Music_Censorship

Josh Cericola Stuart Taylor English 1101-B November 29th 2010 Censorship of Music Do you have a favorite song' Well there is a good chance that your favorite song has a "curse word" in it. Should America care so much about the lyrics in modern day music' My opinion is they shouldn't, and I'm going to provide substancial evidence as to why i believe this. They have come up with eleven different ways to cover up profanity in the sound engineering world. It all started with one over opinionated person, which we cannot place to the blame too. This contraversy was inevitable in today's society or the society of the past for that matter. If the first guy didnt say it, somebody would've brought it up down the road. One thing many people fail to understand is that the government doesnt control whether to censor music on your local radio station, or to not sell explicit CD's in your local wal-mart.The FCC basically says if you do so, they will fine you. It's not exactly illegal to sponsor uncensored radio, but they found a way around thier own rules to make it impossible to do so and be successful. You must understand that every artist that goes into a recording studio to make an album under a legit label, makes an "explicit" version and a "clean" version of thier album. Radio stations decide themselves to play clean versions of songs to avoid riot from listeners who may happen to have thier children with them, or listeners who might be offended by certain language provided in certain songs. What the local businesses and local stations dont seem to acknowledge is that most americans would prefer the explicit version of the songs on the radio. To me the old saying comes up “If you dont want to hear it then don't listen.” As cited on the website “Last.fm” they post a blog asking the opinion on random subscribers and over half the blogs feel censorship should only be used in the most extreme situations, if not at all. Maybe we should start from the very beginning. Start with the very first decision that these words were to become "cursewords" and why. Cursewords date back as far as the sixteenth century, in many shakespearean plays. Shakespeare was actually quite the abuser of offensive religious swearing in his original copies of his plays. Although modern day cursewords weren't used in shakespearean plays. He did used his own form of cursing. As cited in the website “Cyberessays.com,” Shakespeare aimed his form of cursing more towards religion. However, it did have an effect on the curse words we know today which evolved over time, and even more are forming over time. Every curseword has a highly negative meaning behind it. For example, calling someone a bastard refers to that fact that they have no father. this used in the right intentional conditions can be highly offensive. Over time curse words have evolved into something over compensated. People believe it's less classy to use these words and look down on other people who use them. My question is out of all the words in the world who was important enough to deem these few the worst of the worst, and make it continue to affect the people today. During 2004 on February first, Janet Jackson’s breast was exposed on live television during a Superbowl with millions of viewers. This created an outbreak of the people, and made the FCC crack down harder than ever. It affected not only radio but television censorship very drastically. Another very important person who played a huge roll in lyric censorship on the radio was none other than Howard Stern. His perverseness and vulgar choice of diction changed the way the FCC viewed talk radio. However Howard Stern helps me prove my point because even after being canceled continuously from numerous amounts of local radio broadcasts, Howard Stern continued to prevail in ratings and fans. This shows that the FCC doesn't agree, but it's no doubt what the people want. Today Howard has his own show on Sirius satellite radio, which is uncensored and he has a fan base that resides somewhere around 5 million. However the amount of fan mail complaining of his lewd remarks can not be ignored either. Over the years the FCC continues to grow more lenient to what's put on the air. This puts the FCC in a difficult position of which half of society to attempt to please. Many people believe its only a matter of time before the FCC loosens their grip on today's idea of inappropriate language for public radio. This argument is never ending and cannot be won by either side unless you leave it up to majority. Soothing songs such as Van Morrison's “Brown Eyed Girl” were forced to change thier lyrics before getting major publicity. Rock n' roll legend Frank Zappa Fought a huge case against the PMRC or Parents Music Resource Center Formed in 1985. Zappa fought alongside two other famous musicians John Denver, And Dee Snider. In August of 1985 The case was brought to trial to put “Eplicit Lyrics” warnings on albums containing what the PMRC thought was unappropriate. Obviously the Label prevailed and Many places such as Wal-Mart refused to sell these albums, unless a clean version was made by the artist. The case may one day be settled but, until then the government prevails at controlling whats put on the air locally, but national radio stations such as Sirius with the license to sell explicit radio can do so willingly.