Censorship

3 Pages 756 Words

Within hours of the September 11 tragedies, the music industry realized it needed to display some newfound sensitivity: Dave Matthews nixed plans to release "When the World Ends" as his next single, the Strokes removed "New York City Cops" from their recently released album, and Bush changed the title of their new single from "Speed Kills" to "The People That We Love." But the gesture that received the most attention was a rumored list of songs banned from radio, each containing literal or metaphorical references a bit too close to recent events.

The list, containing more than 150 "lyrically questionable" songs, started as a grass-roots effort by local programmers, then was redistributed by a senior executive at ClearChannel, the largest owner of radio stations in the United States and owner of many Cleveland stations (including WTAM, WMMS, WMVX, WMJI and several others). Among the listed songs were "Fly," "Jet Airliner," "Head Like a Hole," "Only the Good Die Young," "Great Balls of Fire," "Crash Into Me," "It’s the End of the World as We Know It," and dozens more.

When the story hit the mainstream press, most journalists got the story wrong. It was widely reported that ClearChannel overtly banned the songs to avoid consternation and controversy, which wasn’t true. ClearChannel correctly pointed out that the original e-mail didn’t order anyone to ban any songs, but was merely a call for programmers to exercise restraint. Despite ClearChannel’s intentions, many radio programmers did censor songs as a result of receiving that list, but that still isn’t the point. The real question is: what were they trying to restrain?

While the list was mainly comprised of songs bearing lyrical references to burning, death and airplanes, it also advocated censure for "Peace Train" by Cat Stevens, John Lennon’s "Imagine," and all songs by Rage Against the Machine. What do these songs have to do with flying airplanes into buildings? A...