Music And Sensorship Essay Research Paper Throughout

Music And Sensorship Essay, Research Paper

Throughout history, the emotions of people have shown themselves in a variety of forms. Some of the people chose the medium of music to express their emotions and ideas. Music somehow became useless for some people, while music was still spreading across the world. But this work offended some people who were in the need of authority; these people tried to control the music created by the artists. This control of the music is in the form of censorship, and censurers used their political, economical power to control the musicians who earn their life by means of music. This censorship is an attack on a person s freedom; this is a direct attack on emotions and freethinking. In addition, this also limits the freedom of people to listen to what they want to listen to.

Censorship of the music is as old as the history of the music. Until the last hundred years, western culture music s principal aim was appeasing royalty and the wealthy, if these groups do not like the music it is simply altered. As an example, Giuseppe Verdi s opera La Traviata was changed numerous times because some of the lyrics were considered too passionate by citizens of Rome. But the real rise of censorship in music was with the rise of rock and roll. Some people found the dance of Elvis Presley as crude and offensive. Also the songs by the Rolling stones named I cant get no satisfaction , Sympathy for the Devil , Louie, Louie by the Kingsmen were banned from many radio stations because they were considered as pornographic, satanic or sexual in nature. One of the famous bands in the field of censorship is the Beatles. John Lennon proposed that his band was more popular than Jesus Christ, as a response their records were burned and music markets refused to sell their records. In 1969, John Lennon s new album was taken off the shelf because of the naked picture on the cover, also in Chicago a music store selling that album was closed by the Police.

In 1970s, President Richard Nixon stated that lyrics should be clearly examined for content and that drug references should be deleted. By 1985, censorship groups began to form and they took the record industry by storm, record warning labels were also formed at this time. The Record Industry Association of America was formed to rate music content and develop warning labels for music considered to be explicit. Many record stores refused to sell items that carried items marked with warnings.

In the 1990s the case got more interesting by the introduction of the rap group called 2 Live Crew. This group s sales were restricted and police began arresting children under 18 buying this album. The band also got arrested in a concert performing the song Me So Horny which led to nudity and sexual acts on stage. It was only after a long debate that they were freed and their album was free to be sold. By the end of the 1990s, retail stores tried to limit and prohibit the sales of offensive albums while the album covers were being taken into account also. But the music industry tried to fight back by giving money to the music stores to sell albums with explicit lyrics in order to prevent them from low profit problems. The above paragraphs show a brief history of the censorship in music.

Some people to convey their ideas, to explain their problems also used music. Such as rappers, whom are mostly also black people, using this genre to explain there suffering from white people. They claim that white people subordinated them, the cops are against them and they are classified as second class. This music is used by the Rappers to explain their problems to the public. Some people want to prevent their music and censor the lyrics, especially the white people, because they claim that they do not pressure the black communities. The politicians try to censor Rap music because they want to show their countrymen that what they consider to be bad can be eradicated. The censorship in this case is not good, because these people find audiences as do all types of music that is a release for some. If people do not approve of the music, they can show their dislike by not buying the album and protesting it. The justification of this cannot be done by a minority who only think themselves in censorship, but as a part of the whole to come together. This is explained by Governor Frank Keating about Marilyn Manson, the Governor said “If no one comes to listen to their trash, this group will go elsewhere and not come back.”. This type of thinking is nothing but leaving the justification of the work to the people, which is the right thing to do.

Some of the music markets put pressure on the musicians to clean up their work, in other words to self-censor themselves otherwise the musicians wouldn t be able to put their albums on their market. One example market using this policy is Wal-Mart. This market asked their musicians to censor their work, or they claimed that they would not sell their products. Some of the musicians facing this threat were Nirvana, Da Brat, Butthole Surfers, Busta Rhymes etc. These groups especially use heavy swearing in their songs but this does not mean that they should clean up their work. This was a clear shot at trying to make them change their style, people had accepted their work as this and if they changed their styles they could face an opposition from their fans. An opposition from the fans ca