Some reassuring news for the Prodigy as they enter their electro-punk dotage: they haven't lost their power to offend. 13 years on from its release, the group's 1997 tune, 'Smack My Bitch Up,' has been voted the most controversial single of all time.
The top ten hit -- which sampled a lyric by pioneering hip-hop crew Ultramagnetic MCs for its censor-baiting hook -- came out on top of a survey of 1,700 people commissioned by copyright collection society PRS for Music, the BBC reports. 'Smack My Bitch Up' followed up the smash singles 'Firestarter' (itself the subject of tabloid criticism for its violent lyrics and unsettling video) and 'Breathe' and prompted accusations of misogyny from many commentators, including the Prodigy's fellow 1998 Reading Festival performers, the Beastie Boys. The track was barred from BBC radio while the Jonas Åkerlund-directed video -- which featured strippers, heroin, drunk driving and sex -- was also widely banned.
Other tunes featured in the scandalous rundown include the Sex Pistols' 'God Save the Queen' -- which reached No. 2 in the charts around the time of the Queen's 1977 Silver Jubilee, prompting rumours it had been unfairly kept off the top spot to avoid offending royalist sensibilities -- and Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 'Relax,' the sexually-charged subject of another BBC radio ban.
Elsewhere on the chart Eminem's ex-wife-bashing 'Kim,' Rage Against the Machine's sweary 'Killing in the Name' and the Shamen's supposedly ecstasy-promoting 'Ebeneezer Goode' all remain memorably controversial releases. Ozzy Osbourne's 'Suicide Solution,' which featured in a
