(Credits: Far Out / MTV)
Sat 27 December 2025 21:00, UK
On August 1st, 1981, at precisely 12:01am Eastern time, MTV launched in America with the immortal phrase, “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll”.
The first video to premiere on MTV, which, at the time, was only available in New Jersey, was the Buggles’ ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’. In a striking moment of irony, the course of the music industry changed forever. Suddenly, musicians were judged not solely on their talent but on their presentation, as well, launching a new level of expectation and demand. Music videos became their own distinct art form, a means of expression that allowed artists to create short films that reflected their work, while captivating mass audiences in a way that they had not been able to access before. This was especially true for artists abroad, who could market their music to potential fans without even having to travel.
“MTV has paved the way for a host of invaders abroad: Def Leppard, Adam Ant, Madness, Eurythmics, the Fixx and Billy Idol, to name a few,” Parke Puterbaugh wrote in Rolling Stone in November 1983, in a piece titled ‘Anglomania: The Second British Invasion’. “In return, grateful Brits, even superstars like Pete Townshend and the Police, have mugged for MTV promo spots and made the phrase ‘I want my MTV’ a household commonplace.”
Despite MTV’s undeniable innovation in the music world and popular culture, at large, the channel was no stranger to controversy. Over the nearly 45 years since its launch, MTV has been criticised for their choices in programming, particularly in its inclusion of censorship. The channel has a history of editing numerous music videos to remove material that included nudity, drug references, sex, violence, racism, homophobia and/or advertising. In turn, some videos were censored entirely, moved to the channel’s late-night rotation, or banned altogether.
The first music video to be banned was Queen’s ‘Body Language’, released in 1982, due to its “‘homoerotic undertones’ and the presence of human flesh,” according to the Guinness World Records.
Directed by Mike Hodges, the video showed the members of Queen fully clothed, though its erotic implications and the images of skin and sweat were deemed unsuitable for television. Hodges had first met the members of Queen while working on the music for the 1980 film Flash Gordon, and was approached by Freddie Mercury about doing a music video for a song he had written called ‘Body Language’. The song was the product of an experimental streak, veering from Queen’s usual glam into funk, disco and soul territories.
When asked about the concept for the video by Money Into Light, calling it “the most erotic piece of work” Hodges had made, he explained, “There’s the eroticism you talk about – in the song itself. The concept was Freddie’s, and I was only too happy to capture it on film. We completed it in a Toronto studio after a truly exhausting 24-hour shoot!”
On top of the accompanying music video being controversial, the song’s lyricism was overtly sexual in nature, with lines like “Just give me your body” and “Long legs, great thighs / You’ve got the cutest ass I’ve ever seen” leaving little to the imagination.
Queen would later be subject to censorship again two years later, limiting the airing of their video for ‘I Want To Break Free’ because of its supposed promotion of cross-dressing. Drummer Roger Taylor called MTV a “very narrow-minded station then” to Classic Rock; where the video was embraced as an understood joke in the UK, audiences in the US could not comprehend its humour.
Nevertheless, Queen continued to push boundaries and created some legendary rock ‘n’ roll iconography in the process.
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