Music Censorship

After killing you loudly with rhymes, beats, and rhythms, the music industry as a whole has gone through many trials and tribulations. Society has shifted in such a manner that allows and encourages freethinking and abstract arts and with those great things we face the problem of censorship. From an artist's perspective it's their "work," but from another's point of view that same piece of "work" can be garbage to another. Now in the 21st century we face an artistic crossroads. We are left with the question how far can an artist go? In addition, when we do go too far, do we censor? Censors are now disguised as retailers and distributors, special-interest groups, and less influential but passionate religious groups, and government authorities. Ultimately, when all is said, there remains one question and that question is does censorship conflict with the first amendment?

The First Amendment states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." (Beahm, 1993, p. 79) The court, in FCC v. Pacifica, said that although the First Amendment protects indecent speech, the commission could regulate the airwaves with only a few exceptions. In Pacifica, the court ruled in the FCC's favor, allowing it to curb utterances of the famous seven words that cannot be said on the air. The Pacifica case has remained substantially unchanged, despite a few lower court challenges and the Supreme Court's decision in Reno v. ACLU striking down an indecency standard for the Internet but not for on-air broadcasts. The current ban on indecent broadcasts applies strictly to those between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when children are most likely to be listening to the radio or watching television. Many would say that buying a CD or an adult film is much different than having a medium that is easily accessible such as radio, but others would counter that censoring lyrics abridges freedom of speech and that if someone is offended by the music on a station, that they should change the station.

The owner of a Florida record store was convicted of obscenity charges for selling a recording by the rap group 2 Live Crew that had been declared obscene by a Federal judge. "As Nasty as They Wanna Be" had 87 references to oral sex alone and was unquestionably offensive. According to the Constitution, all citizens are granted freedom of speech and freedom to express their own opinions. Why would the members of The 2 Live Crew be excluded from these rights? If the 2 Live Crew's music is indecent, shouldn't Chris Rock's comical tapes be banned also? When Tipper Gore & Hillary Clinton's Parent Music Resource Center got the major record labels like Warner Bros., Elektra, Atlantic, MCA, and Polydor to start record labeling with the ever noticeable Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics stickers, they successfully censored many heavy metal and rap albums from large chain record stores. Still today, we see these "Tipper Stickers" on CD's and cassettes. In my opinion, Luther Campbell and The 2 Live Crew have every right to produce or create any type of music that they choose if this label, created to warn of explicit lyrics, is on the CD. The explicit lyric sticker clearly indicates obscene material on a CD and thus this should allow the consumer to make a decision on if they want to purchase a CD deemed to have obscenities.

In a 1997 poll sponsored by the Virginia-based Freedom Forum and conducted by University of Connecticut professor Kenneth Dautrich, 1,026 American adults were asked their opinions on various freedoms protected by the First Amendment. The results proved that the public likes the idea of the First Amendment more than its reality. When read the text of the First Amendment, 93 percent of respondents said they would ratify it. But when asked about specific applications of expressive freedoms, many Americans showed they simply do not have the stomach for it: 75 percent would not allow people to publicly say things that might be deemed offensive to a racial group. 72 percent oppose the posting of sexually explicitly material on the Internet; 71 percent oppose the broadcast of photos of nude or semi-nude persons; 47 percent think that musicians should not be allowed to sing songs with lyrics that some might find offensive; 78 percent oppose the right of people to burn or deface the American flag as a political statement; 70 percent think that books that show terrorists how to build bombs should be banned from public libraries; and 44 percent say that tobacco ads should be prohibited. So what does this say, perhaps that we like the idea of having free speech, but we do not want to buy into it.

From the insight received from multiple sources about censorship, it is clear that Americans are still having trouble grasping the idea of freedom of speech. The poles done by the Virginia-based Freedom Forum showed that 93% of Americans would ratify the 1st Amendment, but far fewer people seemed as if they were true to the 1st Amendment as poles showed they would condemn certain actions that should be protected in the wording of the 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment states "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech." If no law can be passed