did american radio voluntairly censor "i dont like mondays?"

[Patx2]

I remember hearing it all the time growing up and I don’t recall that any parts of it were censored.

[kenobi_65]

@kenobi_65

I don’t recognize him, but the one time he really talks in the clip (at around 8:10), he says, to Geldof:

“No, but I explained it to you, that, you thought it was a controversy over the lyrics, but it was publicized, it was a matter of format.”

This makes it sound like he already knew (and worked with) Geldof. Given that he’s American, not Irish, my guess is that he was with the Rats’ U.S. record label, as a publicist or manager.

I should also note that this guy is saying essentially what most of us in this thread are saying: that the song didn’t get much U.S. airplay because it didn’t fit the format of a lot of radio stations, and not because of active censorship due to what the song was about. Obviously, Geldof disagreed with that assessment.

[NDP]

I heard the song played in my radio market (Spokane) but only on the local album-oriented-rock station. It wasn’t so much censorship as it not fitting the formats of the other stations in town.

[Just_Asking_Questions]

I’d always heard that it was banned from airplay (if it ever happened) only in San Diego, and only during the trial. Whether even that was true, I can’t say (Wikipedia doesn’t mention it). I never thought it was banned “globally”, as it were.

And FWIW I always liked the song. Conversely, I couldn’t stand anything else The Boomtown Rats did.

[kenobi_65]

@pulykamell

According to Wikipedia (and Billboard), it contemporaneously hit number 73 on the Hot 100 (Feb 23, 1980), so I’d think that it must have been played here (though the Hot 100 is a mix of airplay and sales [and now streaming]. The radio-only chart the Airplay 100 didn’t show up until 1984.)

As an example of the format issue, here’s the Billboard Top 40 chart for the week that pulykamell notes. The #1 song that week was Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” Most of the other songs on the chart are ballads, lighter R&B, disco, or crossover country. Heck, Barbra Streisand and Dionne Warwick were both on the chart that week, as were The Captain and Tennille, Dan Fogelberg, Neil Diamond, and Barry Manilow.

Even if you scroll down to the “Power Plays” (i.e., just off the top 40) and “Debuts This Week,” you don’t see any New Wave, punk, or alternative artists. For that matter, there aren’t even a whole lot of traditional rock acts on the chart at that point, either.

[NDP]

@kenobi_65

As an example of the format issue, here’s the Billboard Top 40 chart for the week that pulykamell notes. The #1 song that week was Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” Most of the other songs on the chart are ballads, lighter R&B, disco, or crossover country. Heck, Barbra Streisand and Dionne Warwick were both on the chart that week, as were The Captain and Tennille, Dan Fogelberg, Neil Diamond, and Barry Manilow.

Even if you scroll down to the “Power Plays” (i.e., just off the top 40) and “Debuts This Week,” you don’t see any New Wave, punk, or alternative artists. For that matter, there aren’t even a whole lot of traditional rock acts on the chart at that point, either.

At that time, traditional rock acts were more focused on album sales. The radio airplay they got were primarily on album-oriented-rock stations and were often in the form of album cuts rather than singles. Still, some of the more popular rock acts like The Eagles, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and Queen (who all had songs on the 2-23-1980 Billboard Top 40 chart you linked) would also release singles that would get airplay on Top 40 stations so it wasn’t like rock was totally shut out.

[Dale_Sams]

@Just_Asking_Questions

I’d always heard that it was banned from airplay (if it ever happened) only in San Diego, and only during the trial. Whether even that was true, I can’t say (Wikipedia doesn’t mention it). I never thought it was banned “globally”, as it were.

And FWIW I always liked the song. Conversely, I couldn’t stand anything else The Boomtown Rats did.

Mondo Bongo has a little something for everyone. I liked In The Long Grass but i get why others didnt

[Jackmannii]

I recall “I Don’t Like Mondays” playing on NYC radio at the time of its moderate popularity, and liked it - certainly more than the other Boomtown Rats stuff I heard later on.

[Marvin_the_Martian]

I can’t identify specifically where and when , but I heard it often enough that “The silicon chip inside her head got switched to overload” is still in my vocabulary. ETA: Generally when the dog starts barking crazily for no apparent reason.

I personally preferred “The Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun” (how can you not love a song with the line “Picking off cheerleaders one by one”?)

[dropzone]

I didn’t connect the song to the event it was referencing until “Her father said that she was good as gold” switched a silicon chip inside my head and I said to myself, “That’s what Brenda Ann Spencer’s dad said!” I had never connected “I don’t like Mondays.”

I can be slow.

[Uncle_Jocko]

@kenobi_65

I used to watch Fridays, as well (it was on ABC), and I remember seeing the Boomtown Rats’ appearance on it. At that point, I had heard of them (I was about 15), but I really didn’t know anything about them.

Echoing other posters: the Rats just never really broke through in the U.S. I doubt that there was much censorship of that song, so much as their music just really wasn’t well-suited to what was on pop radio here in that era.

Parenthetical: the one song in the 1980s that I do remember being actively censored / not played by radio stations was George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex.” IIRC, MTV would only play it late at night, as well.

I also remember seeing the Boomtown Rats on Fridays (I must be about a year older than you, kenobi). I lived in a area with poor TV reception, so we really only could watch the local ABC station. Not being able to see SNL led me to tune in to ABC’s attempt at late-night sketch comedy (which happened to launch the TV career of Michael Richards, for one). Fridays did tend to have fairly cutting-edge musical guests - I clearly remember Devo, too.

Hearing “I Don’t Like Mondays” on the radio? I don’t really have a recollection of that. Seems like I might have heard it on KRNA out of Iowa City - they were more of an album/progressive rock station in a college town, and that’s the station I generally listened to in high school, and I think I recall hearing it on the radio. But no definite memories.

[nearwildheaven]

It wasn’t so much what the song was about as that it was by a New Wave band, and very few stations played that genre in the late 1970s, with the exception of a few songs that crossed over.

[rat_avatar]

It was played quite a bit on MTV in 1981 when they didn’t have enough content.

I remember seeing it quite a bit as oddly MTV was one of the 7 cable stations we got in the small town I lived in.