[linux-audio-user] Re: POLL: Marketing Free Music - Jamendo and censorship

[Rob]

On Sun March 12 2006 06:40, Cesare Marilungo wrote:
> If you invite me at your home, and I start insulting you and
> your family with racist and sexist words I don't thing you
> would invite me again. 

I don't think we're talking about music with lyrics demeaning the 
listener.  The most common use of censorship I've seen has been 
applied by people who just don't understand the song, and 
therefore don't realize the author of the lyrics was writing a 
character, not his own feelings.

To throw out an example that was supposedly offensive to my own 
personal minority, in the 80's we had Dire Straits:

  That little faggot in the earring and the makeup?
  Yeah, buddy, that's his own hair.
  That little faggot got his own jet airplane.
  That little faggot, he's a millionaire.

You wouldn't believe the shrieking and the crying.  Some radio 
stations bleeped out the word "faggot" and they didn't use it 
when they played the song at Live Aid.  Boy George and others 
threw big public hissies.  To this day, GLAAD (the gay version 
of the ADL) organizes boycotts of radio stations that dare to 
air the song unedited.  But the song was based on a conversation 
the songwriter overheard at a furniture store, and was meant to 
poke fun at people who said things like the above.  

And then you have current mainstream hip-hop, where the artists 
throw around the word "nigga" like it's an indefinite article.  
At the Oscars the other night they had some hip-hop band 
performing (they later won Best Song) and it was like every 
other word got bleeped.  I have no idea whether that French site 
would ban them for using racist speech, but if they did, it'd be 
ironic since the people writing and saying it were black.  (On 
the other hand, the constant use of the words "bitches" and 
"hoes" is sexist, though again they can be spoken by a character 
and not necessarily the author or singer of the song.)  

Racist and sexist lyrics aren't always what they seem to be, and 
I really think that most attempts to draw the line result in 
overzealous squelching of actual artistic content.  I guess it 
comes down to a simple question: are they trying to be purveyors 
of art, or of easily saleable product?

Rob