I tried to search, but “DJ” is too short for the engine, so I just decided to risk a duplicate thread.
I’ve heard that Tom Petty set out to write a song that would get banned in the States without profanity (although the song as “whore” in it at least once), so he wrote “The Last DJ.” IMO it’s a very good song, but that’s not the point.
Has it actually been banned in radio stations down there?
Define “banned.”
Is it legal to buy copies of the song in the US? Absolutely. (The album hit #9 on the charts and sold 315,000 copies.)
Is it legal to broadcast the song in the US? Absolutely.
Do a bunch of big fat corporate radio stations refuse to play the song, probably because it protests against big fat corporate radio stations? Probably.
But that’s not a terribly precise use of the blanket term “banned.” The vast, vast majority of music that’s released on CD is never, ever heard on commercial radio, after all, but that doesn’t mean it’s “banned.” It just means that commerical radio sucks.
I think ‘banned’ is too strong a word. They play it on the Clear Channel classic rock station here.
Though, I wish it were banned; that song sucks!
Well, ClearChannel (the epitome of the media corporations Petty’s song is criticizing) owns severl stations here in Austin, and that song was in heavy rotation on ClearChannel’s local “Classic rock” station.
So… either nobody at ClearChannel grasped that they were being criticized, or (more likely) nobody cared much.
Heck, the entertainment industry IS a big business, but songs, movies and books attacking big business get released all the time!
I don’t see why Clear Channel would care, if they were thinking. People would listen to the song constantly, thus making them money (as alluded to above).
They’d be stupid to not play it now, being the 500-pound gorilla that they are (alas).