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Music censorship is something that is relevant in today's music scene and since the dawn of popular music. This act of censorships restricts the use of obscene language, sex, religion, and violence in lyrics. Some examples of musicians who were deemed "explicit" musicians are everyone from Elvis Presley to Marilyn Manson to the Dixie Chicks to Ozzy Osborne. These artists are very different from one another and have little to nothing in common but they have been labeled by the mainstream culture.
Here are some examples of music censorship. 1968 The Doors' song "Unknown Soldier" was banned from airtime due to it being an anti-war anthem. 1998 An 18 year old was suspended from his Michigan high school for wearing a Korn t-shirt. The shirt had no images or words other than the bands name. 2003 The Six Flags Amusement Park management in New York banned Marilyn Manson from playing Ozzfest. These are just a few examples that have happened several years ago but it is still happening, more recently a Connecticut high school dropped their student production of Green Day's American Idiot. Which would be considered another form of music censorship since this album would be considered very politic. This incident only took place in January of 2016. While some encourages this censorship of the music industry and why do they do it. According to to the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) this due to the Federal Communication Commission where they can cancel concerts if they maybe anti-religious, or a radio station can be fined by the government because it can allegedly play songs with explicit lyrics. Many private actions are taken to restrict the music produced into the world to make sure it is "appropriate" to the general public. In 1985, many businessmen and politicians gathered to lobbied to have music to receive a rating system similar to film and have the lyrics be printed on them. In 1990, the music industry started using the parental advisory sticker (image above) to albums that were deemed to have explicit content. Shortly after Walmart refused to sell CDs that have the parental advisory sticker on the cover. Does censorship help or harm the general public for consumers of music. Some people say that some cons is that it limits musicians to express themselves in the their music. Musicians would not to be able to write about issues that matter to them such as violate, religion, and other issues whether they are speaking towards them or against them. Therefore musicians feel like they have to be on a leash and are being controlled and manipulated by a higher power that they have no control over. It also takes away from the First Amendment which allows several freedoms including freedom of speech thereby limiting one freedom of several musicians around the world. While those who advocate for music censorship may say other wise. It promotes a political correctness to the listeners which can help than interact in modern day society appropriately. It shields those who may be too young or triggering content from sensitive material such as violence and sex. It restricts vulgarity and obscenity from the mainstream which is also a positive so children will have no access to it. Which leads into the next point where they also censor music videos that may be to inappropriate for children once again. Now that I have laid out the framework of music censorship I would like to know your thoughts on it. Do you think that music censorship is a negative or positive the music industry? Do you think that music censorship is too strict or just strict enough? If so why? Please engage in a respectful discussion down in the comments below, I would love to know your thoughts on music censorship. Until then, I'll see you in the pit! 🤘 Mari SOURCES http://ncac.org/issue/music https://www.aclu.org/other/brief-timeline-censored-music http://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/greenday-american-idiot-dropped-school-1.3420548 https://system.uslegal.com/u-s-constitution/amendment-i/censorship-in-the-united-states/music-censorship/ https://flowpsychology.com/6-pros-and-cons-of-music-censorship/ http://censoryofmusic.weebly.com/pros-and-cons.html
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Mari LozanoSophomore music journalism student and aspiring concert photographer Archives
September 2017
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