Michael Edenfield 3131 Dubois Ave (410) 661-3798 Calvert Hall College High School 220-82-6677 Censorship In Music Today's society is based on several basic tenets concerning human rights and human dignity. These rights, outlined in the U.S. Constitution, as well as the constitutions of many other 'democratic' countries such as Great Britain, hold that all human beings have rights. These beliefs also state that as such, any human being deserves to choose for himself the course of action he takes in his life. In other words, unless their choice interferes with the rights of others, people should have the freedom to choose any lifestyle, and job, any school, any movie or television show, and any form of music they wish to. Unfortunately, in this free society, there is a great deal of close-mindedness. Many people have come to believe that they know, without a doubt, what is best for others. This philosophy has spawned one of today's most common, and most dangerous, controversies: censorship. Censorship is especially prevalent in popular music. However, most people either don't realize, or don't care, about censorship enough to take any action. The first step to eliminating censorship is, therefore, to make people aware of its presence, and effects, and to spur them on to take action. There are many steps that can have a profound effect on censorship, but first, one must understand the problem. Popular music has been censored almost as long as it has existed. However, to focus on one specific form of pop music, let's examine heavy metal. Heavy metal, an offshoot of rock music from the late sixties and early seventies, is probably, along with its divergent rock/blues offshoot, rap music, the most heavily censored form of music. Three forms of censorship are generally directed against this type of music: record stickering, FCC radio regulations, and outright bans on specific groups. Record stickering is so prevalent today, that most people would not even call it censorship. However, the fact is that stickering records was the industries capitulation to the pressures of groups such as the infamous PMRC, or Parents Music Resource Council, which promote the so-called "regulation of obscenity" in music to "protect decent citizens from the horrors of" music. What it does is to simply influence a person against buying that album. It does not, however, give any indication of why the album is obscene, or how vulgar the images and language are. As an example from personal experience, one of the leading heavy metal bands today is Metallica. Since their second album, Ride The Lightning, was released, until their latest, Metallica, each album has had an obscene language warning sticker on it. However, a quick perusal of Ride The Lightning and its two follow up albums, Master Of Puppets and ...And Justice For All, does not show a mass of vulgarities and obscenities jumbled into songs that promote raping of women and senseless violence. Rather, these three albums contain almost no obscene words at all (the word 'fuck' appears twice in one song on Master, and 'hell' is used infrequently.) What is contained is a compilation of social messages meant to give the listener pause, presented in a way that even a "heavy metal burnout" could understand it. Basically, stickering uniformly groups all bands under the categroy of obscene, without even at the true content of the album. To many young people especially, this censorship turns their parents away from their choice of music, and prevents them from having that choice. When stickering does not work, parent groups turned to the FCC for help. By lobbying the federal government, they have essentially banned many forms of music from the airwaves. Here in Baltimore, we are fortunate to have not one, but three stations that will play heavy metal, and at least two that play rap formats. However, even these stations are restricted to what they can play. For example, a popular metal station from Annapolis was restricted, according to a programming manager I spoke to on the phone, to only playing music considered 'vulgar', by a random sample of parents on a committee, after 8:00 PM. The reason was that it was received in several areas in southern Maryland, like St.Mary's county, where enough people had heard their format to complain successfully to the state government. Even worse is when enough people's popular opinion is turned against a music form to censor it, without even seeming to be censorship. This effect can be seen in the determining of playlists for local stations. One station I spoke to, at length, described the method by which they determine playlists. It involves a random sample of listeners deciding what they like and dislike, among other things. However, this random sample is rather small. Just as the larger a sample the closer to the true population it becomes, the smaller the sample the less representative it becomes. Thus a small group of people could conceivably determine exactly what songs we do and do not hear. This, despite it rather democratic undertones, is censorship. A final, much more drastic, measure is to take legal action against specific groups or albums. A startling example of this is the Two Live Crew incident in Orange County. The group and its album was banned