I’ve noticed that the standards for what get “bleeped”, “fuzzed” or “asteriked” vary widely between different presentation formats, and even different broadcasters. For instance, take Weezer’s “Hash Pipe”. On MTV, the word “Hash” is bleeped out, because recognizing the existence of drugs is bad. Even the title is censored down to “H*** Pipe”. On MuchMusic, the spoken word “Hash” is permissible, but the text is similarly astericked. However, on local radio, a medium that is easily acessibile for the price of a cheap radio, and all but beyond parental control (unlike lockable cable channels, etc.) “Hash” is quite audible not only by the musician, but also by the DJ.
And what about “What Its Like”, the Everlast song that was so thouroughly censored that I had no idea what the last verse was about until I borrowed a friend’s copy…
What are the reasons for this strange variability? Which outlets are the most/least restricitve? And why have non-expletives been targeted recently (including “doggie” in The Bad Touch by The Bloodhound Gang)?
I’ve noticed this too. MTV is by far the most family oriented/candy-assed (pick one) when it comes to censoring. They cut everything out. I think it has to do with the fact that they are nationwide so all their broadcasting has to be watered down to the level of the most restricted of their potential audiences.
Radio can be more selective, they are local and they know what flies and what doesn’t. I’ve heard pretty much unedited versions of songs after 10 PM when fewer kiddies are likely to be listening. Also, locally we have the typical top-40 teeny bop station as well as a pretty hard core rock station. The hard core station censors much less than the top 40.
I’ve no idea what the laws are where you live, since I’ve no idea where you live. Assuming it isn’t someplace where even mentioning drugs is illegal, the “rules” are probably just made up by the broadcasters to take into account the amount they think they can get away with before receiving a barrage of nasty calls from viewers/listeners and threats to boycott their sponsors.
IME, broadcasters that are owned by large national conglomerates tend more toward the conservative side. A local city-based station will probably allow more, on the grounds of having a more tolerant audience. Stations that cover rural areas, or a mixture of both rural and urban, will probably bleep out more. It’s a CYA thing, basically.
When the Tom Petty ‘You Don’t Know How It Feels’ song came out, I only saw it on VH1 for about three weeks before I heard it on the radio… for three damn weeks, I was trying to figure out what a dowge was and how it rolled.
One thing I’ve noticed with regaurd to Radio Edits is that Rap/Hip-Hop and Rock music seem to be held to different standards. Why? Also does anyone know why they sometime blur the logos on some of the clothes in videos?
P.S. don’t buy music at Wal-mart unless your virgin ears
need protecting
Several months ago, Fox aired “Austin Powers” (the first one). They censured out more proper words like penis and vagina,
“Swedish Penis Enlarger” became “Swedish Enlarger Pump” and the written word “penis” was hidden.
the character Alotta Fagina was changed to Alotta Cleavage (pronounced “Clee-va-jay”)
But, a lot of the other sexual innuendo was left in, as well as even fairly obvious double-entendres, like use of the word “pussy,” when Austin says “I never forget a pussy… (long pause)… cat.”
This struck me as being incredibly silly for obvious reasons.
This may not apply to all instances were talking about, but I believe it comes down to FCC regulations. The FCC doesn’t go out and surf the airwaves themselves, they rely on complaints from listeners/watchers/etc.
So, MTV, which is nationally broadcast into lots of homes where folks may find Everlast objectionable, needs to tailor its content more than some radio show that runs at midnight in a small market and is listened to entirely by civil libertarians.
But if no one took the time to complain to the FCC, I believe MTV could show “Eddie Murphy Raw” unedited 24 hours a day and face no repercussions.
The complaints result in fairly stiff fines, and can result in the stations FCC license getting revoked. Howard Stern is always rambling inarticulately against this whenever they fine him. But it’s worth Infinity Broadcasting’s money to let him say what he wants, and then bail him out when he’s fined.
So the bottom line is that the censoring is all done to suit the demographic the station believes they are broadcasting to. There is no objective standard.
I should offer the caveat that this is all based on conjecture from an article I read several years back, and anti-censorship speeches offered by my old manager at the college radio station, so if anyone has contrary info, they’re probably correct.
