Selective Censorship

Factual Questions
1

There’s a particular song by the group Everclear, “What It’s Like,” that I particularly like. It’s played on two local LA stations, and I’m curious at the very different versions, edit-wise, that are played on these stations.

Star 98.7 edits the hell out of it…
"Now she gets some static walking through the door.
They call her a sinner, they call her a killer, and they call her a … "[EDIT–“whore”]

"…She swears [EDIT–“God”] damn, ever find that man, she’s cutting off his … " [EDIT–“balls”]

"I’ve drunk from the golden cup, smoked the finest … " [EDIT–“green”]

Now c’mon–whore?? Balls? Are these words that offensive? KROQ 106.7 plays all of the above words, unedited. All they take out is the profanity–fuck, shit, etc. Note that whenever the song is played on either station, they play their version of it–time of day is not a factor.

STAR also butchered Alanis Morissette’s “You Outta Know,” so much so that I wonder why they bothered playing it at all. They took out an entire verse, spliced two verses together, and hacked up the chorus. They must’ve cut out at least a minute, if not more, of that song.

Also, STAR currently takes this line from a recent song–“The state looks down on sodomy”–and spliced in a word from another verse of the song to turn it into “The state looks down on the TV.”

I’m curious why the censorship is so varied between the two stations. Who decides what to bleep out so arbitrarily? “OOh, I don’t like that word ‘balls.’ ‘Whore’? Oh my! Get rid of that!” Is it the station owner? Manager? And do the artists create these horribly butchered versions, or do the stations? And if so–do the artists have any idea what kind of slaughter is happening to their songs?

Also, I’m curious why on TV, “bitch,” “ass,” “give head,” and “blow job” are acceptable on some stations and on some channels, and bleeped out on others. Ideas?

2

I was driving through Oregon last summer, and Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” had been through a Cuisinart. Of course they took out the “But she never lost her head / Even while she was giving head” verse. They also took out any reference to “coloured girls”. They took out so much of the song, I wondered why they played it at all.

3

If you pay attention to classic rock stations, you will see some songs slip in:

the “Who the fuck are you” line from the Who’s “Who are you.” usually goes unedited.

I have heard “seemed like a harmless little fuck” slip by in Pearl Jam’s Jeremy.

Both those lines are kinda more subtle though (by which I mean it is hard to hear the profanity) than say the “Would she go down on you in a theatre.” line by Alanis.

4

[nitpick]

It’s Everlast, not Everclear.

[/nitpick]

5

Here’s my WAG as to the difference between the stations. Since the FCC does not monitor the radio but acts only if it has received complaints then various words are only offensive if someone complains about them. The two stations probably target slightly different listening groups. I guess Star 98.7 is concerned about their listeners being offended by some words whereas KROQ 106.7 probably figures its listeners would be more offended by the edited versions.

John

6

Heard one the other day that nearly made me drive off the road. “Ain’t if fun when you see… she’s just a cunt”. I figured they just missed it the first time, and would edit it post haste, but a few days later, same song, same words.

I think some words (i.e. fuck, shit, etc…) are usually edited due to laws requiring it. Other stations that edit out things like balls, whore, etc., I think do so based on their listening audience. We have a local station that brags that you “won’t hear any songs with offensive lyrics”. We have a strong Mormon influence here, and many people are easily offended, so the station promotes that as a way to get people to listen.

7

**

I am in no way a fan of his, but here’s a selection of censored words from Eminem’s single The Real Slim Shady:
[ul]
[li]Head[/li][li]Clitoris[/li][li]VD[/li][/ul]
What kind of overzealous prude censored THAT. I mean, VD? Come on! :rolleyes:

8

Back in my radio days (the 70s) the record companies would send out special “edited for airplay” versions of songs. Sometimes it was profanity, but it could also be drug, racial or sexual references.

I was in charge of taking the knife to songs my boss thought offensive, or feared the listeners would complain (and yes, we sometimes got complaints.) Sonetimes we could snip out a word, sometimes delete an entire line, and sometimes we just said the hell with it and threw out the song.

