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Essay on Censorship of Music

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Censorship of Music

In today's society, all types of music artists are expressing their views, opinions and feelings in their songs about what they see and what they know. This is on of the great things about this country, the freedom to express yourself. It is not fair, nor is it constitutional that music should be censored in anyway. It is not only rap music trying to be censored it is in all types of music. They are taking away their rights and it isn't fair. As reported in the New York Times. "Wall-Mart CD standards are Changing Pop Music", Wal-Mart and other large department stores sell CD's by your favorite artists which are not what your favorite artists originally created. Some retailers refuse to carry CDs with "Parental …show more content…

"We've got to speak their language" if the message of the record is "Don't call me a bitch" we have got to allow the artist to get the message across. And sometimes it is necessary for the artists to use language that grabs peoples attention. Inner City Broadcasting one of the largest black owned broadcasting firms in the country, announced that its stations will not play music that is profane or advocates violence, particularly against women or homosexuals. They announced they would not air songs with the word's "bitch" and "ho" to refer to women. What we are doing, as responsible broadcasters who are licensed to serve our listeners, is simply exercising our best judgment, said Pierre Sutton, Chairmen of Inner City. (Viles 90)What bothers me is that they censor the music because they are saying these words are portraying bad ideas, but they are just singing about what is all around us and what we see. It is not like saying theses lyrics are anything new. A person or a child is going to hear them regardless of any song with so called profanity in them. The people singing are just telling the truth. I think a child has a better chance of hearing profanity in there own home or school then by hearing it in a song. The recent Gangsta rap hearings on Capitol Hill bore all the elements of 1985's dramatic Parents Music Resource Center debate-heated testimony talk of labeling explicit lyrics and plenty of music biz attention. Led by Illinois Sen.

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