I’ve always wondered why Pearl Jam can say Jeremy was a “harmless little FUCK” no matter what radio station im listening to or what city or state I’m in but Everlast can’t even say the word “green” ("…smoked the finest green"). To make a long rant short, censorship really pisses me off.
Oh yea, and I had a question too…why can Pearl Jam say fuck in that song? It seems to be unedited on every radio station and at all times of the day, and he even stresses the word, it’s not like it’s hidden behind a guitar lick or an unintelligible voice. I’ve always wondered that…
Actually Cisco, have to differ on the Jeremy front; most of the time I hear it they don’t quite edit it out, but instead just play a mix where Eddie sings “Seemed a harmless little…[trails off].” I generally only hear the f-word played in versions broadcast after midnight, where pretty much anything goes. However, my wife sides with you on this one, so we must be listening to different stations.
However, more and more shits are making it through on the airwaves. Songs off hand that I hear it in often “Longview”, Green Day, “Monkeywrench”, Foo Fighters and “Own Worst Enemy”, Whatever flavor-of-the-month does that one. Sometimes a perfunctory attempt is made to cover it up (i.e. “kick the living sh[whooshing sound over “it”] out of me”) but it’s usually fairly lame.
Though just about any drug reference is cut out nowadays, the worst edit being in Tom Petty’s “You Don’t Know How it Feels” as Arken pointed out. Though oddly, the drug reference in “Longview” stays. Oh well.
Anyway, I think it goes back to my previous post, it’s just a subjective thing based on the market the song is being played to. Maybe top 40 edits Jeremy, but AOR stations don’t. Fun fun.
I think that there are some songs that trancend the genre, so that the curse words are sometimes left in or heavily implied. A prime example is “Money for Nothing” by dire Straits. In the oldies station in my city, before they went “50’s, 60’s, 70’s”, and in many other stations, they played the entire song, even the verse that starts with “That little f****t”.
As a DJ for my college radio station, I’d like to think I’m familiar with FCC content regulations (I’d better be, for my sake!).
First off, MTV is not regulated for content by the FCC. I’ve always been under the impression that seeing as MTV is never broadcast over open airwaves, the FCC can not control their content. Even if the viewers did complaign about MTV running Eddie Murphy Raw all day on a loop, MTV would face no fines. Everything that MTV censors, they censor because the executives choose to.
Not only that, but a radio station can play anything they choose (anything but obscenities) after 10pm. I believe that “community statndards” still apply after 10pm, but not as strong as during the day. And for the record, the word ‘fuck’ is not, in and of itself, obscene. In fact, a radio station could probably get away with anything as long as it was in the form of song after 10pm. Censoring art is a lot harder than censoring a DJ’s rambling comments.
In all of the FCC documents I’ve read (not many, to be sure), they never seemed to care about drug references - only about excretion, gentalia, and sex.
With all of that said, I have heard the song “Who are you?” by The Who played at 2pm on a Sunday. Perhaps classic rock is exempt.
I remember when “Who Are You” did face some trouble for its use of a certain word. A writer for Rolling Stone said he had to listen to the song several times to locate the offending word.
[sub]For those who haven’t heard it, Roger Daltry, near the end of the chorus, screams "Awww, who the f*** are you[/sub]
Now, I hear the song on radio, and it’s not bleeped.
This is one of the central idiocies of censorship. There are no standards, so everything is negotiable, and some companies who are far more conservative can have a disproportinate effect on what kind of music is created. Example: Wal-Mart is by far the more conservative about lyrics.
Well, the problem is, as you might be able to tell by now, is that there is no standard.
There was a case last month where a midwestern radio station was fined by the FCC for playing a “radio edit” of a rap tune (by Eminem, iirc) that still included some “offensive” words or metaphors, even after being bleeped for radio. This despite the fact that every other station in the country using the same format is playing the exact same track several times a day.
But then (as askol points out) there are songs with naughty words that have been played for decades. I’m thinking of the version of Skynrd’s “Gimme Three Steps,” in which the singer clearly speaks the line “I wasn’t going to fight him over his cunt,” between verses. I even managed to play that one over my high school PA system and nobody complained! One of my cherished personal victories!
