Censorship

2 Pages 417 Words

Censorship
Censorship in Music is not called for in most cases. The idea of censorship in music started in the early part of the twentieth century. Gregory Black said “When Fats Dominoes’ rendition of ‘60 minute man’ came out… it left little to the imagination… Later this type of music then became known as ‘race’ or ‘jungle’ music which was about racism, social injustice, hypocrisy, and other social issues that made older Americans extremely uncomfortable.” Soon after this happened the FBI spent millions of dollars investigating rock stars. They followed stars like John Lennon, Jim Morrison, and Elvis Presley then took more than two years to figure out if the Kingsman used the “F” word in “Louie, Louie.” Later a judge in Florida ruled that 2-Live Crew’s album “Nasty as they Wanna Be” was obscene and was banned for sale because they used the “F” word 226 times in the album. It was later overturned. I believe that the government goes to far sometimes in trying to censor the music of artists.
The government has also made record companies start putting labels on the CD’s because there lyrics are to “obscene”. What gives someone the right to determine what words are too obscene for other people except for parents of young children. The ways the government censors artist is against the 1st amendment of the constitution which states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”, However they have told the record companies to put a label on the cover of the records.
In many more cases the government has censored musicians not just on their records but through the air waves, preventing them from being played to help sell records, due to what is known as “...