MASSIVE HIT is SO CONTROVERSIAL...I Can't EVEN Say the Song Title On This PLATFORM-Professor of Rock
6,857Some songs were made to push boundaries — stirring up scandal, controversy, and uncomfortable conversations. On today’s episode, we’re featuring songs that did just that… We’re breaking down six songs that either got themselves banned from radio, blacklisted by MTV, or pulled from live shows. The list of taboo tracks includes Olivia Newton-John John who panicked after recording her biggest hit, Physical, and begged her manager to kill it — but it was already racing up the charts. Another musician, Laura Branigan, released a music video for Self Control that played out like Phantom of the Opera meets Eyes Wide Shut. So MTV banned it. But it still went Top 5 on the US charts. We’ve also got Sting, who retired one of his biggest hits to avoid modern-day backlash, and Meat Loaf, who got so sick of explaining what his song meant that he tried to delete it from his catalog. But the fans wouldn’t have it. So, what do you think, did any of these songs go too far? You be the judge, next on The Professor of Rock.
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Executive Producer
Brandon Fugal
Honorary Producers
Holly Hammet, Remnarc, Kevin riley, Paul Moore II, CharleyAnne
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Coming up, it’s our latest edition of the taboo songs countdown. These are songs that stirred up controversy, got banned from radio and/or MTV, and were even disowned by the artists themselves. But controversy couldn’t stop them. In many cases, it only fueled their rise, turning them into some of the most unforgettable hits in music history. Let’s dive in.
At #6, I’ve got a bottled lightning track from the mid-80s. From the band Boys Don’t Cry, it’s I Wanna Be a Cowboy. In 1986, British new wave band Boys Don’t Cry unexpectedly found themselves with one of the most unusual hits of the neon decade. Their single I Wanna Be a Cowboy was a quirky, synth-driven track that combined deadpan humor with a danceable beat. It shot up the Hot 100, eventually reaching #12. Described as a "spaghetti western of song," I Wanna Be a Cowboy became a novelty hit that took on a life of its own, carving out a place in 80s pop culture as one of the strangest and catchiest one-hit wonders of the era.
Boys Don’t Cry originally came together in 1984 as an in-house studio band, recording mostly in leftover studio time. Said lead singer Nick Richards, “We recorded in dead time at the studio, which was very rare as it was always so busy. Sundays were the normal days when it was quiet.” The band's name, often mistakenly linked to The Cure, actually came from a lyric in 10cc’s I’m Not In Love — “Be quiet… big boys don’t cry.” The inspiration for I Wanna Be a Cowboy came from a Saturday night spent watching Clint Eastwood westerns. The phrase “I wanna be a cowboy and you can be my cowgirl” stuck in Richards’ head, and by the next day, the band was in the studio recording the track. Richards explained, “Everybody loved it and we decided to put it to a piece of music that … had [been] written a year earlier. I wrote the new lyrics and … recorded it straight away. We mixed it that day in about 3 hours. … The song was meant to be a joke and to make people laugh, but also, we thought it would make a great dance track.”
But while the song was catchy and offbeat, its road to success wasn’t entirely smooth… thanks to MTV blacklisting the track. And the reason why the music network banned it was not because it was sexually explicit, overly violent, or in any way