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ClearChannel Plays It Safe

mertzman writes: "Rather than wait for the government assaults on civil liberties to reach full steam, ClearChannel, one of the nation's largest radio networks, has decided to do some censorship on their own! According to F***edCompany, ClearChannel has created a list of banned songs with "questionable content" in light of the recent tragedies. Stuff ranging from Drowning Pool's "Bodies" to Nena's anti-war hit "99 Red Balloons" have made their list." ClearChannel owns many radio stations, so this probably affects you. Update: 09/18 18:30 GMT by M : The San Francisco Chronicle has more on this - ClearChannel says it isn't an official mandate, just some sort of internal memo circulating. Update: 09/18 23:18 PM GMT by T : Fuzzy points out that "snopes.com has an explanation of the ClearChannel hoax. ClearChannel has also sent out a press release saying they have released no such list."

7 of 930 comments (clear)

  1. Damn censorship.... by aetherspoon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bah to it all. Why can't people just realize that human adults censor what is inputed in to their brains to begin with? I mean, come on! How does censoring music that has some relation to the NYC bombing help anything at all? Those people died for certain liberties and rights sort to speak- why take away what they died for just to try to soften the impact that they died?!!

    If I died in a terrorist bombing in the United States, the supposed country of freedom, I would be rather offended that this country of freedom that I died in is now restricting it.

    They took away the second amendment, but I didn't complain since I had no guns.
    They took away the fifth amendment, but I didn't complain since I had nothing to fear from the courts.
    They took away the first amendment, and I couldn't complain.

    --
    --- Ãther SPOON!
  2. choice does not = censorship. by bmongar · · Score: 5, Insightful


    Hey, they own those stations, so they have a right to choose what to play. If they think something is in bad taste, the won't play it. That's not censorship that's choice. The government hasn't told them not to play questionable songs, they decided it was in their best interest as a business or maybe in their interest as humans. This is not censorship this is a business esercising it's freedom to choose to do what it wants.

    --
    As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
    1. Re:choice does not = censorship. by Stiletto · · Score: 5, Funny

      What, it's only censorship if the government is doing it?

    2. Re:choice does not = censorship. by nanojath · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I agree completely. Nobody called ClearChannel stations' boring, repetetive, mainstream garbage marathon playlists censorship, even though there are literally millions of songs you would never have a snowballs chance of hearing because they are ethnic, or thoughtful, or somehow unique or striking in any way. Or because they aren't produced by a sufficiently huge media conglomerate to pay off the stations for the privilege of airtime.


      Accusing ClearChannel of censorship is like accusing a colon of being full of shit.

      --

      It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries

  3. Clearchannel: something everyone should know about by vondo · · Score: 5, Informative
    Salon.com (referenced in the editors comments) has done a great job covering Clearchannel and radio payola in general. The full set of articles can be found here.

    If you care about music and still think that songs become popular because lots of people like them, you owe it to yourself to read some of this.

    Back to the subject at hand, when a major corporate conglomerate decides that the country shouldn't be listening to "Bridge over Troubled Water" it is a sad day.

  4. Vendetta against Rage? by Lizard_King · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I noticed in the list: "All Rage Against The Machine songs"

    you've got to be kidding me. This seems like blind censorship to me. I'm doubtful they've listened to all of Rage's songs.

    --
    "My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
  5. Re:Do they even listen to the songs? by Pseudonym · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Banning 99 Luftballons/Red Balloons? These people are banning songs they've never even listened to.

    You've heard the English version of the lyrics, right?

    It's all over and I'm standing pretty
    In this dust that was a city
    If I could find a souvenier
    Just to prove the world was here

    Of course, personally, in this time of warrior rhetoric, I think the song is more apt than ever.

    --
    sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});