Music Censorship, is it bullshit or just plain stupid?
 

I'm getting so bloody SICK of hearing songs on the radio or online that have had "offensive" words removed from them. Most of the time bands are forced to remix tunes into a radio friendly format, but occasionally it's pretty obvious they've been edited in post production and usually not very well, leaving a "Blank" space in the song.

What I find 'offensive' is the fact that is seems the censors think we're all a bunch of drooling idiots that wouldn't know the difference! I mean come on, when you hear the tail end of the word 'Fuck' in a song, it's pretty damned obvious what the word was, so why not just leave it in? With the exception of Fred Durst who has almost elevated swearing to an art form, most artists will throw in some "Colourful" language not for the shock value but because it conveys an emotion.

EVERYONE swears, that's how people talk for chrissakes!

Groups like the PMRC are a bunch of under sexed, prudish overly religious zealots that think they know "What's best". No, what's best is for organizations like them to just shut the fuck up and go the fuck away. I'm perfectly able to make decisions for myself thankyouverymuch.

THEN there's words deemed "offensive" that just blow my mind!
Perfect example: "Up all night" by New Found Glory has a line "let's sit up on the back porch, fire up another blunt" Where "Blunt" is unceremoniously removed even though it is so painfully obvious what the word is as to cause internal bleeding.

But that aint the kicker boys and girls OH NO, the kicker is this, in the next verse, "Sitting on the back porch, fire up another ROACH"
where ther word "Roach" is left in. WHAT THE FUCK IS THE DIFFERENCE?!? They both speak of exactly the same thing yet only one word is deemed offensive? Can we say insult to our intelligence? Can we say insult to intelligence ITSELF? Who the Hell makes the decisions anyway? Probably the same morons that slapped an offensive lyrics label on Frank Zappa's "Jazz From Hell" album. "Jazz From Hell" is a completely insturmental album.

Anybody else fed up with this shit?

No we have to protect our children. God bless our children.

if i were a musician, i would never allow my music to be altered like that.

then again, most of the music you hear on the radio are not produced by musicians. they're just performers.

It's censored for children. Sorry, I don't want my kids hearing "fuck yo mutha fukn mama in da ass, biatch".

you must not let your children leave the house then, eh? they'll hear this all the time at school, or anywhere.

This is somewhat true, but stupid and ignorant at the same time. Does a 5 year old really need to hear that shit? Uh, no.

If you want to hear someone rapping about fucking the latest ho or whatever, do what the rest of us do... CD.

5 years old? good, there's probably still time. speaking of ignorance, you may want to teach your kid that bad words are out there, used every day and in all situations, and he'll need to be tolerant of them. else he's gonna have an uphill battle when it comes time to be really social. :2 cents:

fwiw, not every radio station would have to have the fuck rapping. there'd still be christian rock. jesus will protect your 5 year old's mind.

Somehow I don't think a "Song" (And I use that term as loosely as is humanly possible) like that would make it on the radio. You're missing my point. I would have less of a problem with radio stations playing a 2 second "Warning, Explicit Lyrics Ahead" than chopping up a song. Give your kids some credit, they're smart enough to know that swearing isn't always appropriate aren't they? :thumbsup

How is tearing apart a song and censoring lyrics protecting our children? There are statistics out there that show by the time a child in North America is 16 years old they will have seen over 30,000 acts of violence on television, will have witnessed 300 rapes and 10,000 murders on TV and in Motion Pictures and you're worried about them picking up a few naughty words from a rap song?

I appreciate your opinion though, I wouldn't want my kids listening to "fuck yo mutha fukn mama in da ass biatch" either, not because of the language, but because music like that is pure, unadultrated shit, plain and simple. I don't lump all Rap and Hip-Hop into the same category as that, there are actually some guys out there that have something to say and do it in an intelligent and eloquent manner. But the idiots that write all the "Mutha Fukka" garbage are simply lacking any creativity, imagination or musical talent so they have to be as offensive as possible to sell CD's. Am I way out of line for saying that?

I'm just giving you guys shit. Drives me nuts. Although down here they get away with a LOT. Many songs don't have fuck cut out of them.

Anyway, have you guys ever been around or had a 5 year old? Little bastards repeat everything they hear, regardless of what you tell them. Would be really cool having them go up to grandpa "what the fuck!" Now that they WOULD pick up.

