Censorship of music
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Censorship of music, the practice of censoring music from the public, may take the form of partial or total censorship with the latter banning the music entirely. The music in question may be a song, or part thereof, a collection of songs (such as a particular album) or a genre of music.
While songs and albums have been banned in the past it has become less common in western countries. However, the censorship of particular words deemed as profanity is still commonplace.
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[edit] Censorship of pop music
[edit] Airplay censorship
An early example of censorship of music on the radio is from the 1940s. George Formby's "When I'm Cleaning Windows" was banned from BBC radio due to the "smutty lyrics", though his wife Beryl managed to change BBC's opinion [1]. The ostensibly offending lyrics were:
- "The blushing bride she looks divine,
- The bridegroom he is doing fine,
- I'd rather have his job than mine,
- When I'm cleaning windows."
A classic example of censorship is when in 1956 ABC radio refused to play Billie Holiday's "Love For Sale" because the lyrics are about prostitution. They also forced Cole Porter to change the lyric of "I Get A Kick Out Of You", which was a hit for Frank Sinatra. Porter's original stated "I get no kick from cocaine". The cleaned-up version was "I get perfume from Spain".
In March 1966, John Lennon told a reporter that "the way (some fans) carry on, it's like we're more popular than Jesus Christ". As a result of his comment, thousands of Beatles' records were smashed and burned at rallies throughout the US and some radio stations refused to play their music. Lennon would later apologise, claiming that he was mis-quoted.
Another example of partial censorship in the UK was aimed at the Sex Pistols single "God Save the Queen" released by Virgin Records on 27 May 1977 to coincide with the Queen's silver jubilee celebrations. Sales of the single were not banned, but BBC's Radio 1 barred it from airplay. It had reached number two in the BBC's own charts, but the public service broadcaster — at that time the UK's most popular radio channel — censored it because of its lyrics. It actually reached number one on the NME chart [2][3]. The band was harassed by police when it (loudly) performed the song from a boat on the Thames. (See the entry for Sid Vicious and God Save The Queen on the Sex Pistols page.)
- "God save the Queen, this is a fascist regime."
Another song famously banned by Radio 1 in 1983 was "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Radio 1 had concluded that the lyric "when you're gonna come" referred to sexual climax. In a famous incident, Radio 1 disc jockey Mike Read took the record off the turntable and broke it in two. After this, but without consulting Read, Radio 1 decided to ban the record — which sent the record straight to number one for a five week stay.
1981, the International Year of Disabled People, saw the BBC ban airplay of Ian Dury's "Spasticus Autisticus" until after dark. Dury, who had suffered from polio, intended the song to be a positive message for people with disabilities. The chorus' refrain "I'm spasticus, autisticus" was inspired by the response of the rebelling gladiators of Rome, who — at least in the version of the story portrayed in the Stanley Kubrick film Spartacus — answered to the name of their leader, "I am Spartacus", to protect him.
The Beastie Boys received mass publicity when they arrived in the UK in 1987. Headline stories of their activities in bars and hotel rooms, along with a tour featuring dancers in cages and a large inflatable penis, led to massive sales of "Fight for your Right to Party". A video showing the three bandmembers invade and trash a party was subsequently banned by Top of the Pops due to its portrayal of "loutish behaviour".
[edit] Word censorship
In order to allow songs to be played wherever possible it is common to censor particular words, particularly profanity. Some labels produce censored versions themselves, sometimes with alternative lyrics, to comply with the rules set by various radio and television programmes. Some channels decide to censor them themselves using one of six methods:
- Blanking; when the volume is set to zero for all or part of the word.
- Bleeping; playing a noise, usually a "beep", over all or part of the word.
- Resampling; using a like-sounding portion of vocals and music to override the offending word.
- Resinging; removing the word or part of the word and keep the instrumental part of the song
- Backmasking; taking the offending word and reversing the audio, sometimes the whole audio is reversed (often to simulate a 'backspin' sound), but more usually only the vocal track is reversed.
- Skipping; deleting the word from the song without a time delay.
