Music Censorship – Moments In The History

A lot of people think that Music Censorship is a new thing and has made its appearance in the last 20 years or so. There is another set of people who have very strong view on the subject and who feel that Music Censorship has existed for very long and has even been practiced in all of the 20th century.

The premise for Music Censorship has and will always remain the same. Whatever appears insensitive and hurtful to people’s ears will be banned or eliminated. This form of music censorship, in fact, goes back to 1927. It was in this year that the United States’ Congress passed the Radio Act in a bid to control the content that was being broadcast on the radio. The Act was used to remove songs that sued indecent or profane content any kind of indecency.

Music Censorship Has Even Obliterated Songs

However, it is not merely indecent or obscene content that has been filtered out of the radio. Music censorship has even obliterated songs expressing leftist leanings when these views were considered inappropriate. For instance, The Weavers were a folk band that expressed views that were politically inappropriate for the tome, being leftist. Their recording contract was stopped, with the result that they found they could not make any music anymore, leading to a loss in popularity.

It was in America in the 1950s that music censorship became more and more prominent. It was the time of a whole new way of life and the new music represented that to the fullest. Love, sex and drugs were being openly talked about in the new music that was being made. People were dressing differently; their body language had changed and was becoming more and more explicit.

Apart from the American agencies, the other countries also started enforcing regulations on the music industry. Music censorship became rampant in the UK, with the BBC also beginning to apply censorship. This happened especially when The Beatles began to talk of drugs openly in the songs. The remaining part of the 70s and the 80s continued in pretty much the same way, with the agencies removing any content that they found was damaging for the younger generation of for society at large.

Music Censorship It Can Get Dangerous

Things took a different turn in 1985 when the Parents” Music Resource Center was founded. This agency was and was constituted mainly by mothers whose husbands were in government. They found they did not like the way their children could access sexually explicit lyrics on all the music that was available. They were a strong pressure group and continued to remove lyrics and even whole songs that they found inappropriate and damaging.

While music censorship is not a harmful thing in itself, it can get dangerous if it is used to obliterate songs that express political views that do not comply with the government’s views. Music censorship has the potential to be damaging to society and polity as a whole and can undermine democracy very significantly. Music Censorship