Classic Moments In Rock Censorship
As you've probably heard, AT&T did some fancy editing during its webcast of Pearl Jam's Lollapalooza set at Grant Park last weekend. Haven't been paying attention? A recap: During "Daughter," Eddie and the grungers smoothly transitioned into "Another Brick in the Wall," improvising on Pink Floyd's lyrics by repeating "George Bush, leave this world alone" twice, following it with "George Bush, find yourself a home." The controversy? If you'd been watching on AT&T's site, you only got the first part of Vedder's variation -- the audio cuts out for 15 seconds after the first mention of George W. You can check out both versions at Pearl Jam's website to see and hear the fiasco.
A bunch of you were keyed in on the live feed and wrote us about it that night, but at the time, we were standing in Grant Park trying to make sense of Eddie riding Rodman around the stage. Since then, though, AT&T issued a statement in response to the indelicate-edit furor, saying it was a "mistake by a Webcast vendor" and that censorship is "contrary" to their policy. To quote
We have policies in place with respect to editing excessive profanity, but AT&T does not censor performances. We very much regret that this happened in the first place.Of course they do. Obviously we have no idea what happened over at AT&T, but all of this silencing, chicanery, and outrage fed an intra-office Stereogum email chain about other big censorship moments in rock, and we thought it'd be fun to whittle it down to a quick list for your enjoyment. Our Top 10 after the jump.
Let's take it chronologically...
1956: Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show
Elvis's hips didn't lie, but nobody at home could tell because Ed's cameramen were instructed to avoid filming the King's gyrating lower body.
1964: The State of Indiana tries to ban "Louie Louie"
The Hoosiers decided The Kingsmen were hiding something sexual in their '63 recording of the Richard Berry tune. Were they? Who knows; not even the FBI could decipher the lyrics (they tried!).
1967: The Rolling Stones' shift "Let's Spend The Night Together" to "Let's Spend Some Time Together" on the Ed Sullivan Show
In order to perform on national television Mick and Keith had to tone things down a bit. Forty years later, Mick and company also cleaned "Start Me Up" and "Rough Justice"
during the 2005 Superbowl XL halftime show.
1968: John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Two Virgins cover confiscated
John and Yoko appeared nude on the front and back cover of their '68 album. Let's hope Yoko doesn't try to recreate it somehow on her next release.
1981: Olivia Newton John's "Physical" banned by two radio stations Utah
Wait, was it lines like "'There's nothing left to talk about/'Less it's horizontally" or the still-disturbing-to-this-day video?
1985: PMRC formed
Tipper Gore's Parents Music Resource Center lobbied record companies for a ratings system for albums and album artwork, wanted lyrics printed on album covers, dirty discs hidden behind the counter, a rating system for concerts … etc. The letter the PMRC first circulated to record labels and people of influence included a so-called "filthy fifteen," with songs by AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Cyndi Lauper, Def Leppard, Judas Priest, Madonna, Mary Jane Girls, Mercyful Fate, Motley Crüe, Prince, Sheena Easton, Twisted Sister, Vanity, Venom, and W.A.S.P. A parental warning sticker and Ice T's Freedom Of Speech were subsequently born. Little good came from it, but for a classic Rage Against The Machine concert.
1986: Jello Biafra charged with the "Distribution of Harmful Materials to Minors"
The Dead Kennedys/Alternative Tentacles impresario was charged with breaking section 313.1 of the California State Penal Code for the very penal poster that came with the Frankenchrist album -- the artwork was H.R. Giger's "Landscape #20, Where Are We Coming From?" Biafra went to court; the charges were eventually dropped.
1989: Madonna's "Make A Wish" Pepsi ad pulled
Madonna was paid $5 million for an ad that ran twice. It featured "Like A Prayer" as its soundtrack. Pepsi execs weren't unnerved by the commercial -- it was the furor by religious groups over "Like A Prayer"'s video that caused 'em to freak.
1990: 2 Live Crew's As Nasty As They Wanna Be declared "obscene" in Florida
The 1989 record came with one of those PMRC warning stickers, but politicos in Florida went a step further, deciding it was illegal to sell the album within the state. A local record store owner was arrested for selling it. Three members of 2 Live Crew were arrested at a Hollywood, Florida concert. The group shrewdly followed the controversy with 1990's Banned In The USA, which used "Born In The USA," with Springsteen's permission, as its template. In other rap news, Public Enemy’s 1991 video for "By the Time I Get to Arizona" caused a major stink for its depiction of Arizona's governor as a David Duke-style racist for being the only state not to recognize MLK Day as a holiday.