There's a time to teach kids stuff about life, 5 years old isn't one of them.

I don't like listening to music with words beeped out either. It's annoying, but I understand why they do it.
Buy the CD or download the mp3 if you want it to hear the song unedited.

This also applies to movies on TV.
Not only do they beep out the swear words, they remove the violence or gory scenes. Again the solution would be to rent or buy the movie.

About rap. Some rap I can totally listen to, 2pac for example. But other stuff is just insane. I can only take so many "mutha fucka's" in 10 seconds. It IS nice to hear SOME intelligent talk every now and then, or even some message. Isn't that why we have songs? To convey the message in some artistic sense.

I watched "The Breakfast Club" on TNN the other day and I was APPALLED at how much they chopped out of that movie!

The ONLY redeeming factor was the fact they had all the original actors re-dub their lines, even though you could tell they were all about 10 years older LOL!

I agree with Sly_RJ on the 5-Year-old thing, the little buggers DO repeat everything they hear so ok, I'd try to keep my kid away from the swearing if they were that old. Good Point. But damn would it be funny to see Grandpa's face...

Too true too true, if you want the original lyrics buy the CD or download the MP3, but censorship in any form still bugs the HELL outta me!

"I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight for your right to say it." - Uh, somebody...

Sounds like eroswebmaster.

I don't really look at it as censorship. I look at it as the radio and TV companies covering their asses in case of law suits. It's not censorship, you can still go buy the CD with no troubles.

I really hate rap music.
But to be fair, rap isn't the only music with swear words & bad messages. Heavy Metal has its fair share as well.
I'm a fan of heavy metal though.

Look dude, I played a part in the loosening of radio restrictions in the early 90's. I am terribly sorry that this happened. Looking at the generation that has grown up listening to this muck and thinking that it is ok to hear bitch and ass and so on on the radio is disgusting. These same people that were teens when we started are now young parents that have 3, 4 & 5 year olds that are singing "My neck, my back, lick my **** just like that." Radio should have never gotten this far. As adults I think it is fine. Just like I don't think pushing porn to adults is wrong... but the kids are affected by this radio stuff directly everyday.

Here in NY we have a morning team called Star and Buckwild. They routinely address women callers by saying "What's up Bitch?" as well as all kinds of other names (use your imagination). Depending on the situation they can be funny but what do you think this says to the kids? When I was a kid I had a potty mouth but I never let adults find out. This is not the case anymore.

If you think this is unrelated to music censoring just remember that if it wasn't allowed in the songs the kids wouldn't feel comfortable saying it. Censorship should stay.

why not just remove the power of the words? so what if the kid says fuck or bitch once in a while. if the word didn't have this bizarre "power" over people, it wouldn't matter any more than them saying "the".

that's the way to battle this sort of thing.

You talk as if it's something new. In the 60s we had the Rolling Stones "Let's spend the night together" censored. It could not be played on a lot of radio stations. But Lou Reeds "Walk on the wild side" and Bob Dylans Mr Tamborine Man" slipped through.

Censors are people we have to watch. They start by protecting our 5 year olds for us and move up to protecting us.

From things that will harm us, how they can sit and watch it all day without being harmed is beyond me.:BangBang:

You want to protect your kids? Turn on the music/TV/Computer and listen/view what they are getting. It's the parents job to censor what their children see/hear.

I usually agree with this 100%, but radio is a little different I think. CDs, yes, TV, yes, computer, yes. All of these have some ratings, although half the time they're completely off.

Parents?!? Again, back to my point Charly. You can't compare the difference by referencing the music you grew up on. The parents are now the kids that grew up on a whole different type of music that is nowhere near as clever as your music when it comes to suggestive innuendo. Also, in most cases, these same 'parents' aren't parentally qualified thanks to the 80's and the breakdown of family due in part to crack and the push to have two parents in the workplace. At some point the broadcasters have to pick up some of the slack. Not all of it, but bleeping out unnecassary cusswords is acceptable and you can't argue with that unless you feel like your daughter shoud be repeating lines like "Fuck me good, Fuck me good" when you aren't around.

The whole censoring of radio and TV is so utterly assinine that I can't stand it. Do you really think that kids don't hear 'naughty word' at school, on the street, on the net and from their parents all the time...

Damn... It just bites