Ongoing History of New Music

Ongoing History Daily: The grossest music video ever made

What’s the most grotesque music video you’ve ever seen? Something by Marilyn Manson, maybe?  Or was it something by Slipknot? Whatever your choice, it probably isn’t as weird as the never-officially-released video produced to go along with the Nine Inch Nails EP called Broken.

This film was produced by a guy named Peter Christopherson, a dude with the nickname “Sleazy.” The video depicts the kidnapping and torture and killing of a US marine. When it was finished, it was deemed too violent to release, so the full version has only ever been available as a bootleg. 

Only part of it was been released as the “Happiness in Slavery” video–which shows a performance artist named Bob Flanagan getting tortured and raped by a machine.  But as Trent Reznor says, “The rest of the video makes that look like Disneyland.”

If you need to see it, I’m sure it exists somewhere online. I ain’t going through seeing that again.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 39587 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

One thought on “Ongoing History Daily: The grossest music video ever made

  • Peter Christopherson was in Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, and Coil. Some of the videos produced by Coil were visually “interesting” to say the least., With a lot of fantastical imagery. He definitely pushed the envelope on visual art. He co-produced album covers of some main stream artists like Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel, to mention a couple. It’s nice to hear Sleazy is being recognized by his influence in mainstream audio/visual productions other than being one of the Industrial music founders.

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