2001-Present: Post 9/11 Censorship
After the attacks on the World Trade Center, a number of radio stations voluntarily pulled songs that they felt to be in poor taste. The offenders included "Walk Like An Egyptian," “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” Dave Matthews' "Crash Into Me," and "Bennie And The Jets." We can think of other reasons for banning a couple of 'em.
So that's our list. Obviously we left shit out. How about some of Prince or Ozzy's various offenses, Wal-Mart's weirdness, artwork switcharoos, subliminal messages or "This Note's For You"'s? Fill in the blanks, we promise not to censor. Nothing's shocking...
Posted at 8:03 PM
Tags: Pearl Jam
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Who cares if AT&T pulled it? It was generic lib rhetoric that everyone's heard a million times before.
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And this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4Ctrh_XFys
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Maybe I'm being dense, but what's 9/11-stylee offensive about "Walk Like An Egyptian," “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” "Crash Into Me," and "Benny And The Jets" ??
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Pretty obvious man, just think about the song titles literaly.
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Ah yes, I remember so well.
To see the days when music was still controversial... and not solely because the stars were whorish, drug-addled, slightly crazy, completely crazy, secretly drinking afterbirth to stay young, having sex with livestock, having sex with public officials pretending to be livestock, formerly communist, currently communist, currently pissed but pleasantly passive aggressive, wiping up poo with designer dresses, jumping in the river with designer dresses, marrying designer dresses in secret Haitian rituals...
Billy Joel was wrong. The good ol' days were a hell of a lot better than this!
DwD
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Didn't they also cut off some of the Stooges show when people bumrushed the stage?
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Re: Stones -- wasn't it "Let's Spend Some Time Together"?
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Not to get pedantic, but Elvis on Ed Sullivan was in 1957.
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You say "1967: The Rolling Stones' shift "Let's Spend The Night Together" to "Let's Spend The Day Together" on the Ed Sullivan Show"...
Wrong, they changed it to "let's spend some time together".
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weezer werent allowed to sing "hash pipe" on tv either.
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just another dropped call
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I'm pretty sure Sullivan had the Stones change the lyrics to "Let's Spend Some Time Together", which is lame at least scans better.
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I always thought that the Rolling Stones lyric was changed to "Let's Spend Some Time Together."
And I think it's a little funny that in an article about censorship, you would link to a version of the RATM picture with a big black bar over their bits.
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the time they arrested jim morrison during a concert for ripping on the policemen in uniform @ the show... calling it obscene when he he hadn't actually DONE anything obscene..
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There is a radio show called This American Life (I don't know how wide spread their popularity is, though I get that it has gotten pretty big) that did an bit about the whole Jello Biafra thing. The episode is able to be streamed from the below address. It is really interesting as the Jello and the lawyer who was on the government side actually ended up with a lot of respect for Jello Biafra.
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=285
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"Let's hope Yoko doesn't try to recreate it somehow on her next release."
Why? Because she's in her 70's?
Is that really the point?
Shame on you for indulging such a misogynistic little notion.
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1955-present - Pat Boone's career
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CENSORSHIP IS OFFENSIVE
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Oops -- you're right about the Stones error. We had a slight technical problem Friday in that our fact checker was found to be non-existent.
(FYI: Having some comment publishing errors that will be fixed soon. Sorry for the delays on those. Amrit and I are manually republishing entries so they show up.)
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The Nine Inch Nails "Closer" Video (1994) had a bunch of scenes removed. The director found a way to use this creatively however, with those famous "scene-deleted" screens.
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@Jamie: Wouldn't that be ageism, or maybe gerontophobia, and not misogyny? If Lennon were still around, I guessin' people would say that they wouldn't wanna see his wrinkled old arse on the cover, either.
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There's a bit more to theDead Kennedys case then you say. People actually broke into the Alternative Tentacles headquarters and stole the poster, and masters.
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Nirvana was prohibited from playing Rape Me, was it MTV awards???
On the radio, I've heard "money for nothing" with the "Faggot" lyrics excluded, but the next song was Pearl Jams Jeremy and they allowed fuck.
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When the filmmakers cut the "fuck" from Ethan Hawke's Violent Femmes cover in Reality Bites, the entire audience I was with groaned with the realization they'd paid money to watch their entire generation neutered on screen. Screw you, Ben Stiller!
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The Russians are coming....
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uhm what about the Doors on the Ed Sullivan Show! they were banned!
