The Nanny State has been insidiously creeping into our nation's radio stations as well. Even the 'rock' and so-called 'alternative' stations are getting affected now. 'Censorshit' is taking over rock radio. All the supposedly radical and more challenging stations seem to have lost their bottle in the last couple of years or so. Now I can understand the full version of Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing In The Name' not being acceptable for daytime airplay, but recently radio stations have become scared to let far less offensive words than the infamous 'F' and 'C' words onto their airwaves. Five years ago I used to have fun on a daily basis listening to Planet Rock all day and seeing how many times I could hear the 'F' (and even very rarely the 'C') word each day - it was usually between three and five times. This had been going on for years with no apparent problem. The thing is - the sort of people who are likely to be offended by such language aren't likely to be listening to a rock station anyway and certainly wouldn't be paying much attention - otherwise this wouldn't have been going on for years with no big drama. Then the rather more radical and challenging Team Rock Radio appeared on the scene bringing a very welcome breath of fresh air. They gave Planet Rock a much needed kick up the arse and their playlist policy changed noticeably (and much for the better) as a result - but that's beside the point. Virtually straight away Team Rock began playing in-house edited versions of many songs that other stations (even the BBC) had been playing unedited for many years. This really winds me up! Team Rock is a station that prides itself on being all about the music we love and supporting the artists. But this editing of songs to my mind shows a huge lack of respect for the music and the artists who make it. Now personally I'm not a fan of needless swearing in music, although I'm all in favour of an artist's right to do so if if they feel they need to. If an 'F-bomb' is dropped into a song for whatever reason then it's because the artist chose to do it - they made a conscious decision to do that and they knew the risks involved. It might get banned, but that's a risk the artist chose to take. By playing an edited version of a song on air a station is not representing the song as the artist intended - they are not showing respect to the music or artist. In fact I feel it's often worse than that - it turns the music into a joke! You can't take many of these edited versions of songs seriously - it detracts from the meaning of the song and it often stops a line from making any sense. All of the artists concerned have plenty of material available for airplay - so if a station has a problem with a particular word in a song - then just play another song by that band instead. Simple huh? The artist knew they risked a song not getting airplay when they included that word, but if you play another of their songs instead they aren't likely to mind are they?
Things seem to have got even more silly with regard to radio censorship and the Nanny State recently. Not only do we rock fans have to put up with the 'F' and 'C' words being removed from the music we love but much tamer words are being removed as well. I lost an enormous amount of respect for Planet Rock recently when I heard them play a 'clean' version of 'Peaches' by The Stranglers. This is a song which even the BBC have deemed acceptable since it's release back in the last century in it's original form, but Planet Rock (who played the original version for years) have just started playing a version with not only the word 'shit' (Oh shit - there goes the charabanc) removed, but even the word 'bummer' removed from the line "I could be stuck here for the whole summer - what a bummer!". This song wasn't even being played in daytime - I heard this tame edited version late at night. At that point I lost a huge amount of respect for Planet Rock. It's not exactly 'punk rock' is it? Inexplicably, Planet Rock still regularly play an American band covering one of Slade's biggest hits which has an 'F-bomb' dropped in several times to replace the word 'rock' - no one seems to have noticed this.... Team Rock are also serial offenders - for as many years as I can remember every radio station I've listened to has played Black Sabbath's classic song 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' in it's original form, but Team Rock have recently taken it upon themselves to edit the phrase "You bastards!". Even the BBC still let that go out unedited. But Team Rock still allowed us to hear the 'bloody' in the song's title. What the fuck is going on? Where will it end? If you have an issue with a certain word in a song then just play another song by that artist instead. If you want to play a Black Sabbath song then there are plenty of other great ones to choose from - same with G'N'R or any other band who might drop the odd 'F-bomb'. Many of these 'radio edits' turn the song into a joke when certain lines no longer make any sense because one word has been made unintelligible - it shows a total lack of respect not only for the music and artist but the listener as well and I find it quite insulting.
No comments:
Post a Comment