1.Guns N' Roses lead singer Axl Rose can be heard having sex with Adriana Smith — the girlfriend of the band's drummer Steven Adler — on the song "Rocket Queen."
The woman who ended up on the recording, Smith, was dating Adler at the time, but he'd just told her he didn't consider her his girlfriend. Angry, she went to the studio to hang with two of the band's other members, Axl Rose and Slash, in hopes of making Adler jealous. That's when Rose approached her with his idea.
The song became notorious in the wake of the album's massive success, and Smith later regretted taking part in it.
You can listen to "Rocket Queen" below:
2.You can hear the Notorious B.I.G. receiving oral sex in a skit at the end of "Respect" on his debut album, Ready to Die.
You can listen to "Respect" (and the skit at the end) below:
3.The Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson can be heard having sex with a woman (possibly one of Charles Manson's followers) over the fade-out of their 1969 song "All I Want to Do."
Wilson had just finished producing the recording session for "All I Want to Do" when he decided to bring a woman into the studio and record the two of them having sex. The result — a bevy of moans and cries of "Oh boy!" — was placed in the fadeout of the song.
You can hear "All I Want to Do" below:
4.Susanna Hoffs didn't have sex on record, but she did record almost all of her vocals for the Bangles' Everything album — including the No. 1 hit "Eternal Flame" — totally naked.
You can hear "Eternal Flame" below:
5.The Barenaked Ladies have also recorded songs, well, bare naked — and did it on six different albums.
You can hear "Alcohol" (one of their naked songs) below:
6.Here's something totally different but nevertheless very unusual: Billie Eilish recorded herself at the dentist getting her Invisalign attachments drilled off, then made the unsettling sound a key component of her hit “Bury a Friend.”
Eilish told the New York Times, "I was in the dentist’s chair and they were shaving off my Invisalign attachments, and it was this loud RRRRRRR sound and I thought it was so dope. I pulled out my phone immediately and pressed record."
You can listen to "Bury a Friend" below:
7.Trent Reznor recorded Nine Inch Nails' signature album The Downward Spiral at 10050 Cielo Drive — the home where Charles Manson's followers murdered a pregnant Sharon Tate and four other people.
Reznor named the recording studio he set up there Le Pig (a nod to how the Manson murderers scrawled "Pig" on the home's front door using Tate's blood), and over the next 18 months he recorded classics like "Hurt" and "Closer."
8.H.R. — the lead singer of the hardcore band Bad Brains — recorded his vocals for the song "Sacred Love" over the phone while serving time in jail for marijuana possession.
H.R. used his call to ring up the studio, and once the other end picked up, he could tell they were ready for him. He told Vice, "He [the song's producer] immediately began to do the level balance, and then I heard the music, and I just sang."
You can hear "Sacred Love" below:
9.This is definitely the least scandalous one on the list, but still super interesting/unusual: Brittany Howard, the big-voiced lead singer of the band Alabama Shakes, recorded some of her vocals after putting anesthetic on her lips and tongue.
You can hear "Run to Me" below:
10.Lastly, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys started a fire in a bucket so that the studio smelled of smoke — and made his musicians wear firefighter helmets — while recording an instrumental track about the Great Chicago Fire.
Thirty-seven years later, a healthier Brian Wilson released a rerecorded version of the Smile album — including a new version of "Fire," now entitled "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow."