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Sire/Warner Bros1 of 10
Musicians like to think that their art has to obey no laws, but sometimes a higher power steps in. In this feature, we'll spotlight ten songs so controversial that the albums they were on had to be recalled and edited to remove them. From violent hip-hop to libelous electronic pop, here are ten songs that got removed from albums.
Body Count - "Cop Killer"
Ice-T's foray into heavy metal with 1992's Body Count would have gone mostly unnoticed were it not for the presence of "Cop Killer," a thundering assault on American law enforcement. The track, recorded in the wake of the Rodney King beating, was a merciless takedown of police brutality, and it quickly drew criticism from people all the way up to President Bush. Warner Brothers started getting death threats and stockholders started talking about selling their shares, so Ice agreed to let them re-issue the album with the offending track excised.
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Def Jam Recordings2 of 10
Beastie Boys - "Rock Hard"
Sample clearance is a tricky thing - for hip-hop, which weaves new soundscapes out of existing materials, it's like a game of Jenga. Remove one piece and the whole thing collapses. A great example is "Rock Hard," a Beastie Boys single from 1985. Built around an uncleared sample from AC/DC's "Back In Black," the track was set to be reissued on their 1999 The Sounds Of Science anthology. Unfortunately, the legendary hard rock band outright refused to let the Beasties use the clip, no matter how much they offered to pay for it.
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Capitol Records3 of 10
W.A.S.P. - "Animal (F*ck Like A Beast)"
It takes a lot for a heavy metal song to be so intense that it gets pulled from an album, but "Animal (F*ck Like A Beast)" from Los Angeles shock rockers W.A.S.P.'s self-titled debut did just that. The track landed on the Parents Music Resource Council's "Filthy Fifteen" in 1984, and under pressure from community groups Capitol Records recalled the first pressing and re-issued the album without the song. In an illustration of just how much times have changed, the record was re-issued in 1998 with "Animal" on it and nobody complained.
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The Sound of Mu(sic)4 of 10
The JAMs - "The Queen And I"
Also known as the KLF, this British duo composed of Jim Cauty and Bill London took a very loose approach to copyright over their career. In 1987, the album 1987 (What The F*ck Is Going On) dropped with a very familiar-sounding single in "The Queen And I." With brutally obvious uncleared samples from ABBA's "Dancing Queen," the band was asking for trouble, and they got it soon afterwards. The Swedish pop group's management sued, leading to the album being recalled and destroyed. The JAMs put out a revised version with every single illegal sample removed, which was virtually unlistenable.
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Combat5 of 10
Megadeth - "These Boots"
Typically, recording a cover version is a pretty simple process. You get the rights from the publisher, lay it on tape, pay some cash and call it a day. But when pioneering speed metal group Megadeth tackled the Nancy Sinatra classic "These Boots Are Made For Walking" on their 1985 debut Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good! things got a little wild. The band changed a bunch of the lyrics and made it resoundingly filthy, and songwriter Lee Hazlewood called it a "perversion of the original" and blocked the label from releasing later pressings with the song, despite happily cashing his royalty checks.
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HillsongTV/youtube6 of 10
Hillsong - "Healer"
Even Christian music isn't exempt from controversy. Religious mega-band Hillsong had a hit in 2008 with "Healer," an autobiographical song by pastor Michael Guglielmucci about his struggles with cancer. Unfortunately for them, Guglielmucci actually never had cancer in the first place, and once his story got out future pressings of the This Is Our God album were issued without the tune. Guglielmucci actually performed the song live for over two years, sometimes even with a shaved head and wearing a scuba diving mask. He'd actually made up the whole story to cover up his pornography addiction!
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Momus7 of 10
Momus - "Walter Carlos"
Twee electronic poster Momus probably didn't think much about using the life of groundbreaking composer Wendy Carlos for a song on his 1998 Little Red Songbook. Wendy - born Walter Carlos - wasn't flattered by the track (a fantasy about her going back in time to marry herself before sexual reassignment surgery) and sued Momus, winning a $30,000 settlement and demanding that the track be removed from the album's re-release. Momus paid his legal debt by charging 30 people $1,000 each to write and record a song about them.
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Roadrunner8 of 10
Slipknot - "Purity"
Artistic inspiration is a tricky thing. Iowa-born nu metal band Slipknot wrestled with some serious issues in preparing their debut self-titled album in 1999. The track "Purity" was inspired by a story that singer Corey Taylor read on a website about a girl named Adrienne Purity Knight who was kidnapped and buried alive by an obsessive ex-lover. Taylor thought that it was a true story, but unfortunately it wasn't and the original author threatened a copyright infringement lawsuit. The band pulled the track from later pressings, but actually won the court case and the rights to play the song live.
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Ill Will/Columbia9 of 10
Nas - "Braveheart Party"
Sometimes a track gets removed from an album because, in hindsight, it wasn't all that great. Case in point: "Braveheart Party," a duet with Mary J. Blige from Nas's 2001 Stillmatic. Widely remembered as the LP that gave us legendary diss song "Ether," the rest of Stillmatic was uneven, and no song demonstrated that like "Braveheart Party." Over a particularly lousy Swizz Beats track, Nas's early-00s crew the Bravehearts spit awful verses and Blige gamely provides the hook. Upon hearing the final product, Blige reached out to Nas's label and requested that they remove the song from future pressings of the album, and they complied.
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John Oswald10 of 10Next: The Most Shocking Music Scandals Ever
John Oswald - "Plunderphonic"
Let's close this feature with probably the most epic removal of all time, where an artist got a whole album removed (and destroyed). John Oswald is a Canadian sound collage artist who has worked (legally) with the Grateful Dead, but his biggest project was 1988's Plunderphonics, a 25-track compilation of music created from the works of artists like Michael Jackson and Dolly Parton. Naturally, he was sued and the Canadian Recording Industry Association seized every single copy they could and destroyed them.
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