by a judge who ruled it obscene. As ridiculous as it sounds, many store owners were arrested for merely carrying old copies of the album, and the ban was arrested and kept off stage until a higher court judge finally threw out the ban. Also, a popular occurrence in past years has been to sue bands for actions beyond their control. Cases in point: Ozzy Osbourne's highly anti-suicidal song "Suicide Solution" was attacked for causing one young man's death by suicide. Judas Priest's Stained Class album was attacked, and the band sued, for two more suicides. Although the band was acquitted, the very fact that it made it to trial should startle anyone who values their free choice. All of these methods of censorship are slowly restricting our choice of music. But, it can be fought. In a book entitled 50 Ways to Fight Censorship, David Marsh shows how to fight the censors, and win. His suggestions include writing congressmen, listening to controversial at least once, and making a personal judgement, taking one's own legal action, and bringing the issue out via newspaper and (radio) talk shows. Also, try to find out how your local stores feel about censoring what they can sell, and learn about radio stations decisions on this issue. Most of all, the key to fighting censorship is getting involved. (Interestingly enough, there already has been a positive reaction in the censorship movement. Tipper Gore, Vice Presidential wife and head and founder of the PMRC, attempted to hide or tone down her censorship image during the campaign, especially by using Fleetwood Mac to show her openness to freedom in music.) Everyone's opinion counts, and if everyone made an effort to insure my freedom to choose, they will only receive more freedom of their own in return. Michael Edenfield 3131 Dubois Ave (410) 661-3798 Calvert Hall College High School 220-82-6677 Censorship In Music Today's society is based on several basic tenets concerning human rights and human dignity. These rights, outlined in the U.S. Constitution, as well as the constitutions of many other 'democratic' countries such as Great Britain, hold that all human beings have rights. These beliefs also state that as such, any human being deserves to choose for himself the course of action he takes in his life. In other words, unless their choice interferes with the rights of others, people should have the freedom to choose any lifestyle, and job, any school, any movie or television show, and any form of music they wish to. Unfortunately, in this free society, there is a great deal of close-mindedness. Many people have come to believe that they know, without a doubt, what is best for others. This philosophy has spawned one of today's most common, and most dangerous, controversies: censorship. Censorship is especially prevalent in popular music. However, most people either don't realize, or don't care, about censorship enough to take any action. The first step to eliminating censorship is, therefore, to make people aware of its presence, and effects, and to spur them on to take action. There are many steps that can have a profound effect on censorship, but first, one must understand the problem. Popular music has been censored almost as long as it has existed. However, to focus on one specific form of pop music, lets examine heavy metal. Heavy metal, an offshoot of rock music from the late sixties and early seventies, is probably, along with its divergent rock/blues offshoot, rap music, the most heavily censored form of music. Three forms of censorship are generally directed against this type of music: record stickering, FCC radio regulations, and outright bans on specific groups. Record stickering is so prevalent today, that most people would not even call it censorship. However, the fact is that stickering records was the industries capitulation to the pressures of groups such as the infamous PMRC, or Parents Music Resource Council, which promote the so-called "regulation of obscenity" in music to "protect decent citizens from the horrors of" music. What it does is to simply influence a person against buying that album. It does not, however, give any indication of why the album is obscene, or how vulgar the images and language are. As an example from personal experience, one of the leading heavy metal bands today is Metallica. Since their second album, Ride The Lightning, was released, until their latest, Metallica, each album has had an obscene language warning sticker on it. However, a quick perusal of Ride The Lightning and its two follow up albums, Master Of Puppets and ...And Justice For All, does not show a mass of vulgarities and obscenities jumbled into songs that promote raping of women and senseless violence. Rather, these three albums contain almost no obscene words at all (the word 'fuck' appears twice in one song on Master, and 'hell' is used infrequently.) What is contained is a compilation of social messages meant to give the listener pause, presented in a way that even a "heavy metal burnout" could understand it. Basically, stickering uniformly groups all bands under the categroy of obscene, without even at the true content of the album. To many young people especially, this censorship turns their parents away from their choice of music, and prevents them from having that choice. When stickering does not work, parent groups turned to the FCC for help. By lobbying the federal government, they have essentially banned many forms of music from the airwaves. Here in Baltimore, we are fortunate to have not one, but three stations that will play heavy metal, and at least two that play rap formats. However, even these stations are restricted to what they can play. For example, a popular metal station from Annapolis was restricted, according to a programming manager I spoke to on the phone, to only playing music considered 'vulgar', by a random sample of parents on a committee, after 8:00 PM. The reason was that it was received in several areas in southern Maryland, like St.Mary's county, where enough people had heard their format to complain successfully to the state government. Even worse is when enough people's popular opinion is turned against a music form to censor it, without even seeming to be censorship. This effect can be seen in the determining of playlists for local stations. One station I spoke to, at length, described the method by which they determine playlists. It involves a random sample of listeners deciding what they like and dislike, among other things. However, this random sample is rather small. Just as the larger a sample the closer to the true population it becomes, the smaller the sample the less representative it becomes. Thus a small group of people could conceivably determine exactly what songs we do and do not hear. This, despite it rather democratic undertones, is censorship. A final, much more drastic, measure is to take legal action against specific groups or albums. A startling example of this is the Two Live Crew incident in Orange County. The group and its album was banned by a judge who ruled it obscene. As ridiculous as it sounds, many store owners were arrested for merely carrying old copies of the album, and the ban was arrested and kept off stage until a higher court judge finally threw out the ban. Also, a popular occurrence in past years has been to sue bands for actions beyond their control. Cases in point: Ozzy Osbourne's highly anti-suicidal song "Suicide Solution" was attacked for causing one young man's death by suicide. Judas Priest's Stained Class album was attacked, and the band sued, for two more suicides. Although the band was acquitted, the very fact that it made it to trial should startle anyone who values their free choice. All of these methods of censorship are slowly restricting our choice of music. But, it can be fought. In a book entitled 50 Ways to Fight Censorship, David Marsh shows how to fight the censors, and win. His suggestions include writing congressmen, listening to controversial at least once, and making a personal judgement, taking one's own legal action, and bringing the issue out via newspaper and (radio) talk shows. Also, try to find out how your local stores feel about censoring what they can sell, and learn about radio stations decisions on this issue. Most of all, the key to fighting censorship is getting involved. (Interestingly enough, there already has been a positive reaction in the censorship movement. Tipper Gore, Vice Presidential wife and head and founder of the PMRC, attempted to hide or tone down her censorship image during the campaign, especially by using Fleetwood Mac to show her openness to freedom in music.) Everyone's opinion counts, and if everyone made an effort to insure my freedom to choose, they will only receive more freedom of their own in return. Michael Edenfield 3131 Dubois Ave (410) 661-3798 Calvert Hall College High School 220-82-6677 Censorship In Music Today's society is based on several basic tenets concerning human rights and human dignity. These rights, outlined in the U.S. Constitution, as well as the constitutions of many other 'democratic' countries such as Great Britain, hold that all human beings have rights. These beliefs also state that as such, any human being deserves to choose for himself the course of action he takes in his life. In other words, unless their choice interferes with the rights of others, people should have the freedom to choose any lifestyle, and job, any school, any movie or television show, and any form of music they wish to. Unfortunately, in this free society, there is a great deal of close-mindedness. Many people have come to believe that they know, without a doubt, what is best for others. This philosophy has spawned one of today's most common, and most dangerous, controversies: censorship. Censorship is especially prevalent in popular music. However, most people either don't realize, or don't care, about censorship enough to take any action. The first step to eliminating censorship is, therefore, to make people aware of its presence, and effects, and to spur them on to take action. There are many steps that can have a profound effect on censorship, but first, one must understand the problem. Popular music has been censored almost as long as it has existed. However, to focus on one specific form of pop music, lets examine heavy metal. Heavy metal, an offshoot of rock music from the late sixties and early seventies, is probably, along with its divergent rock/blues offshoot, rap music, the most heavily censored form of music. Three forms of censorship are generally directed against this type of music: record stickering, FCC radio regulations, and outright bans on specific groups. Record stickering is so prevalent today, that most people would not even call it censorship. However, the fact is that stickering records was the industries capitulation to the pressures of groups such as the infamous PMRC, or Parents Music Resource Council, which promote the so-called "regulation of obscenity" in music to "protect decent citizens from the horrors of" music. What it does is to simply influence a person against buying that album. It does not, however, give any indication of why the album is obscene, or how vulgar the images and language are. As an example from personal experience, one of the leading heavy metal bands today is Metallica. Since their second album, Ride The Lightning, was released, until their latest, Metallica, each album has had an obscene language warning sticker on it. However, a quick perusal of Ride The Lightning and its two follow up albums, Master Of Puppets and ...And Justice For All, does not show a mass of vulgarities and obscenities jumbled into songs that promote raping of women and senseless violence. Rather, these three albums contain almost no obscene words at all (the word 'fuck' appears twice in one song on Master, and 'hell' is used infrequently.) What is contained is a compilation of social messages meant to give the listener pause, presented in a way that even a "heavy metal burnout" could understand it. Basically, stickering uniformly groups all bands under the categroy of obscene, without even at the true content of the album. To many young people especially, this censorship turns their parents away from their choice of music, and prevents them from having that choice. When stickering does not work, parent groups turned to the FCC for help. By lobbying the federal government, they have essentially banned many forms of music from the airwaves. Here in Baltimore, we are fortunate to have not one, but three stations that will play heavy metal, and at least two that play rap formats. However, even these stations are restricted to what they can play. For example, a popular metal station from Annapolis was restricted, according to a programming manager I spoke to on the phone, to only playing music considered 'vulgar', by a random sample of parents on a committee, after 8:00 PM. The reason was that it was received in several areas in southern Maryland, like St.Mary's county, where enough people had heard their format to complain successfully to the state government. Even worse is when enough people's popular opinion is turned against a music form to censor it, without even seeming to be censorship. This effect can be seen in the determining of playlists for local stations. One station I spoke to, at length, described the method by which they determine playlists. It involves a random sample of listeners deciding what they like and dislike, among other things. However, this random sample is rather small. Just as the larger a sample the closer to the true population it becomes, the smaller the sample the less representative it becomes. Thus a small group of people could conceivably determine exactly what songs we do and do not hear. This, despite it rather democratic undertones, is censorship. A final, much more drastic, measure is to take legal action against specific groups or albums. A startling example of this is the Two Live Crew incident in Orange County. The group and its album was banned by a judge who ruled it obscene. As ridiculous as it sounds, many store owners were arrested for merely carrying old copies of the album, and the ban was arrested and kept off stage until a higher court judge finally threw out the ban. Also, a popular occurrence in past years has been to sue bands for actions beyond their control. Cases in point: Ozzy Osbourne's highly anti-suicidal song "Suicide Solution" was attacked for causing one young man's death by suicide. Judas Priest's Stained Class album was attacked, and the band sued, for two more suicides. Although the band was acquitted, the very fact that it made it to trial should startle anyone who values their free choice. All of these methods of censorship are slowly restricting our choice of music. But, it can be fought. In a book entitled 50 Ways to Fight Censorship, David Marsh shows how to fight the censors, and win. His suggestions include writing congressmen, listening to controversial at least once, and making a personal judgement, taking one's own legal action, and bringing the issue out via newspaper and (radio) talk shows. Also, try to find out how your local stores feel about censoring what they can sell, and learn about radio stations decisions on this issue. Most of all, the key to fighting censorship is getting involved. (Interestingly enough, there already has been a positive reaction in the censorship movement. Tipper Gore, Vice Presidential wife and head and founder of the PMRC, attempted to hide or tone down her censorship image during the campaign, especially by using Fleetwood Mac to show her openness to freedom in music.) Everyone's opinion counts, and if everyone made an effort to insure my freedom to choose, they will only receive more freedom of their own in return.