August 2002
Topic: Music Industry Censorship and Parental Guidance
By Chris Shipman
Over recent years the music industry has tried to limit free speech by bands and artists and have put restrictions on certain CD's. Surely this is political correctness gone mad?
Music Video's have been censored almost since they hit the airwaves in the 1970's with bands such as the Sex Pistols finding themselves ousted because of their political views. Also content that may 'offend' has been dropped from such channels as MTV for reasons from product placement (As seen in the Nirvana - Sliver Video) to violence (As In Pearl Jam's video for Jeremy). More recently though, there has been some let up in this practice with banned videos being shown after 10 PM on channels such as 'Kerrang!' In The UK.
In the USA this is an example of double standards as Americans, under their constitution are promised free speech - this being impeded by MTV and alike.
Organisations such as the Australian ARIA have been pushing that the current 'Parental Advisory' music on music is not stringent enough and tougher laws need to be put inplace, they even tried to ban albums by Nine Inch Nails, Pantera and Slayer from even being sold in Australia!
My personal opinion is that sometimes the PG rating is overused. As exemplified in the album 'Californication' by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, released in 1999. The album only has two 'offensive' words and yet is still lumped in with artists such as Limp Bizkit (46 F*cks in one song alone). Because of this artists are being denied sales as in some stores PG albums are being refused to Under 16s - One example of this being Woolworths in the UK.
The music industry needs to clear up its act - and fast.
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