9

Here in Chicago, the line, “I take too many pills” was edited from Kid Rock’s, “Only God Knows Why”.

I guess the radio station didn’t want to be responsible if someone overdosed after hearing that song. :rolleyes:

10

Everlast’s What It’s Like got pretty severely butchered by 95.5 FM in Detroit. Even the word “gun” was blanked out :rolleyes:. They shouldn’t even have bothered playing the song, because it was impossible to make any sense of the lyrics after the censoring. I went out and bought the CD just so I could hear the song properly.

11

Just for the record, and to confirm what was said, KROQ has always gone for the “surfer-dude” alternative rock demographic. (Even have real surf reports every morning from the “Rocking Fig” who has been doing it for about 20 years.) They want to attract teen-agers. (It is kind of funny since they have kept the same old DJ’s for years who still try to relate to kids. --Richard Blade and Jed the Fish come to mind.)

Star 98.7 is an alternative rock/pop station that is definitely going for an older demographic. Those upper 20/ 30 /40 somethings that liked alternative rock when young, and know want to keep a hand in and know what is current in rock. However they have Danny Bonaduce (from the Partridge Family) on the morning show with no music at all.

12

It seems to me that it is largely up to the Demo of the station as to what gets cut and what doesn’t. Similar stuff happens in Chicago with 101.9 “The Mix” and 101.1 “Q101” where the former is the “pop-top-40” station and the latter is the “alternarock” station. I’m fairly certain, however, that most of the song butchering goes on at record companies, who distribute both versions to stations and allow them to make the decision as to what to play. Also it is worth noting that there is a BIG difference between “album rock” stations that primarily play songs from released albums and “singles” stations that primarily play singles.

An interesting case of subtle differences between singles and album versions:

The Steve Miller song “Jet Airliner” contained the line “I don’t want to get caught up in any of the funky shit going down in the city.” as it appeared on the original album. The single recorded for radio play contained the phrase “funky kicks” in place of “funky shit.” The famous “Steve Miller Band Greatest Hits 1974-1979” (the horsehead album) contains the singles versions of many of his classics (inlcuding Fly like an Eagle with much of the solos removed). Now, most classic rock stations play the album versions rather than the singles versions, meaning that you often hear “funky shit” rather than “funky kicks” nowadays. And then there’s the “who the fuck are you” as already noted in The Who’s “Who are You.”

Some bands, citing artistic integrity, have refused to release or re-edit singles versions of their songs, and most often these extended play songs have been quite popular. The Beatles “Hey, Jude”, Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Don MacLean’s “American Pie,” John Cougar’s “I Need a Lover,” and the Allman Brother’s “Jessica” were all 7+ minute songs that have had quite a success despite their length (the last being a 9 minute instrumental). Still, record company execs are reluctant to release a single over about 3 and a half minutes, and will trim even reasonable length songs (witness 3rd Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life”) of their solos and lyrical bridges to make them fit into this length.

Oh, and it’s “The Mix” in Chicago that edits “God only knows” Q101 plays it unedited. I always wondered why these pop-top-40 stations will play one song from a band, and not that band’s full repetoire. I wonder what the 30 something conservative listeners to “The Mix” would think if they played “Bull God” on their station as well.

13

Back when the Everlast song was new, this same question came up here (no idea on the thread title to search and it was probably culled during the thread thinning a few months back anyway) and the answer was that Everlast (or the representing company rather) sent out several versions of the song (original, semi-edited, heavily edited) to the stations and said stations got to pick and choose which one they wanted to play. Personally, I’ve only heard listening to several Chicago stations was what I assume to be the heavily edited version where every third word is covered by record scratching, mask masking or whatever in the hell they did and I’ll probably never hear the original. As it stands though, the song is so amazingly annoying to listen to due to the “edits” that I immediately change the station upon hearing the first three notes.

14

Goodness there was a lot of typos in that.

[quote]
Personally, I’ve only heard (listening to several Chicago stations) what I assume to be the heavily edited version where every third word is covered by record scratching, backmasking or whatever in the hell they did…

[quote]

That should make a little more sense.