Entertainment For Lively Minds
Ridiculous Censorship
Just flicking through the various music channels on Sky last night whilst waiting for Spinal Tap to start on ITV4, and came across the most curious case of self satisfied random censorship I've ever seen.
The time - 21:50 (post watershed)
The video - The quite fantastic Gay Bar by Electric Six
The channel - Kerrang TV
Video attached (in its unadulterated glory below - beware kids!) it's basically a full on homo-erotic paean to Abraham Lincoln, with so many none too subtle innuedo's that would make Kenneth Williams blanche. So, in the midst of faux masturbation, model trains entering tunnels, full on leather man stag and much nudge, nudge, wink, wink, Kerrang see it fit to blank out and pixellate the phrase "war" and "nuclear war".
Really. Honestly. It happened. Even the FPO was mildly bemused. You get used to Alex James's cigarette and Coke can (won't someone PLEASE think of the children!) being pixellated on Beetlebum but this is just random and completely self served designed to protect an unknown range of the populus horrifically offended by this....
Policy on "Is There Something I Should Know" is not known...
Any other random acts of Big Brother censorship - have Smash Hits/MTV now muted Holly Johnson and the squirting sound?
Frankly. Ridiculous.
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Not sure if it's completely true
But I seem to recall hearing/reading that those words were censored/removed by the record-label-powers-that-be because the song was released at around the start of the Iraq invasion in 2003?
Relax
Fantastic record though it is, I must admit I still find Frankie's 'Relax' quite shocking. To pretend, as most did, that a song containing the lines 'relax, don't do it, when you wanna come' was nothing to get worked up about and just old Auntie over-reacting was a bit unfair. Even now, over 20 years later, there hasn't been a comparable major hit with such *ahem* in your face lyrics.
when you wanna come
my favourite part of the banning of Relax focuses upon the gender politics of sexual orgasim. FGTH "come!" was seen as too shocking and distateful for Mike Read et al. However at the same time(ish) Sade was coming all over the place(sorry!) in her sublime "your love is king". Seemingly, no eyebrows were rasied to protect the sensitive listeners of Radio one from her sexual fulfilment. I look to Germaine Greer and Mary Daly for some answers please.
But the Sade case:
"I'm coming up, I'm coming" etc is not as unambiguous as Relax. Another example could be Diana Ross - I'm Coming Out. It's actually not the 'come!' in Relax that I was referring to - it's the highly specific 'relax, don't do it, when you wanna come'. It's not that there's anything intrinsically 'wrong' with it - it's just that it still is quite surprising to hear, even now, bearing in mind it was one of the biggest records of the decade.
I disagree...
Im coming up, im coming
your making me dance inside
there is nothing ambigous about this, it is a description of female orgasim, within the context of the song, the "Love" is physical as much emotional.
the banning of FGTH has more to do with homophobia then the shock of the act of orgasim as described by the word "Come".
Let's agree to disagree
I know, of course, what the meaning behind the Sade song is. But I still maintain that lyrics like 'making me dance inside' are much more subtle (and therefore better, IMO) than Frankie's 'hold back and you'll sh**t your l**d more effectively' instruction manual.
I'm Coming Out
by Diana Ross is unequivocally a gay anthem about leaving the closet. I don't think there's much innuendo there.
Er, except
that Ms Ross isn't gay...
Indeed not,
and I'm sure I read somewhere that Nile R was most amused that Diana had no idea that the song could be interpreted thus...
Minnie Riperton - Inside My Love
One of the least sexually ambiguous record ever?
Totally Off-Topic
But I love the backing, and that voice !
(Sorry folks, back to business now).
Lucille Bogan...
...came first, so to speak.
Verily a minefield!
Apparently some influential American journalist once described 'See My Friends' by the Kinks as an unequivocally gay anthem. (They were 'playing across the river' so it was obvious really. Except that Ray Davis had no such thoughts in mind when he wrote it.
So it is never as cut and dried as you might think.
Frankie. Ridiculous
even.
And all the time, "Walk On The Wild Side" gets played
without anyone in broadcasting apparently having a problem with it.
I think "Wake Up Little Susie" was banned by a few stations in the US due to its (obvious when you think about it) connotations that they'd spent the night, ahem, "together".
And is it true they're threatening to re-touch the Abbey Road cover to remove Paul's ciggy?
And Penny Lane
Presumably it is assumed that 'fish and finger pie' is a scouse delicacy of some sort.
Honey can I introduce you
to my 'Redneck Friend'
All euphamisms.
Jazz.
Rock 'n' Roll.
Boogie / Boogie-Woogie.
All terms from the Deep South for naughties, rudies and all that.
Ban this sick filth, I say.
You say that, but
I was an erstwhile member of a 'folk-rock' combo (that went nowhere beyond the rehearsal room, comme il faut), and a drummer came down to audition.
He emailed the band leader/violinist later that night to say that he couldn't join the band because the sexual nature of the lyrics conflicted with his Christian values.
I think one of the songs in question was Drink Down The Moon/The Cuckoos Nest.
I did think this was somewhat disingenuous or even hypocritical given that he had mentioned that he also played with a rock band - so no sexual content, sexist lyrics or double-entendre there then!
shaun of the dead-itv2
whenever they show 'shaun of the dead' the opening scene when they are in the pub and nick frost's character ask's
'would any of you ***** like s drink'
is changed to
'would any of you cocks like a drink'