Soul Selling: A Look Into Music Censorship
In today's society, music censorship is an issue that plagues not only the music industry, but television, radio stations, department store chains, and the average American. Music censorship is the term used to describe the act of editing, altering, or preventing the listener from hearing the music as the artist created it in order to deny certain information or to act as a moral gatekeeper of potentially harmful material. The argument for music censorship is not so much an argument against censoring the actual music; it is a battle over the themes, lyrics, and imagery that are being presented by the artist. It is a fight to keep moral standards and decency alive, and to fight against obscenity and indecency. When music is censored, more often than not, only the words that are deemed as "dirty" by our society are taken out. That should not be the case. All lyrics promoting sexual immorality, degradation of women, drug use, racial content, violent behavior, and all that justify as well as promote immorality should be censored.The Bible provides help when look ing at the issue of music censorship. The Bible does not come right out and say that music should be censored, but a few verses can be related to music censorship. Ephes
Conaway explains that he carries explicit music due to customer demand (AFA 1). To even further the difficulty of a child (minor) getting a hold of CD's with parental advisory stickers, Wal-Mart, in 1991, announced that they would not carry any albums containing parental advisory stickers. There is easy access to it for everyone, including minors. For example, MTV has banned numerous Madonna videos for the inappropriate material that they contain. K-Mart did so in the early 1990's due to a successful boycott of the stores by the American Family Association. Perhaps the biggest emphasis on music censorship is censoring the music so young children (minors) will not be able to hear to the lewd content. Of course this girl was not the first to kill a sexually abusive father, but two and two have been put together and it is often assumed she did this because of the song. Wal-Mart has a lot of influence in the music industry. A lot of artists believe that Wal-Mart is forcing this Page 3type of music censorship. That is not the case, by censoring music and providing "clean" versions of the music, it is giving the public a choice, either way, the artists will make money. Around the time of the release of this song, a young girl killed her sexually abusive father just as Janie does in the song. It is an issue that deals with the general public hearing uncensored music whether they want to or not. The boycott was so successful that when Floyd Hall was given the CEO position for K-Mart, he pulled the CD's from the shelves (AFA 1). Even with doing all of this, the uncensored music is still out there and polluting our society.
Common topics in this essay:
American Music,
Family Association,
Janie's Gun,
Strauss CD's,
Records TV,
Decency Act,
Marilyn Manson,
Bennett Tucker,
Paul Stevens,
Tucker Wal-Mart's,
music censorship,
parental advisory,
advisory stickers,
parental advisory stickers,
communications decency,
american family,
decency act,
communications decency act,
american family association,
department store,
family association,
advisory stickers cd's,
bennett tucker,
censoring music,
department store chains,
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Acceptance Essays
