Dire Straits

You never hear this version of Dire Straits' Money For Nothing on the radio, nor is it performed live.

The album version of this smash hit is a different story, however, containing an extra verse that got Dire Straits in some seriously hot water.

This is one that's familiar to Stone Temple Pilots and Sex Type Thing in that Mark Knopfler is singing Money For Nothing from an outside perspective.

Specifically, it doesn't really feel out of character for the working class protagonist of Money For Nothing to utilize the slurs he does during this verse.

Knopfler semi-defended his decision in a 1985 Rolling Stone interview, but continued to sing the verse on tour, substituting the word Queenie for one that we can't repeat.

One In A Million – Guns N' Roses These legends courted controversy basically from Jump Street.

Not only with the band cover art for their debut album, Appetite For Destruction, but again for LP Number 2.

One In A Million was taken from the group's Lies album, a track that earned Axl Rose and company a whole lot of grief, thanks to the content of its lyrics.

One In A Million was accused of basically every ism and phobia in the book, from the racial and social variety to Rose's inflammatory words against the LGBTQIA plus community.

The end results aren't any prettier in hindsight either, and the tune rightfully earned Guns

Even today, One In A Million is still seen as one of the band's most confusing creative decisions.

God Save The Queen – Sex Pistols Don't mess… with the monarchy.

Or at least don't release a scathing and satirical single titled God Save The Queen unless you're prepared to deal with the fallout.

The Sex Pistols and their manager Malcolm McLaren seemed pleased when they released this two-fingered salute to their home nation.

This was a knowing riff on the United Kingdom's national anthem, a defining anthem of the 70s punk era that didn't really care who it offended.

God Save The Queen was banned from radio and many British retail shops wouldn't carry physical copies of the single, despite its popularity.

Basically, God Save The Queen pioneered that punk spirit of pissing people off, and did so in absolutely fabulous style.

Cop Killer – Body Count We're seriously impressed that one of hip-hop's elder statesmen Ice-T even considered branching off into heavy metal when he formed Body Count back in 1990.

This lyrical provocateur continued to stir the societal pot with the band's debut album containing the infamous track titled Cop Killer.

Just about everyone had an opinion on Cop Killer back in the early 90s, from U.S. President

George H.W. Bush to conservative-leaning actor Charlton Heston.

The latter famously pontificated in anger about the song's anti-cop content, and it was Heston's words, along with pressure from various police that got Body Count pulled from store shelves.

A newly censored version arrived in its place, now with a replacement song that was knowingly titled Freedom Of Speech.

Or are there lines of good taste that simply shouldn't be crossed?