Music+Censorship

=Music Censorship=

**Does government have the constitutional right to censor music?**

 * Censorship can be defined as the suppression of speech, etc. that can be considered harmful by a controlling body. As it relates to music, censorship has caused many controversies and millions of pissed off listeners.**


 * Many methods exist of censoring music:**
 * **Blanking**; when the volume is muted for all or part of the word.
 * **Bleeping**; playing a noise, usually a "beep", over all or part of the word.
 * **Resampling**; using a like-sounding portion of vocals and music to override the offending word.
 * **Resinging**; Replacing a word with a more appropriate word.
 * **Backmasking**; taking the offending word and reversing the audio, sometimes the whole audio is reversed (often because it is a home-made job), but more usually only the vocal track is reversed.
 * **Repeating**; repeating the word just said before the explicit word was used.
 * **Skipping**; deleting the word from the song without a time delay.
 * **Echo**; instead of saying a word, it echoes the last word(s) said in the line.
 * **Disc scratching**; in hip hop, scratching on the word, making it sound like another word, or make the word said faster or slower.
 * **RoboVoicing**; making the word totally non-understandable by overpowering a robovoice effect (usually used as a last resort for home-made jobs).
 * **Distorting**; Usually in Hip-Hop, less offensive words such as "shit" or else is distorted. It is usually done by shifting down the pitch

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In this video, the rapper Eminem shows his discontent with the policies of the FCC, who censored his music. However, there are more serious examples of censorship: some songs are deemed so inappropriate that they are completely banned from airing or whose content is completely changed. In the song below, (originally named Purple Pills) the music group had to almost completely rework the content of the song in order for it to be aired.

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Eminem is only one of the many artists struggling in the effort against music censorship, or more specifically, their first amendment right of free speech of expressing their opinion and/or views, however explicit and in whichever format they choose. ("Congress shall make no.. law abridging the freedom of speech")



The first modern example of censorship occured in 1955, where over 15,000 letters were sent to a Chicago radio station for broadcasting blues and other "black music." More recently, in 1990 the rap group N.W.A. recieved a letter from the FBI which expressed the agencies discontent with the song "Fuck the Police."

This issue affects the countless artists and their fans who are prevented from enjoying the music as it was meant to be heard.

Music censorship has sparked a avid debate about the rights of music producers, more specifically concerning their first ammendment right of unregulated free speech.

The image above briefly documents the roots of the movement against censorship.

Another main reason for the censoring of music is to prevent young kids from hearing explicit content. Supporters of censorship claim that censoring of music prevents teens from hearing inappropriate material and themes. However, parents should be the regulating force behind such matters and should have control over what their kids are listening to. Anyways, todays teens can easily access explicit and/or censored material through the internet, so the whole effort to censor music is pointless. Not only does it infringe upon the rights of artists and music producers, but its aims are already unaccomplishable because whoever wants to access such material can easily do so with a click of a button.

Sources: [|www.youtube.com] [|www.nku.edu/~issues/music_censorship/timeline.htm] [] The contents of this page are censored.