Censorship
To better understand the practice of censorship in popular music, I read an article by Eric Nuzum and listened to two controversial songs. The Eric Nuzum article highlights incidents of censorship from the 1950’s to the new millennium. The reasons for censorship ranged from “too sexually suggestive� to “encourages suicide.� The censorship was done not only by record companies, radio stations and stores, but also towns and schools. The first song that I listened to was “Suicide Solution� by Ozzy Osbourne. As the title suggests this song is about suicide, with alcohol references mixed in for good measure. The second song that in my mind merits censorship was “Cop Killer� by Body Count. Once again the title says it all.
The topic of censorship is one that gets a variety of people fired up, especially students. They feel that it is their right to choose what they want to put into their ears. They feel like “the man� affects their lives enough already (telling them that they have to go to school on a regular basis, they have to pay taxes, have a curfew to follow and more) and that music should be the one thing that they have total control over. This would be a great topic to bring up this students because I think they would have a lot to say, but I fear that the comments will be one sided. This trick would be getting students to understand why music and other forms of entertainment are censored. For this reason it would be a great idea to talk about the issue as a class, but then require students to write a paper highlighting both sides of the argument of censorship. If the students are not required to see the issue from both sides they probably will not take the perspective that music should be censored.
Personally I think that censorship is an interesting topic. It is interesting because I am old enough to see the issue from both sides. I understand the student perspective, but I also understand that one person’s musical expression can be offensive to another person. Eric Nuzum’s article “Censorship� gives a history of censorship from the 1950’s to the 2000’s. I understood some of the reasons why songs were censored, while others made me laugh. I absolutely agree that music that contains profanity, encourages suicide/killing, encourages drug use or is too sexually suggestive should be censored. This is a no-brainer to me. I do not need to or want to hear swear words or sex on the radio. Nor do I need to be encouraged to kill myself or another. While I think that a musician has the right to write whatever they want, I also think that not all songs need to be shared. Music loses its charm when it offends people. On the other hand some of the reasons for censorship made me laugh. It is crazy to think that a student was suspended because he had a t-shirt on that said “KORN.� The name of the bad itself was offensive to someone, so the student was suspended. Nuzum’s article also said that an Indigo Girls concert was canceled by a school principal when he found out that members of the band were homosexual. These two examples of censorship are in my opinion CRAZY. I do not see how the name of a bad or the sexuality of band members are grounds for censorship. So I do see how some censorship is petty, unnecessary and outright wrong. The policy for clothing and language at the school I teach at is “if it offends even one person, it is considered offensive and the clothing/language needs to change.� On the one hand I agree with this policy, but on the other I understand that all people are different. Some people are (in my opinion) overly sensitive and are offended by literally everything. I come back to the idea that censorship is a difficult topic that gets a lot of people fired up.
The two songs I listened to Ozzy Osbourne’s “Suicide Solution� and Body Count’s “Cop Killer� are two songs that I would absolutely censor. I would go even further to say that these are the types of songs that artists have the right to write, but should be kept to themselves. I do not know how these songs could be censored, because the entire song would be bleeped out. I can not imagine that anybody would benefit from these songs. If I were a parent these would be two examples of songs that I would prohibit my kids from listening to.