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"Classic Moments in Censorship"? So stereogum is essentially saying censorship can be classic enough to be celebrated? Odd headlines you got there; why not put an exclamation point at the end of it while you're at it.
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^ no sense of humor
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i like the AT&T/Cingular ad on stereogum's front page. stick it to the man guys!
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Tom Petty flipping off the world live on camera during Live Aid: never to be seen again in any and all subsequent presentations of concert.
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In other news about bands that are actually still relevant, Okkervil River just made the record of the year. It's official.
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Re: Jack - "Nirvana was prohibited from playing Rape Me, was it MTV awards???"
I don't think Nirvana was told not to play "Rape Me" because of the lyrics, it was because MTV wanted them to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
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This is not the first time AT&T Blueroom has censored politically controversial content from an act. The Nightwatchman set from this year's Bonnaroo was so chopped up with silenced banter the show was nearly pointless to listen to. Disappointing. Let them be heard!
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Not very rock, but I was listening to the radio today and they censored the word "gun" from Rihanna's "Unfaithful" song. Very weird.
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two things about totally irrelevant bands that come to mind, and are both amusing: a.) in July of 2001 Jimmy Eat World released an album called "Bleed American." after 9/11, they were forced to change the title to "Jimmy Eat World" despite the fact that the song had nothing to do about anything involving the deaths of Americans. funny, i've got the "Bleed American" version (the title track did remain on the CD unchanged).
b.) in 2005 or so Weezer released one of the worst songs of all time, called "We Are All on Drugs," or in some underground circles, "The Diarrhea Song" (think about it). to be released as a single, they had to change the words to "We are All in Love." silliness all around.
feel free to comment on good, relevant bands now that have made albums worth listening to in the last 10 years.
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Re: Rape Me
I guess I just assumed since they played the first few chords and almost got cut, but just saw your explanation on wikipedia.
Also found this interesting list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_%22songs_with_questionable_lyrics%22_following_the_September_11%2C_2001_attacks
I need to learn how to hyperlink.
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And that Sean Kingston 'suicidal' line too.
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I seem to recall Jane's Addiction's "Ritual de lo Habitual" album cover being censored upon release as well...
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I didn't know the actual lyrics to Tom Petty's "You Don't Know How It Feels" until I was about 15.
Just for reference, here is the list of Clear Channel's songs deemed inappropriate post 9/11.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_%22songs_with_questionable_lyrics%22_following_the_September_11%2C_2001_attacks
My favorite selections are "Have You Seen Her" by MC Hammer (as if that was getting major play in 2001), and Santa Monica, because "Everclear" and "disaster" just go hand in hand.
And kudos to Rage, for being the only band to be completely blacklisted.
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As an aside, has anyone else out there heard the radio edit of Super Furry Animals "The Man Don't Give A Fuck" where they edit out the word fuck all 56 or so times?
Comedy.
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Up here in the frozen North (hey fuckers, it's August already-- jus' git up here with yer snowboards and skis, post-haste!!!), around 1989, the whole world was hellbound inna handcart because of the LP "Here Today, Guano Tomorrow" by Canadian hardcore fiends the DayGlo Abortions.
The cover featured a gerbil (or maybe Hammy the Hamster-- where did Hammy go inna 90's?) snacking upon a heart-shaped box of chocolates while an anonymous hand points a 9.mm handgun at the poor lil blighter from outside the frame. They were actually a fairly political band, in the vein of the Dead Kennedys, but various square-baiting songs grabbed the bulk of the attention-- offhandedly, I can only recall the tune "Come All Over Your Face", as it was referenced inna column by the Toronto Star's religion columnist Tom Harpur in 1990 or 91. Harpur took the predictable stance: of course I'm against censorship... but these so-called "DayGlo Abortions" just totally CROSS THE LINE with which I was comfortable when I WAS YOUR AGE... tempest inna teapot, really, but it sure did suck up a lot of column inches all them years ago... try to imagine something so vanilla shocking ANYONE today. Fucking priceless.
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Hey, I've got one: just post 9/11, either ClearChannel or Infinity began heavy top 40 radio rotation of these "9/11 Remix" songs, using a device similar to that awful Bruce Springsteen "Secret Garden" single that spliced in sound bytes from the film Jerry Maguire. The 9/11 remixes were just marginally uplifting soft rock pablum (Jewel, Blessid Union of Souls) except they were peppered with these audio clips of explosions, people screaming "Why?! WHY?!", "Oh my God! The buildings are falling down!" and so on. Does anybody else remember these? Or beter yet, know where to find them?
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