90;s Hit Parade #44

Negativland - Helter Stupid

OK, Wikipedia tells me that this album came out in 1989, but I don't want to go fucking with my list at this point, so I'm keeping it here for now. Negativland had included a song called "Christianity is Stupid" on their previous record, Escape from Noise, which featured a sample of a fundamentalist preacher saying those words. They then launched a prank on the media by releasing a vague press release saying the song was suspected of driving a young man to commit murder (which, in the wake of certain court cases and jihads against satanic heavy metal, seemed fairly believable in 1989), and refusing to talk about the case. The media took the story and ran with it, and the band recorded the results and remixed them into a complex sound collage which made up the first side of their new album (they also included liner notes that explained the hoax and its results in detail). It's an overwhelming, hilarious, and somewhat trippy experience to listen to.