Music Censorship

Censorship's impact Today

In this day and age, Censorship has come to a place where you hear it everywhere. Whether you hear bleeping from a radio blasting from a car, or see an image blurred out on a music video, it is in our everyday life, and we accept it as so.

There is a common reference to the seven dirty words. These words are: fuck, shit, piss, cocksucker, mother fucker, tits, and cunt (Schneider 42). Most of these words a bleeped out on almost every radio station today, with the exceptions sometimes being tits and piss. Even if these words are offensive, what remains to be understood is how is it hurting anyone by letting these words be said without censorship. Everyone already knows that when there is a bleep on the radio, that one of these words were said, so therefore they are thinking of the word (or even words) anyways. So if there is no way to prohibit it from entering the mind, why not just let it go? These words are heard and said everywhere on a daily basis, there is no avoiding it, so why not let it play on the radio? If they were to allow these words to be said, it might even dilute the offensiveness and meaning of the words.

Another part of censorship today is parental advisory warning labels. They are everywhere, on so many albums. They are placed there on explicit albums to warn people of potentially dangerous lyrical content. These albums are sold separately, with one containing the original songs, while the clean version has either altered lyrics or bleeps throughout the album. The clean versions of albums are essentially ruining the songs by doing this.

The New York Times wrote a story of an artist named Nas, and his response to current censorship today. In his words, he describes the current status of censorship as a "musical prison" (Chinen 74). As with most artists today, there is a feeling of great restriction when it comes to their music. The freedom of speech is heavily prohibited and as is their freedom of expression. Lady Gaga is one of the most flamboyant performers today. She is an incredible entertainer that uses a variety of exposure and costumes to entertain her fans. Her actions have caused many outraged parents to protest her and her performances, saying that they should be prohibited to children. Why should she have to change her performance because of negligent parents? They need to do the research before allowing their children to such shows. 

Censorship isn't something that is necessary. If most parents took the necessary precautions and actually paid a little attention to what their child was doing or buying, there wouldn't be a need for censorship altogether. With the words as diluted as they are, playing them on radio stations should not be a serious issue. It is sad to see censorship the way it is today, as it continually ruins and destroys plenty of great songs and performances everyday.