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The Prodigy, never a band to shy away from controversy, is back in the spotlight with the release of a deliberately provocative new video, Smack My Bitch Up.
The clip, which features topless model Vicky Lee, is shot entirely from the first person perspective, and is crammed with images of sex, violence and drug abuse.
Lee portrays a lesbian who lurches around a club grabbing the breasts of topless dancers, vomiting on patrons and punching others. The video ends with a rather explicit sexual encounter. None of the band appears in the Jonas Ackelund-directed video.
Needless to say, neither MuchMusic nor MTV will be airing the video any time soon.
Sarah Crawford, Director of Communications for MuchMusic, emphasized Thursday that the video had not yet been banned, but if approved, it would not be appearing in heavy rotation. More likely,it could run on a late night non-rotation show such as the issues forum "2Much4Much" or possibly "RU Receiving", the station's electronica dance show.
Crawford added that MTV's stance on the issue is a solid no. Alluding to another recent controversial video, Duran Duran's "Electric Barbarella", she pointed out that Canadian and American standards some times differ.
"MTV wanted those ludicrous edits (on "Electric Barbarella") because they wanted to cover up the skin," she said. "We had no problem with the director's cut. We actually played it something like 36 times."
Meanwhile, the controversy surrounding The Prodigy video doesn't surprise frontman Liam Howlett, who has gone on record as saying that he made the video with lack of airplay in mind.
The single, which is expected to be banned in the UK by the BBC, is hotly tipped to go to number one. The ban may be in account of the song's only lyric, "Change the pitch up/Smack my bitch up", sampled from the Ultra Magnetic MC's.
"There's a very funny balance to them really, because they revel in people objecting to things they do," a Prodigy spokesman told U.K. music weekly NME. "If we don't go ahead it won't be because we've bottled out of being controversial, it'll just be because the band didn't like it."
Bob Ansell, head of The Prodigy's Canadian label, Beggars Banquet, told Jam! that the video is garnering airplay in parts of Europe, mostly via late-hour play.
The first full airing of the video took place at 12:45 a.m. last Saturday on MTV Europe during the "PartyZone" show. The video was preceded by the caution: "Warning - the following video by Prodigy contains scenes and language of an adult nature which are not suitable for children."
Ansell said that while a home-video release of "Smack My Bitch Up" is a possibility, it wouldn't be happening in the near future.
A video clip from the new Prodigy video "Smack My Bitch Up"