The censorship of some of the less common swear words or obvious innuendo may differ between channels. The word ho in Gwen Stefani's "What You Waiting For" was censored by some channels (for example MTV) while not by others (such as BBC Radio 1). Likewise, in Rihanna's Unfaithful, they censor the word "Gun,"on some stations but not others. Also, Stefani's song Hollaback Girl, where the word shit is repeated a total of 38 times, got heavily censored on English-speaking countries, and surprisingly, also on the Brazilian radios (as an ironic way to criticise the censorship on English-speaking world). On most radio staions it was ok to remove the "it" part of the word and leave the "sh" part in. Likewise some channels censored the line "keep her coming every night" in Maroon 5's "This Love" because of the inference of the word cuming, a term for sexual climax.
The Anarcho-punk band, Crass, hit controversy when a record pressing plant refused to press the song, "Reality Asylum", accusing them of blasphemy. Instead, they had a blank space with silence, which the band humorously dubbed "The sound of Free Speech" in protest (According to their drummer Penny Rimbaud, they were influenced by John Cage of 4:33 fame). Their protest song against the Falklands war, Sheep Farming in The Falkland Islands, faced calls from a Conservative MP to be prosecuted under the Obscene Publications act 1959. The Times rock Critic said that it was "The most revolting and unnecessary record ever made", the irony being that the MP and critic were cousins.
Some words are censored not through their sexual or offensive nature but for other reasons. The 2001 release "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus had the word gun censored by some channels – it was felt that the line "He brings a gun to school" was inappropriate. Some channels also censored 2003's "Gay Bar" by Electric Six, removing the word war from the sentence "Let's start a war; start a nuclear war".
Rapper Kanye West's song "Gold Digger" repeatedly says niggas in the line "But she ain't messin with no broke niggas" and has been censored to say "But she ain't messin wit no broke broke" repeating the word before it.
[edit] Self-censorship
Some artists or record labels choose to censor themselves in order to avoid negative publicity. This is sometimes due to the timing of events outside of their control, such as how the September 11, 2001 attacks affected audiovisual entertainment. The release and subsequent advertising of Michael Jackson's greatest hits album was delayed until after his 2005 trial – it is not known if a guilty verdict would have further changed the timing of the release.
[edit] Political censorship
Although not common in most democratic societies, more authoritarian governments censor music deemed critical of the government, the military, or other authorities. In many societies without a well established free press, popular music is one of the few avenues to express and share ideas, even when those ideas are encoded in otherwise innocuous song lyrics. The mizik rasin band in Haiti, RAM, first played a song called "Fèy" in 1992. The song lyrics, from a traditional vodou song, describe a leaf falling to the ground, but were widely understood as a song of support for the exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The song was banned throughout the country by the military regime of Raoul Cédras until he fled the country in September, 1994 and Aristide was restored to the presidency.
[edit] Censorship in classical music
For many years Wagner and even Beethoven were never played in Israel, though they were not formally banned, because of their association with the Nazi era (even though both died long before the Nazis came to power, and Beethoven at least could not conceivably be considered to have held fascist or anti-semitic leanings). The conductor Sir Simon Rattle provoked controversy by performing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Israel. Jewish conductor Daniel Barenboim has also done a great deal to make German classical music acceptable in Israel, but caused controversy on July 7th 2001 by conducting Wagner in Jerusalem. Unlike Beethoven, Wagner was an anti-semite. After protests by holocaust survivors and pressure from the Israeli government the original programme was changed in an act of self-censorship. Barenboim agreed not to play Wagner's Die Walküre, replacing it with pieces by Robert Schumann and Igor Stravinsky. At the end of the concert Barenboim announced his intention to play Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde as an encore, and that those who did not want to hear it should leave first. This statement was greeted with loud applause by the majority, and the disapproval of a minority. Barenboim was denounced as a fascist in the press, though some would argue that fascism was actually to be found in the act of censorship. Barenboim wanted to play the music because of the great quality of the music in itself.
[edit] Criticism
The total censorship of a song is often reported in the mass media and often has the effect of drawing more attention to the song that it would have received had it not been banned. Equally, the censorship of a word can highlight it in to such a degree that it makes it more obvious what the singer has said.
In 1993 when Nirvana's In Utero album was released, it was forced to be censored by their label as well as by distributors Wal Mart and K Mart. Cobain responded by saying "I just feel bad for all the kids who are forced to buy their music from big chain stores and have to have the edited music." The name of the song "Rape Me" was changed to "Waif Me" for these stores. The name change only appears on the back cover. The original title is still stated in the liner notes and the album insert.
[edit] See also
These articles have more information on particular cases of music censorship.
- Daniel Barenboim
- Swing Kids
- List of songs deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel following the September 11, 2001 attacks
