I really don’t like to shop at Walmart at all, but my boyfriend lives in the middle of nowhere and all of the local grocery stores have gone out of business, so we find ourselves there pretty regularly.
Last night while grocery shopping I discovered I could get the new Pink album cheaper there than I could on iTunes, so I decided to take advantage of the savings. I put it in the CD player to discover that all of the profanity had been edited out.
Not that I require profanity in my music, and not even that I have a problem with music that has profanity edited out for those that have a huge fucking problem with it, but Walmart could have at least put a sticker on there that said “profanity edited out” so that I could consider taking my dollars elsewhere for the originally released product If I wanted.
So I downloaded the album from iTunes and I’m enjoying that instead. I hadn’t intended on paying $17 for a Pink album, but whatever, lesson learned.
Have you tried returning the Wal*Mart CD? I understand from their point of view they might not want to accept returned, opened media, but if you take it to customer service and explain your complaint I wonder if they would make an exception even if they have a general rule against that.
I had this same problem once. IIRC it says edited for content in small letters near the UPC. and store policy is not to take it back, but if you raise a big enough stink they may buckle under. at leans that was my experience with a Rob Zombie compilation cd quite some time ago.
That’s a voluntary standard, and the level of explicitness that needs labeling is not explicitly defined anywhere.
As on old fogey, I have no idea if someone purchasing a random Pink album would expect it to be labeled, but as a consumer I’d like to have a noticeable notice if I’m buying the ‘clean’ version of an album/song.
That’s why I stopped shopping that shit store. I wanted to buy a Prodigy CD and I was told they didn’t carry it because one of the songs had the word ‘bitch’ in the title. They said it goes against their Christian morality.
WTFever! I’m an adult and don’t need or appreciate other adults telling me what I should or shouldn’t listen to. However,
their store they can sell whatever they want.
Then I start reading about how they keep employees part time to keep from giving them benefits, and how they made people clock out and still keep on working, and how they lock people in the warehouse over night so they can’t leave until their shift is over.
So it goes against their Christian morality to sell a CD with the word ‘bitch’ in it but it doesn’t go against their Christian morality to rip off their employees and treat them like shit.
Can we spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E-S?
They can kiss my great big ole so white it glows in the dark ass if they think they will ever get another penny of my money.
Which part? Walmart has a policy of not selling music (and maybe other things, but I knew about the music) with profanity or other things they call objectionable in it. What I’ve heard is that artists who want their music sold by Walmart have to produce two versions, one that’s been bowdlerized for Walmart and the uncensored version for elsewhere. Walmart’s big enough that they can make these demands.
There have also been numerous lawsuits against them for the way they treat their employees, including forcing them to work off the clock. I hadn’t heard about the employees locked into warehouses though.
After I downloaded the album from iTunes I belayed it via the Bluetooth connection in my car and the audio quality was noticeably better than the music on the CD. That irritated me too.
I looked over the CD for some kind of copy that indicated it ha been edited (including wrapper stickers) and didn’t see anything. I’ll look more closely when I get home.
I thought it was funny that they edited out the word "asses"from one of the songs, but they left the song title “You’re a Slut” on there.
Really, Walmart needs to put a large sign outside the store (or maybe added to the actual Walmart sign/logo) that explicitly says “A Christian Merchandise Store” or “Christian approved merchandise only”. If this is their policy, fine, but they should advertise themselves as such.
There are Christian Bookstores in my town. They sell only books that they have deemed are suitable/appropriate to read. That’s fine - they make it explicit. For the most part, I will go to a bookstore that stocks a wider variety of books rather than a self-censored variety. Others will make their own decision about where they’ll shop.
A store can make whatever policies that they want, or stock whatever they choose, but don’t try to fool me into thinking that you’re a secular store when in fact you are a Christian store.
Walmart banned Sheryl Crow’s second album because they objected to the song “Love is a Good Thing”. No profanity or sexual or religious references. It’s a song about gun violence. The song contained the lines:
Watch out sister, watch out brother,
watch our children while they kill each other
with a gun they bought
at Walmart discount stores
I stopped even looking at music at Walmart just because of their policy.
I saw they were selling a t-shirt in the teen/junior dept., I think it was the male area that said ‘Friend with benefits’. That’s okay?
My thought on seeing it was memory that they dropped a magazine because an ad for Nivea had a woman pictured naked from the rear. Not that you could see anything. And the magazine ban was a long time back, but I just remembered it at that time.
I was locked into Walmart. I worked in a store that wasn’t open 24hrs and I worked overnights. We all clocked out and the morning manager was late. We had no way to call anyone else and we certainly didn’t get paid. After all, we weren’t working, we were standing at the front doors whining away. He was only an hour late. Again, years ago.
There are some Walmarts that aren’t 24hrs, but I’m sure they have new policies in place to prevent this, and we all have cell phones etc. Just my experience.
It seems like a market exists for a web site to sell only versions of music refused or censored by Wal-Mart or other retailers. Since pretty much everyone has access to the Internet, it would be easier to buy something that way than drive to a store.
I made a point of going into the store only once a month or so, to stock up on tp and dish soap and the like. I always stopped in the magazine section to flip through the scuba diving and boat magazines. One month the scuba magazine was nowhere to be found, just an empty space. I didn’t think much of it and stopped at a cigar shop on the way home, one particular shop that carried newspapers and magazines. I mentioned to the shop owner that I couldn’t find the diving magazine at Walmart, and asked if that month’s issue hadn’t been sent out. He said no, it was available, but the cover had a woman in a bikini on it so Walmart had refused to stock it that month. Ok, whatever. I got the magazine and left.
I didn’t think about this until the next month, when I went to stock up @ Walmart. Right inside of the front door was a HUGE display for Fifty Shades of Grey, with a giant pair of cardboard handcuffs surrounded by stacks and stacks and stacks of the book.
Fuck 'em. I turned around and left. That was this past spring, haven’t been back since. They advertise the fact that they carry porn, but won’t carry my dive magazine? Assholes. I guess they carry “offensive” stuff if it will make them lots of money.
